214 Hillhall Road, Ballymullan, Lisburn, County Down, BT27 5JQ

Ballymullan House is a well-preserved, asymmetrical, three-bay, two-storey vernacular farmhouse built around 1800, set in an unspoiled rural location south of the Hillhall Road near Lisburn. The listing covers the house itself, its associated outbuildings, a cast-iron water pump, and the gates. The proportions and asymmetrical arrangement of windows suggest the current building may have developed from an earlier dwelling on the site. Together, the house and farm buildings form an increasingly rare and coherent rural group, representing the aspirations of a prosperous farmer to echo the more formal Georgian houses of his era.

EXTERIOR

The house is rectangular on plan with a two-storey roughcast rendered return to the rear. The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles and four rendered chimneystacks fitted with terracotta pots. Rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round. The walls are finished in painted smooth render with a chamfered plinth and quoins.

The windows are original 2-over-2 timber-framed sliding sash with horizontal glazing bars, set in moulded surrounds with masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces northwest and is asymmetrically arranged across five openings. At ground-floor centre is a four-panelled timber door with a transom light set within an architrave surround. The northeast gable has a 6-over-6 sash window at first floor and a timber-sheeted door to the left at ground floor.

The southeast elevation has a 1-over-1 window to the right at first floor, and two windows at ground floor each with small metal frame and glass surrounds. To the right is the two-storey rear return. The northeast elevation of the return has a window to the right at first floor and two timber-sheeted openings to the left at first floor; at ground floor there are two 1-over-1 windows to the right and a metal casement window and timber-sheeted door to the left. The southwest elevation of the return has a 1-over-1 window above a small double-leaf half timber-sheeted door with a brass knob, surrounded by a metal-framed conservatory structure; to the left, almost at eaves level, is a metal casement window. The southwest gable has a window to the right at first floor.

OUTBUILDINGS AND YARD

The adjoining outbuilding is of slated roughcast render and faces a yard to the northeast; it has a large timber garage door to the southeast gable and two metal-framed windows to the southwest elevation. Its northeast elevation has two timber-sheeted doors to the right.

To the northeast of the yard is a slated roughcast render linear range with various timber-framed window openings and timber-sheeted doors. To the south stands a small single-storey outbuilding with a timber-sheeted door to the right and a window to the left; to the rear of this is a rubble-stone ruin.

In front of the outbuildings is a fine example of a cow-tail cast-iron water pump, inscribed 'DUGAN PLUMBER LISBURN'.

SETTING

The house is set back from the road behind a low roughcast rendered wall surmounted by a hedgerow enclosing a small garden. At the centre of this boundary is a cast-iron latch gate on round cast-iron piers with caps. The yard entrance to the northeast is via square painted smooth-render gate piers with pointed caps supporting decorative cast-iron gates. An enclosed garden to the rear leads to a small-holding with hen pen and piggery, overlooking unspoiled farmland. To the rear of the yard are wrought-iron gates on square roughcast rendered gate piers with pointed caps.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The farmhouse first appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of the Townland of Ballymullan in 1834, depicted as an L-shaped building with a large southeast-facing rear return and a small outbuilding to the southeast side. Freeholders' records indicate that a Mr Richard Murdoch occupied the site in 1818, though his will records that he died in 1827, leaving the farm to his family. By the time of the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1859, the original southeast outbuilding had been taken down and replaced with two outbuildings to the northeast of the farmhouse.

Griffith's Valuation of 1861 records a Richard Murdoch — his precise relationship to the earlier occupant unknown — as tenant, the farmhouse being let to him by the Marquis of Hertford and valued at £10 10s. Richard Murdoch remained at the farm until his death in January 1892, when his widow Sarah and son William John Murdoch inherited Ballymullan House and effects valued at £1,486 17s. 4d. Murdoch's will records that he had lived at the farm with Sarah, William, and three daughters. Sarah Murdoch died in 1895, leaving the farm to William John Murdoch alone; her will also reveals a second son, Richard, who had emigrated to New Zealand some years before her death.

The 1901 Census records that Wills John Murdoch, a 44-year-old Presbyterian farmer, resided at the house with his wife Louisa, aged 29 and originally born in New Zealand, their two daughters, and their son Wills John Hughes Murdoch, aged 10 and also born in New Zealand. The 1901 Census Building Returns describe the farmhouse as a second-class dwelling with five rooms and a number of out-offices, including a stable, two cow houses, a piggery, and a barn, housed principally in the northeast outbuilding range and a separate southeast outbuilding. The extended northeast office range and the new outbuilding first appear on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1919–20, though they were likely constructed earlier.

According to Peter Conradi, Wills John Murdoch had previously followed his brother Richard to New Zealand in the 1880s to establish a sheep-rearing farm, where he met and married Louisa and where Wills John Hughes was born in 1890. On the death of his father Richard in January 1892, Wills and his family returned to Ireland to take over the farm. Spiralling debts forced Wills Murdoch to sell the farm in 1902, after which he moved to Belfast; he died in 1903 at the age of 45, leaving effects of £1,274 to his widow and son. Conradi notes that the decision to sell was likely painful, as Ballymullan had been home to seven generations of the Murdoch family, who had first come to Ireland in the 17th century and were known as a staunchly Protestant Scots-Irish family. Iris Murdoch (1919–1999), the only daughter of Wills John Hughes Murdoch, was a celebrated writer and philosopher who won the 1978 Booker Prize for her novel The Sea, The Sea.

It is not clear who occupied Ballymullan House immediately after 1902. A photograph held by a descendant of the Murdoch family carries a note that the house passed to the Gillespie family; the 1911 Census records a William Gillespie in possession of a house in Ballymullan between 1901 and 1911, though this is described as a first-class dwelling with at least 15 rooms, considerably grander than the house described in 1901. The current owner states that the house has been in her family's occupation for a number of generations.

No documentary evidence records an exact construction date. Field research suggests the present two-storey farmhouse was built around 1800 and may have originated from an earlier vernacular dwelling, consistent with the Murdoch family tradition of at least seven generations on the site since arriving in Ireland in the 17th century.