15 Ballymacanallen Road, Gilford, Craigavon, Co Down, BT63 6AD

An attached single-storey direct-entry vernacular dwelling with outbuildings, built circa 1850 beside the original dwelling (HB17/01/057B) to the east. The house retains largely intact detailing and much of its early character, with original proportions well preserved. The pair of dwellings with adjoining outbuildings demonstrate the development of the site and represent a relatively rare surviving example of vernacular cottages once common in this area, though planning permission has been granted for their replacement.

The building is rectangular on plan with a projecting windbreak porch at the front and timber-sheeted lean-to to the rear. It is located south of Ballymacanallen Road, north of Gilford, in a rural agricultural landscape. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with blue and black angled ridge tiles, raised masonry verges and rendered chimneystacks. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods are fitted throughout. The walling comprises ruled and lined render to the north elevation and roughcast render elsewhere. The northwest corner is chamfered to lower level with sandstone corner stones.

The principal north-facing elevation is irregularly arranged with a slated gabled porch to the left of centre, flanked by a window to the left and three windows to the right. Windows are predominantly 1/2 timber sliding sash with projecting masonry sills, with 2/2 examples (featuring horizontal glazing bars) and 1/1 windows to the rear in simple smooth rendered surrounds. A simple bargeboard and timber-sheeted entrance door serve the porch. The east gable is abutted by the neighbouring building HB21/01/057B. The south elevation features a timber-sheeted door to the right of centre, flanked by two 1/1 windows to the right and two 2/2 windows to the left, beneath a timber-sheeted lean-to. The west gable has a timber-sheeted door at attic level.

To the southwest is a paved yard accessed from the road via a pair of wrought-iron gates, with various roughcast single-storey outbuildings roofed in tin. To the rear is an overgrown yard containing a linear row of outbuildings, the rightmost being rubble stone with red-brick dressings, timber casement windows flanking a timber-sheeted entrance door, and a wrought-iron gate to the southwest corner. A modern two-storey dwelling stands to the east.

The house was constructed between 1834 and 1858, as documented by successive Ordnance Survey maps, as an extension to the neighbouring original early nineteenth-century dwelling. Map evidence from the first edition (1834) shows a rectangular structure on the footprint of what is now number 17 Ballymacanallen Road. By the second edition (1858), the structure had been extended westwards to form the present number 15. At the time of Griffith's Valuation (1856–1864), James Wilson occupied the property, leasing it from James Hamilton. The house and outbuildings were valued at £1.15s and occupied one acre of land. By 1901, the occupier was Ellie Emily Lowndes, a 37-year-old widow from County Meath employed as a grocer. The house comprised four rooms with four windows to the front, and was roofed with perishable material. Valuer's notes from 1904 record that the building was thatched, felted and slated in different portions, with a nearby outbuilding roofed in corrugated iron; construction cost was noted as £70. By 1907, David Robinson (a farmer) and his wife Mary Jane Robinson (daughter of Joseph Heaney, the neighbouring landlord) occupied the house with three young children; it remained thatched at this stage. David Robinson died on 10 December 1936, leaving Mary Jane as resident. Mary Jane Robinson took over the neighbouring house in 1931 and in 1933 became the fee owner of both properties under land purchase legislation intended to redistribute land to working farmers. By the First General Revaluation of 1934, the house had been slated and a porch added, and was revalued at £4.10s. The accommodation at that time comprised a reception, kitchen, scullery and two bedrooms; the valuer noted the building had been renovated. In 1945, Samuel J Robinson leased the house from David J Robinson.