Berwick Hall, Hillsborough Road, Aughnadrumman, Craigavon, Co. Down, BT67 0HG

Berwick Hall is a two-storey, four-bay, direct-entry thatched house, almost certainly built in the late 17th century — dendrochronological dating of a sample of roof timber by the School of Geosciences at Queen's University Belfast returned dates centred on 1682 (plus or minus approximately nine years), suggesting construction in that year or shortly afterwards. The roof structure is considered of paramount interest. The house is of probable British origin and, according to the Archaeological Survey of County Down, illustrates a type of two-storey yeoman's house that persisted into the 19th century in the English-settled area of the Lagan Valley. It is not of hearth-lobby plan. The listing covers the house itself, the front boundary wall, gates and gate piers.

The walls are of random rubble stone with a roughcast and whitened finish. The house faces north-east, overlooking a strip of garden bounded by a low wall, and sits about half a mile along Hillsborough Road from the Moira roundabout on the M1 Motorway (junction 9), travelling south-east toward the village of Moira.

The roof is thatched between cement skews. Three rows of scollops are exposed at the ridge and one at the eaves. Each gable rises to a corbelled chimneystack with two chimney pots, and a similar feature over the living room hearth is flaunched at the top.

The front boundary wall is low and roughcast. There are three entrance openings in it. The main entrance to the house is via a decorative iron gate hung between square panelled pillars with projecting concave pyramidal cappings. Access to the yard is through a flat iron gate hung between circular roughcast pillars with conical cappings. The eastern end of the site is open, though a flat iron gate survives hung on a square pillar with a projecting pyramidal capping. A similar feature, but with a more widely projecting capping, punctuates the wall a short distance to the west. A circular pier with conical capping also remains at the right-hand (north-west) gable end.

The front (north-east) elevation is symmetrically composed. The entrance doorway is now fitted with a modern interpretation of a raised and fielded four-panel door, surmounted by a rectangular leaded fanlight with applied painted motifs. To the left (south-east) of the entrance are three 6/6 vertically sliding sash windows; to the right are two. All have sash stops and narrow sills. At first-floor level there are six 3/3 vertically sliding sash windows — including one above the entrance — again with sash stops and narrow sills. The right-hand (north-west) gable is lit at upper level by a pair of small vertically sliding windows with sashes divided vertically into two panes. The left-hand gable has similar windows at high level, and additionally a pair of larger windows of similar construction lighting the ground-floor parlour.

At the rear elevation, the windows are vertically sliding with sashes divided vertically into two panes, with sash stops and sills of traditional depth. Starting from the right-hand (south-east) corner there are three such windows, followed by a timber-sheeted half door with an observation panel. Beyond this is a sun lounge with a pitched natural slate roof, a masonry plinth, and plain timber-framed fenestration; this feature connects the main house to the barn. Four windows of the type described appear at upper level on the rear elevation, irregularly spaced. A further sun lounge abuts the south-west gable with a lean-to natural slate roof and is of similar construction to the other lounge.

The barn has been converted into living accommodation. It is built of exposed random rubble with plain rendered dressings to the openings and to the half dormers. Its windows are vertically sliding with sashes divided vertically into two panes.

The building retains a variety of original features or has had them restored to match the early detailing.

Regarding the interior, a timber beam in the kitchen was replaced with a rolled steel joist in 1999; the original sawn timber beam was reused on a fireplace.

The former front door — removed in the later 20th century but believed to survive in the Ulster Folk Museum — is considered significant in its own right. It was a fairly thin panelled door with six raised and fielded panels, the uppermost two of which had shouldered and curved tops, a form suggestive of the early 18th century. Alan Gailey, writing in his 1984 study Rural Houses in the North of Ireland, considered it the earliest surviving 17th-century door known at the time of writing, dating from around 1700.

The house appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833–34, where it is marked as "Berwick Hall." The contemporary valuation records describe it as a very old thatched property in good condition (quality letter 2C+), with dimensions of 60 feet by 24½ by 15 feet for the house itself, together with related thatched and slated offices of various ages measuring 84 x 21 x 7½, 24½ x 16 x 6½, 15½ x 21½ x 6, 26½ x 20½ x 11, and 43 x 18½ x 10 feet, as well as a pig sty. The rateable value of £11-13-0 was relatively high for the period. The second valuation repeats much of these findings; one valuer added the comment "neat concern — house old." The 1833 Ordnance Survey map does not show the barn (now converted) or the range of outbuildings at the rear. By the 1858 Ordnance Survey map, the house and outbuildings appear much as they exist today.

The house is said to have been built by the Berwick family, from whom it takes its name, though no documentary evidence has been found to confirm this. What is established is that the family occupied the property from at least 1834 to 1883: Edward Berwick is listed as resident in 1834, and Mark Berwick in 1861, with Sir Thomas Bateson recorded as lessor. In 1861 the property was purchased by George Wilson, and his wife or daughter Sarah acquired the freehold in 1909. Her descendants occupy the property today. The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland holds a number of documents relating to the Berwick family, particularly the Reverend Edward Berwick (1750–1820), chaplain to the Earl of Moira, which demonstrate the family's connection with the Moira area, though no definite references to this house have been identified among them.