Shell House, 74 Plantation Road, Lisburn, County Down, BT27 5PH

Shell house, or garden folly, in the form of a semi-sunken drum with conical roof clad in shells. Located on an elevated site to the north of Plantation Road, within the mature landscaped grounds of Plantation House, a three-bay two-storey detached building that is not considered to be of special interest. The latter dates from c.1800 and is accessed via a long tree-lined bitmac avenue opening onto Plantation Road to the southwest through rendered swept entrance screen; the Shell House sits due north of the main entrance door. Elsewhere on the site, a range of rubblestone outbuildings enclosing a rear yard are attached to the rear of the house. Set into a grassed mound on a lawn enclosed by mature hedging and surrounded by well established shrubs and trees. The drum structure is formed in a mix of coursed rubble-stone and machine-made red brick, with a slightly bowed head to the entrance opening lined in slate. Random rubblestone abutments retain low level ground to form a passage to the entrance, with a larger and more roughly hewn stones placed almost centrally above the opening. Smaller shells (oysters, etc) embedded within the conical roof and entrance jambs.