COTTAGES RESTORED FOR RURAL COTTAGE HOLIDAYS
Rural Cottage Holidays is a company set up initially by the Northern Ireland Tourist Board to encourage sustainable tourism through the restoration of some of the numerous derelict cottages around the Ulster countryside. Very often they are owned by farmers who have no interest in selling the properties or in using them themselves, but with the help of various grants RCH was able to involve a number of farmers in becoming partners in the management of holiday cottages. Hearth was architects for the first phase of cottages, in the Glens of Antrim, and also in preparing a design guide for other projects.

Although the cottages were not listed, Hearth was delighted to have the opportunity of working on the generally little-altered traditional buildings, almost all of which would have remained derelict or possibly have been demolished if the scheme had not been set up.

The contract in 1995-96 (main contractor McNally Contractors Ltd) included

Bellair, a two-storey whitewashed farmhouse with attached byre and hayloft accessed from an external stone stair; Tully, a basalt-built house with staircase leading directly from the kitchen;

Rectory Cottage which had been a pair of tiny cottages stepping up a hillside, one of them operating a tiny local shop; a cottage at the Gobbins on Islandmagee, with a clatter of outbuildings strung along a plateau on the cliff with a stunning view across to Scotland; and Glenann Cottage set on the slopes of a mountain glen above Glenarm. None of the houses was listed, but they were treated as if they were, repairs being made in preference to replacement, and many fascinating features were uncovered and retained.

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