8-10 Main Street

Glenoe is a tiny village on the plateau above Larne and Carrickfergus, and was much frequented by 19th and early 20th century travellers seeking quaint views.

A lady visiting Glenoe waterfall (now owned by the National Trust) in 1845 wrote that she ‘scrambled down [a] steep dirty place holding on by roots and trees, and fern; crossed the stream on stepping stones and stood in the centre of a circle, the sides of which are quite steep and black, and wet; at one side the water comes dashing and splashing down and at the opposite end there is a fissure where it runs off.  On the sides are mountain-ash trees… So many that no sunbeam can enter here.’  There are many picture-postcard views from the turn of the century showing the whitewashed and thatched cottages of the village, but in recent years most have been modernised.

The best remaining terrace, numbered 7-10, steps picturesquely up the steep hillside towards what was formerly the site of a stone corn mill.  No.10 had been a pub at one time, with a long narrow room on the ground floor apparently containing the public room, and the door below it leading to an alley in which the drink was stored.  No.9 came over that store at first floor level, and had no back door despite the fact that its occupants had to use an outside toilet in the back garden – this meant a trek round the front and along the gable of no.10!  By the 1980s the terrace was mostly vacant, deteriorating and vandalised, though still retaining its old windows and doors.

Hearth negotiated the purchase of the vacant houses (no.7 remains privately rented), and has converted the three houses into two, retaining the front elevation as it was but adding a new return at the back of no.10 and linking nos.8 and 9 with internal stairs to accommodate the steep changes in level.  The party wall between nos.8 and 9 was thickened, with the exposed gable between them being partly rebuilt and the stone corbelling at the front of the gable altered to suit.  The original colour scheme of green woodwork and whitewashed walls has been retained.