144 Ballyrobin Road, Aldergrove, Crumlin, Co Antrim, BT29 4EG

144 Ballyrobin Road, Aldergrove, Crumlin

This is a two-storey farmhouse of early 19th-century date, probably built between 1800 and 1819, originally designed in the vernacular tradition with a characteristic hearth-lobby ground floor layout. The layout is marked by a 'jamb wall' containing a small 'spy' window positioned between the main entrance and central fireplace. The house first appeared on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832–3, when it stood in a rural setting on rising ground above the main road, approached by a lane from the east and surrounded by detached outbuildings on three sides. Later approaches, shown on maps from 1920 onwards, came from a lane leading north from the main road over the Dun River, with most of the original outbuildings removed. A subsequent new road to the airport, laid out between the river and house, has brought the building much closer to the main road, accessible now by a short driveway.

The building comprises a main four-bay gabled block with a small hipped-roofed entrance porch facing north, and a gabled two-storey rear return. A single-storey lean-to outbuilding extends to the west gable, flush with the main façade, and a single-storey pitched-roofed block projects from the east gable, set back from the front wall. The north elevation is asymmetrical. The main block is topped with Bangor blue slates in regular courses and has three red brick chimneys with projecting brick cornices—one on each gable and one in line with the right-hand side of the porch. Walls are smooth cement-rendered but not flush. Large boulders or corner stones project at the base at the left-hand extremity of the main façade and at the original right-hand extremity, and also to the right of the entrance porch. Window openings are rectangular. The porch comprises two short projecting nib walls of roughly squared basalt rubble, partly pointed in cement, with a concrete head over the front entrance opening and a hipped roof slated to match the main block, with dark grey and brown ridge tiles.

The single-storey wing to the left has rendered walls with a large projecting boulder at the corners, a roof slated to match the main block, and a red brick chimney on the gable. The east gable of the wing is blank and rendered, with a single pitch—originally it was double pitched with a rectangular window and no chimney. The rear wall of the wing is of rubble stonework at the base with modern concrete blockwork above, intended to be enclosed by a modern conservatory with concrete blockwork plinth walls.

The rear elevation of the main block comprises basalt rubble and fieldstone walling to the right-hand side of the rear return, partly harled, with a rectangular doorway newly created from an original window. To the left-hand side of the rear return is modern concrete blockwork with raised patches of cement render, containing two windows to the first floor and one to the ground floor, with a large rectangular opening to its left, newly enlarged from an original smaller opening with a window. A lean-to outbuilding extending to the left of the main rear wall is also of modern concrete blockwork with raised patches of cement render. The main block's rear roof was originally natural slate but now has synthetic slates in regular courses. The rear return roof has synthetic slates in regular courses and now projects straight from the main roof at a lower ridge height; originally it had a half-hip where it abutted the main block. The gable of the rear return is of basalt rubble and fieldstones, roughly cement-rendered to the ground floor, with large projecting boulders at each corner base and no chimney at the apex. It contains one doorway to the left-hand side at ground floor and one window to the first floor at the right-hand side. The east side of the rear return is of basalt rubble and fieldstones, partly whitened and partly harled, with a rectangular doorway at the right-hand corner at ground floor level with a concrete lintel, and one former window opening in the ground floor to the left of the door, now newly closed with concrete blockwork. The west side of the rear return has been cement-rendered, keyed for another finishing coat, with one window opening at ground floor level. The west gable of the main block is smooth-rendered but spalled at the top right-hand corner and at the base of the red brick chimney, revealing concrete blockwork.

A full-width projecting lean-to outbuilding extends to the ground floor, originally roofed with natural slates but now with synthetic slates, with walls rendered to match the main entrance front and a large boulder near the base at the right-hand corner.

While the house retains the original pattern of openings to the entrance front and the essence of its jamb wall layout, it has lost a number of original features and undergone inappropriate alterations that have fundamentally changed its appearance. The original setting has been spoiled by the new airport road and resulting changes to approach and surroundings. These changes mean that the house can no longer be viewed as an authentic example of a vernacular building and no longer represents the vernacular tradition in its totality.

The house became vacant and approached dereliction by the early 1990s. It was described in the first survey in 1972 as "a two-storey, three-bay harled and whitened house with slated roof and three brick chimneys," with one Georgian-paned window and two with Georgian frames retaining their lower sashes, the remainder with horizontal division. The entrance was contained in a hipped-roofed porch with patterned fanlight. A lean-to extension existed at the west end and a corrugated asbestos gable annex at the east, with all windows unrecessed. As of June 2000, the house was a windowless and roofless shell in the process of being refurbished.

The property stands on rising ground above the main road in a rural area, approached by a driveway extending to hard standing in front and an extensive hard standing to the rear. A grassy bank slopes up to the front hardstanding from the main roadway. Agricultural lands border the sides and rear, with mature trees along the western boundary.