Laurel Vale, 15 Ballinderry Road, Aghalee, County Antrim, BT67 0DY

Laurel Vale is a detached three-bay two-storey stone farmhouse built around 1830, with a two-storey rear return, forming a T-shape on plan. It faces west onto the east side of Ballinderry Road, close to the village of Aghalee. The symmetrical, well-proportioned front elevation retains all its original materials and elements, and together with its intact interior it represents an important example of a modest but formally arranged early 19th-century farm dwelling. The linear ranges of rubblestone outbuildings and the formal front garden add further to its significance.

EXTERIOR

The roof is covered in natural slate with clay ridge tiles, and a pair of rendered chimneystacks rises from both gable ends, each topped with octagonal clay pots. Cast-iron guttering on iron brackets runs along a redbrick eaves course, continuing across both gables. The walls are of galleted rubblestone, with simulated redbrick flat arches over the front openings. Window openings are square-headed, fitted with original timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes and sandstone sills.

The symmetrical front elevation is three windows wide, with a central elliptical-headed door opening containing an original woodgrained timber doorcase. The door itself is an early raised and fielded panelled example with ten panels, flanked by three-pane sidelights, which in turn are flanked by fluted pilasters. Above sits a stepped lintel cornice and a webbed timber fanlight. The door opens onto a stone platform and a gravel footpath leading to the enclosed front garden.

The north gable is rough-cast cement rendered, with a single window opening to the first floor fitted with a single-pane timber sash window. The rear end of the north gable is abutted by a screen wall with a pedestrian opening and stone lintel. To the rear, the two-storey return abuts the main elevation and includes a single enlarged window opening at ground floor level in the exposed section. The return also has a further rendered brick chimneystack, two original timber sash windows, a boarded-up window, and a bipartite 4-over-4 timber sash window with overlights. The south elevation of the return has a lean-to projection, and the rear gable is rough-cast rendered with a timber plank door. The south gable is abutted by a mid-20th-century greenhouse, with a steel casement window at first floor level.

SETTING

The house sits within its own grounds, accessed from Ballinderry Road via wrought-iron gates on circular rendered piers, with a gravel lane running along the north side of the property. This lane is lined with single and two-storey lime-washed outbuildings having tiled roofs, timber plank doors, and some timber sash windows. The front garden is enclosed by a hedge, with a wrought-iron pedestrian gate and gravel footpath.

HISTORY

Laurel Vale appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1832 as an L-shaped building. The Townland Valuation of 1834 records Mrs Anne Thompson as the first known occupant, though at some point before that date Samuel Thompson — whose exact relationship to Anne is uncertain, possibly her son or widower — had taken over the residence. Although no outbuildings are marked on the first Ordnance Survey map, the Townland Valuation records no fewer than five office buildings. The house and its return were classified as grade 1b+, with the entire site valued at £10.

The 1838 Ordnance Survey Memoirs described Laurel Vale as the residence of Samuel Thompson, noting it as "a very neat 2-storey and slated house lately built by his parents … on the north side of, and contiguous to, the Old Church of Aghalee." The same account records that the property had attractive office houses and a "handsome orchard." Samuel Thompson farmed 57 English acres and owned a corn kiln which he hired out for public use. By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1859, the property was recorded as "House, office and land," valued at £12, and held from the Marquis of Hertford.

Samuel Thompson occupied Laurel Vale until his death on 23rd January 1900. His will granted a sum of £517 7s. to the Reverend John William Sleator, clerk and incumbent of Trinity Church of Ireland. From 1901 the house was briefly occupied by a William Lewis, before Robert Joseph Lewis bought the property in 1905. William Lewis's will, dated 4th March 1907, granted the sum of £730 17s. 8d. to Robert Joseph Lewis and William Morrow Lewis. Census records show Robert Joseph Lewis (born around 1862) living at Laurel Vale in 1911 with his wife of 24 years, Sarah Jane Lewis (aged 44), and five of his eight children. The house was returned as a second-class dwelling of at least eight rooms, with Robert Joseph Lewis recorded as a local farmer. The extensive outbuildings at that time included a stable, coach house, cow house, two calf houses, a dairy, piggery, fowl house, boiling house, barn, potato house, and a shed. Several of these outbuildings were likely erected by Robert Lewis: the fourth edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1920–21 show three main office buildings to the rear, whereas the third edition of 1901–02 recorded only a single office building.

Robert Lewis occupied Laurel Vale until the revision records end in 1928. His son William Lewis, recorded as a chemist's assistant in the 1911 census, enlisted in the Canadian Infantry, Manitoba Regiment, following the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. He was fighting along the Ypres Salient on 22nd April 1915 when he became a victim of the first recorded use of mustard gas by the German Army. He was later buried at Menin Gate Memorial Cemetery in Ypres.

The architectural historian C. E. B. Brett described Laurel Vale as a "very pleasing three-bay two-storey late Georgian house of about 1830 … with a three-bay two-storey return," and noted that Robert Joseph Lewis occupied the house until a new owner bought the farm in 1948, who was still in residence at the time Brett was writing in 1996. Physical evidence supports the early 19th-century construction date, and the interior layout together with many original features of the house remains intact.