15 Howe Road, Ballykeel, Dromore, County Down, BT25 1ET

15 Howe Road, Ballykeel, is a two-bay single-storey vernacular dwelling built around 1800 and located on the south side of Howe Road in an unspoiled rural setting. A rare survivor, it is a good example of an unaltered hearth-lobby house with original proportions and floor-plan intact, and it retains much of its external character and elements.

The building is rectangular on plan with a projecting porch to the front. It has a pitched overhanging natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and a rough-cast rendered chimneystack with two clay pots. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods are fitted to the porch only. The walling is painted roughcast render on a plinth with smooth-rendered platband to the eaves.

Windows are a variety of timber-framed sliding sash and casements. The principal elevation faces northwest and is set at a lower level than Howe Road. It is three openings wide and almost symmetrically arranged, with a windbreak porch to the right of centre featuring a timber-sheeted door with a cast-iron latch. The left bay is longer and contains a small 6/3 window; the right bay has a larger 1/1 window. The northeast gable is blank. The southeast elevation has two six-paned timber casement windows to the right of centre, and to the far right (at a slightly higher level) is a single-paned timber-framed casement window. The southwest gable is blank.

The house first appears on the 1833 Ordnance Survey map as a small oblong building situated on the grounds of 'the Howe,' a farmhouse occupied by the Smyth family. Griffith's Valuation of 1861 records the house was valued at £1 and let by David Smyth of the Howe to James Kearns. The 1911 Census indicates the house was then slated and let by James Cathcart Smyth to David Chambers, a 46-year-old Presbyterian fabric weaver, who lived there with his wife Agnes and their four children. The building return for 1911 records it as a 2nd class house with a fowl house as its only outbuilding. The Howe was purchased by John Young in 1917, and his family has occupied the site since then.

The building is situated on a wooded site opposite Howe Farm, surrounded by farmland and enclosed by a wire fence and hedgerow. Rubble stone gate piers and an early farm-gate are located to the southwest. The road boundary comprises a low rubble stone verge with barbed wire fence and hedgerow; a partial wrought-iron fence is attached to wrought-iron piers supporting a cast-iron latch gate. A free-standing corrugated metal shed stands to the rear, erected by 1975. The walling is rubble stone throughout.

The house contributes to the historic landscape of Ballykeel and the wider area, and has group value with the adjacent Howe Farm.