Ballyhill House, 30 Stonepark Road, Brookeborough, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, BT94 3G7

Ballyhill House is a well-developed vernacular house of a type particular to this area, dating to the early 19th century. It stands prominently on a hillside at Stonepark Road, Brookeborough, and retains much of its original character despite proximity to a modern farmyard.

The building is one and a half storeys, three bays wide, with a half-hipped natural slate roof aligned north-west to south-east. Two rendered brick chimneysstacks flank the narrow central bay, each constructed with masonry copings and moulded terracotta pots (three on the left stack, two on the right). An advanced eaves course supports half-round cast-iron rainwater goods, with masonry skews tying into the eaves course at the gables.

The principal north-east elevation is lined, rendered and painted with blocked quoins. The central bay contains the main entrance, reached by a single masonry step with a wrought-iron boot scraper. The door has four panels (top two glazed) with a painted dressed masonry architrave with tooled outer edge. Above it sits a coved masonry entablature serving both as a hood to the door and a cill to the small window above, which is three-paned with a spoke head and smooth rendered architrave. The left and right bays are wider. Each has a ground-floor exposed box 8/8 sliding sash window with painted masonry cill and rendered architrave.

The north-west gable is abutted by a small single-storey late 19th-century porch. This has a hipped natural slate roof with overhanging eaves supported on decorative rafter tails. Its walls are band rusticated and painted with lined voussoirs over openings. The north-east and north-west faces each have a 1/1 sliding sash window (that to the north-west slightly larger), while the south-west face has a four-panelled door (top two panels glazed) with a narrow transom over.

The remaining wall of the north-west gable is lined, rendered and painted with quoins. It is blank at ground floor and at attic level has a 6/6 sliding sash window set to centre and a 4/4 sliding sash window to the right, both with architraves matching those of the façade.

The south-west rear elevation is three bays wide, with the central bay narrower and advancing slightly under a cat-slide roof. At ground floor left is a window opening with cill. To the right of the central bay is a modern casement window infilling a former doorway. Set to the left of the attic level of the central bay is an exposed box 6/6 sliding sash window serving the stairwell. The rear wall is wet-dashed.

A one and a half storey return abuts the right bay. It has a half-hipped natural slate roof with a lower ridge level, tying into the rear pitch of the main block. A modern brick chimneystack is roughly centred. The left face is smooth plastered with a tongue-and-groove sheeted door to centre. This elevation is abutted by a collapsed lean-to, whose end gable is stone-coped and flush with the end wall of the return, with a small square window opening. The infilled doorway on the central bay of the main house once served this lean-to.

The end gable of the rear return is embanked by earth at ground floor level and has two window openings at attic level. The left opening is small with frame missing; the right is a 3x3-paned Georgian-glazed window with brick reveals. The right face of the rear return is flush with the left gable of the main house and has a fixed 2x3-paned timber window to the left of a doorway.

The left gable of the main house is dashed and painted. A modern timber door occupies the centre, with windows to left and right arranged asymmetrically. Two windows at attic level are timber casements.

The house is approached by a driveway running south-west from the road, turning south at the front and proceeding west along the left gable, where a large yard is sited. The front garden is raised and enclosed by a painted rubble stone wall, with a flat-iron gate on plain piers at the join with the east corner of the house. A front gate with a path leads directly to the front door. Two large urns and two small yews ornament the front garden, which continues north of the house as a lawn.

Ballyhill is named after its townland and appears labelled on the first edition Ordnance Survey map. The half-hipped roof is a local characteristic said to be limited to buildings around the Ashbrooke and Colebrooke Estates. An almost identical house stands further along the road to the south-east, now derelict, and a similar two-storey house with the same roof type stands on the opposite side of the road.

According to Griffith's Valuation of 1862, this was the only house in the small Ballyhill Townland. Its lessor was M. Archdall and it was occupied by Andrew Armstrong. The buildings were valued at £10 and the land at £44. Local tradition holds that in the late 19th century the house was occupied by Mr Neilly, a land agent to the Colebrooke Estate. The Ross family occupied it from around 1900, and the current owner (as of 1999) had been resident since circa 1960.