8-12 Clady Road, Portglenone, Ballymena, BT44 8JX

8-12 Clady Road, Portglenone

A terrace of three two-storey former houses built around 1850 by an unknown architect, located along the south side of Clady Road in the settlement of Glenone, immediately west of Bann Bridge. The building is rectangular in plan with ancillary farm buildings to the rear.

The terrace is constructed of red brick with pebbledash and painted render walling. It has a pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles, cast-iron gutters on plain eaves, and five rendered red brick chimneystacks with cornice detailing to the gable and party walls.

The north-facing principal elevation is asymmetrical, comprising three properties. The end-of-terrace houses (Houses 1 and 3) each have three bays, while the central property (House 2) has four bays. Window openings throughout are square-headed with plain reveals and painted rendered surrounds with painted projecting masonry cills. The western ground-floor window to House 1 is camber-headed. House 1 has a square-headed entrance opening with plain reveals and painted rendered surround lined to appear as voussoirs. House 2 has a square-headed door opening with plain reveals within a decorative painted rendered surround containing a four-panelled timber door under a plain transom with flanking sidelights. House 3's door matches that of House 1. All windows are timber-framed and currently boarded up. The east elevation mirrors the front decoration with two string courses and a roundel demarcated in painted render to the centre of the gable end.

Rear extensions are visible: House 3 is single-storey with a mono-pitched corrugated iron roof and cast-iron rainwater goods; House 2 is two-storey with a felted flat roof and uPVC rainwater goods. The rear (south) elevation is mostly obscured by boundary walls. The west elevation matches the east elevation with no extension of walling to the rear.

The terrace fronts directly onto the street with residential properties opposite and Bann Bridge immediately to the west. The yard to the west and rear contains various ancillary farming buildings of differing ages, roof pitches and materials. The boundary wall to the west is roughcast render with painted render plinth and coping; the wall to the east is rubble masonry with gate piers.

Ordnance Survey records show that the First Edition map (1831) depicts four detached structures on this site, which were demolished to allow construction of the terrace in the mid-nineteenth century. The Second Edition Ordnance Survey map (1849-53) shows the T-plan terrace for the first time. Griffith's Valuation records indicate that one property was owned by Robert Murdock and another by Sarah McGrannell and Margaret McFadden, though it is unclear whether the terrace originally comprised only two dwellings. By the Third Edition Ordnance Survey map (1905), the terrace clearly reflected its current plan form, with the eastern end extending further to the rear than the other two houses. The outbuildings to the rear appear to have been added piecemeal over subsequent decades.

The terrace is recorded in the heritage register for its local interest, with its historic gable marking the start of buildings along Clady Road on the western side of Bann Bridge. The scale and style are in keeping with the historic townscape on the opposite side of the bridge in Portglenone. However, insufficient original historic fabric is evident for the building to be considered of special interest; better and more intact examples of this common mid-nineteenth-century Irish building type exist and are protected by listing.