51 Ballyreagh Road, Ballyalicock, Newtownards, Co Down, BT23 8RP

51 Ballyreagh Road, Ballyalicock

A large, sprawling two-storey farmhouse of probable pre-1834 origin, situated at the end of a long lane approximately 1.5 miles east of Newtownards. The building has been much extended and modernised both inside and out, resulting in major alterations to its original layout and loss of architectural detail.

The house is roughly L-shaped and appears to have had a complicated evolution. The front section faces south-west and is two storeys high. Its south-west façade has a timber and glazed door set right of centre, with a window to its right featuring a modern frame and square Georgian panes. To the left of the doorway is a similar window, though to the left of this (where a window once stood) is now a large hipped-roof PVC conservatory with French doors positioned where the window formerly was. The first floor has four smaller windows with similar modern frames. The south-east gable of this front section has a window at first-floor level. The north-west gable has a ground-floor window to the left and a first-floor window to the right.

Attached to the rear of the house is a long two-storey gabled return. At the south-east intersection of the front section and return is a recently added single-storey porch and kitchen extension with a timber-panelled door, large PVC windows, and a hipped roof covered with semi-opaque PVC. The south-east façade of the return has three unevenly spaced first-floor windows with a broader kitchen window to the left at ground level and a large modern metal garage door to the right. The north-east gable has a first-floor window to the left with a smaller ground-floor window to the right.

Attached along the entire length of the north-west side of the return are two joined single-storey lean-to sections. The north-east section is taller and appears to be used as a store, with a large sliding door to its north-east façade and a corrugated asbestos roof. The shorter south-west lean-to section has a broad window to the left and a smaller window to the right, both with square Georgian panes. Above the shorter lean-to, the exposed first-floor portion of the north-east façade of the return has three relatively small modern windows of varying shapes.

The entire façade is finished in dry-dash render. The roofs of the front section and return are pitched with Bangor blue slates. Two rendered chimney stacks rise from the front and one from the gable of the return. PVC rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

The first and second edition Ordnance Survey maps (1834 and c.1860) show a building on this site corresponding with the present structure. The sprawling plan and complex layout suggest the house has undergone many alterations over the years. The front section may originally have been single-storey with its roof raised, possibly in the early 1800s, whilst the return has probably had its roof raised also, though possibly more recently. The present owner believed the return was once a barn, though the presence of a large kitchen fireplace and the abundance of outbuildings around the house makes this unlikely.

An extensive collection of gabled outbuildings stands to the north-east, now mostly dilapidated.