Exterior

You are standing in the front gardens of Sentry Hill Historic House.

Sentry Hill is a 19th century farmhouse in the County Antrim parish of Carnmoney, an area historically settled by Scottish emigrants and with a distinctively Ulster-Scots feel.  

The house itself, known as ‘The History House’ was built in 1835 as a family home for Andrew McKinney – descended from the McKenzies (later McKinneys) and Campbells of Scotland; and it replaced an earlier, thatched farmhouse.

Andrew’s Scottish background is like a script from ‘Outlander’ with his Highland ancestor, James, fleeing to Ireland in 1716 after taking part in the Jacobite Rising the previous year.  He brought a sword, a cooking pot and his fiancée, Helen Campbell with him – her Royalist family were opposed to her relationship with a ‘rebel’; but the two were married in Carnmoney Presbyterian Church in 1717.  

The History House saw successive generations of the McKinney family living here and making their mark – an Ulster-Scots family in belief, social activity, working life and values.