Ardmore, 109 Carrickfergus Road, Larne, Co Antrim, BT40 3JX

Ardmore is a fine house of mid-19th century date, now Grade B1, which unfortunately has suffered some loss of quality through replacement of fabric.

The building is a two-storey structure with a hipped roof and a long return extending to one side. The main entrance front faces east and is symmetrically planned across three bays, with a later single-storey timber porch added centrally. The walls are smooth rendered, lined and blocked with quoins at the extremities, all renewed around 1987 over rubble with coarse brick dressings. Stone cills are present throughout. The roof is covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses. Two rendered chimneys are grouped in the centre with T-shaped chimney pots.

The first floor contains three windows of timber sliding sash type, vertically hung with 3 over 6 glazing and without horns. Ground floor windows are similar but with 1 over 1 glazing, positioned one to each side of the central porch. The main entrance is recessed within an elliptically arched opening with sidelights containing later translucent glazing. Above is a radial decorative fanlight with looped glazing bars to the margin, which is original. The entrance door comprises panelled folding two leaves of varnished pine. The rustications of the arched opening are modelled in stipple plaster and painted white. The porch structure is timber-built on a low rendered wall, with doors at either end and a seven-light window across the front with segmental-headed transom lights, surmounted by an entablature with flat roof. The north door to the porch is original, a tall two-leaf door with segmental-headed glazing above panels. The south door is a modern replacement, rectangular panelled with glazed panels and two-paned fanlight above. Cast iron guttering and downpipe are fitted.

The south facade of the main block matches the front elevation, with one window on each floor, both styled as the ground floor of the entrance front. Extending to the left is a two-storey return, finished in dry dashed limestone chippings above a smooth rendered base, with a smooth rendered platband at first floor level. This finish is all replacement dating to around 1987. The return contains four windows to the first floor above a door and three windows below, all in smooth cement reveals with timber sliding sash vertically hung at 1 over 1 with horns, all replaced around 1987. The door to the return matches the south porch door but without fanlight. A PVC downpipe is fitted. Two rendered chimneys similar to those on the front are present. A hipped two-storey wing of harled rubble abuts the return. This wing has one window in its east wall, a timber sliding sash vertically hung at 2 over 1 with horns, and two vent slits dressed in red brick with slate cill. A red brick chimney with traces of harling is visible in the end wall.

The west facade of the main house is partially obscured by an apparently later rectangular projection containing a bathroom, rendered, with one first floor window comprising a timber casement with central mullion below a rectangular top light. At ground floor level is a small four-paned window and a ledged door with damaged lintel. Cast iron gutter and downpipes are fitted. The north facade of the main block matches the south. The north facade of the return is four windows wide. The western section comprises a lower outshot, probably a later addition, with roof sweeping down from the original eaves line. Two first floor windows are timber sliding sash vertically hung at 3 over 6 without horns, followed by windows at 6 over 2 (a replacement) and 6 over 6 to the ground floor of the original return. The outshot contains two first floor fixed-light windows with six panes above two sliding sash windows at 6 over 6 with horns. A back yard is enclosed by the two-storey facade of a rear wing outbuilding and single-storey stone sheds and animal pen on other sides. The west facade of the two-storey rear wing outbuilding is harled but the surrounds to openings are in poor condition.

The house is set back from the main road in a rural location, standing in a pleasant well-kept garden with various outbuildings adjacent. Detached rubble stone outbuildings to the west, a vacant Edwardian roughcast house to the south, and a two-storey rubble outbuilding to the south-east are of no special interest. The entrance gateway on the main road comprises a pair of decorative Victorian cast iron gates set between angled square piers with chamfered corners and weathered capstones, all smooth rendered and painted. Curving screen walls of harled rubble and a boundary wall to the south of basalt rubble form the boundary treatment.

The main house block first appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1857, as does the rear wing of outbuildings and detached outbuildings to the rear and side. However, the return appears to incorporate a building which features on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832. The return was extended to the north in 1949. The listing encompasses the house, gates and piers.