Ballealy Cottage, 70 Staffordstown Road, Randalstown, Antrim, Co Antrim, BT41 3LD

A 1½ storey stone-built house standing in a rural location at the end of a long narrow lane off the main road, positioned on the edge of a large country house estate. The building is set in its own grassed area bordered by trees.

The main house comprises a principal block with tall octagonal chimneys and single storey returns that enclose a small open yard at the rear. The main entrance faces east.

The entrance front is composed of a main block to the left, consisting of a half-hipped gable containing one window to each floor, with an entrance bay set back to the right, and a lower wing set back further to the right containing one window. The walls are of squared random rubble with lime mortar pointing and a projecting sandstone plinth. The roof is of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with cusped tracery to decorative timber barge boards terminating in large timber scrolls, and clay ridge tiles. Cast iron gutters and downpipes are fitted throughout.

Windows are rectangular timber side-hung casements with top lights to ground floor windows, set in chamfered reveals with flat arches to the heads and projecting stone cills. The three-light ground floor window to the main block is surmounted by a small slate roofed canopy with timber panelled soffit, carried on a pair of shaped stone corbels. The main entrance doorway contains a rectangular timber 10-panel door in a moulded timber frame recessed in chamfered surrounds similar to those of the windows, and is surmounted by a small slate canopy matching that above the adjacent ground floor window. A stone doorstep is flanked on each side by projecting stone blocks mounted with iron boot-scrapers. Above the entrance in the wall is a projecting carved circular stone resembling the point of a cannon. The single storey wing to the right-hand side contains a two-light casement window.

The south elevation comprises the 1½ storey main block to the right with a lower single storey rear return extending to the left and set back slightly. The main block contains a half-hipped central breakfront with a three-light window to the ground floor and a two-light window in a dormer above. The dormer has decorative timber barge boards matching those to the main roof. The ground floor window is surmounted by a small slate roofed canopy as described above. Cast iron gutters and downpipes are fitted. The walling is as that to the main block. The single storey rear return to the left has a slated roof and cast iron rainwater goods. Its walls are of similar construction to the main block except with no projecting plinth. It contains three two-light casement windows without top lights, in similar surrounds to the windows described above, with projecting sandstone cills.

The rear elevation comprises the rear gable of the main block, which is blank and of similar walling, with a half-hipped roof and decorative barge boards. The gable is surmounted by a chimney stack of squared basalt in regular courses carrying a pair of tall octagonal pots in moulded stonework. Projecting from the gable is the single storey return which extends across the rear elevation and back along the north elevation to enclose a small open rear yard. The rear face of the return has a hipped roof slated as described above and contains a small smooth rendered chimney without pots. The wall contains two rectangular timber sheeted doorways in moulded timber frames. The right-hand doorway is set in a flat arch with plain reveals and with projecting stone base blocks. The left-hand doorway is similar but with a rough timber lintel to the head. A cast iron gutter is fitted. The rear wall of the gabled wing to the north of the main block has a tall stone chimney of similar stonework to that of the main block, surmounted by a pair of octagonal pots but shorter than those to the main gable.

The north elevation comprises the gabled north wing to the left, projecting from the gable of the main block, with a lower single storey rear return to the right. The main block gable is blank with decorative barge boards to the half-hip. The north wing gable is of similar walling to the entrance elevation including plinth and contains a large three-light window to the ground floor and a two-light window to the first floor. The roof is plain gabled with decorative timber barge boards as described. The rear return to the right is of similar walling to the wing except with no plinth. Its roof is slated as described above. Cast iron rainwater goods are fitted and the wall contains three windows similar to those of the south elevation return.

To the rear of the house is a rectangular open yard containing a single storey outbuilding along the west side. The yard is approached through a gateway containing a pair of square basalt rubble piers with rhyolite caps but no gates, flanked on each side by low boundary walls of basalt rubble which return along the north and south sides to abut the outbuilding. The outbuilding is of squared random rubble with a slated gabled roof and contains a large rectangular garage opening without a door, three rectangular timber sheeted half-doors, and three small rectangular four-pane replacement fixed lights or casements with projecting sandstone cills.

Standing to the north of the house is a derelict venison store, a rectangular single storey stone building of basalt rubble with some sandstone quoins, now roofless. The entrance front faces south and contains a rectangular doorway now blocked up with rough timber lintels. The west wall contains a rectangular window opening now blocked with concrete blockwork and a concrete lintel. The south elevation is similar to the west. The east elevation is blank. The walls are covered with creeper. It was described in the first survey in 1971 as having a pyramidal slated roof at the rear.