Mill House, 10 Ballylagan Road, Straid, Co.Antrim, BT39 9NF

Mill House, 10 Ballylagan Road, Straid, Co. Antrim

A detached four-bay two-storey vernacular farmhouse built around 1840 and renovated around 1976. The house is located to the west of Ballylagan Road in the townland of Straid, set within a rural farm setting with farmyard and outbuildings to the west and south, a farm shop to the north, and accessed by a lane from Ballylagan Road.

The building is constructed on a longhouse plan and retains many original features relating to the original layout. It is rectangular on plan with a series of single and two-storey extensions to the rear, facing onto a traditional enclosed farmyard. The roof is pitched natural slate with blue and black clay ridge tiles, plainly detailed timber painted bargeboards supported on exposed rafter ends. There are three smooth rendered chimneystacks with clay pots, those on the gables featuring a moulded corbel course. The walls are ruled-and-lined rendered, with painted roughcast render to the rear. All rainwater goods are uPVC.

The principal elevation faces east and contains an off-centre entrance to the right with a single window to its right and three windows to the left. At first floor there are five windows. The entrance contains a replacement timber sheeted door with sidelights and transom light, accessed by a terracotta tiled path. The left gable has a single window at first floor. The right gable is abutted by a single-storey extension with pitched roof. The rear elevation is abutted by a central two-storey return and a single-storey pitched-roof outbuilding to the right. The remainder of the rear elevation at ground floor is abutted by a single-storey flat roof extension. A two-storey return on the west gable has a single casement window at each floor. Both cheeks are abutted by flat-roof extensions, with the left cheek having two exposed windows and the right cheek blank. A single-storey gable extension has windows to each face. The building is abutted at the east by a modern glasshouse.

Windows are timber sliding sashes with 1/1 configuration and painted masonry cills. Doors are painted timber sheeted doors.

The external characteristics of the house remain largely intact, though the building has been compromised by inappropriate extensions to the rear. While of local interest, it is not among the best examples of the type.

Historical records show the building was first mapped on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1857, captioned as 'Strand Corn Mill', comprising a large L-shaped building with a smaller rectangular building within the courtyard space. The 1902 map records some additions to the latter building. Griffith's Valuation of 1859 records a 'house, office, corn-mill, kiln and land' occupied by John Wilson and leased from the Marquis of Downshire, valued at £26. An entry in the Valuation Revision book B of around 1870 records the property as 'house, offices and lands' valued at £26, together with a flax-mill valued at £4. A mill-race exists to the east face of the house.

The house is currently vacant, with the owner occupying a renovated outbuilding located to the south-west of the site.