Lake House, 41 Magheraconluce Road, Dromore, County Down, BT25 1EE

Lake House is a detached, symmetrical, three-bay, two-storey rendered farmhouse built around 1830, T-shaped on plan, facing north on an elevated site on the south side of Magheraconluce Road in the townland of Growell, near Dromara. The house is historically significant as the birthplace of Harry George Ferguson (1884–1960), the Ulster-born engineer and inventor who became the first Irishman to make a powered flight and the developer of the modern agricultural tractor. While the house is considered to be of significant local importance on account of these associations, it is not listed, as it is not judged to be of sufficient architectural interest and the replacement of the original door and fenestration detracts from its character.

The roof is pitched natural slate with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and replacement redbrick chimneys at either end. Rainwater goods have been replaced in metal, with timber boxed fascia, though some original cast-iron downpipes survive to the rear. The external walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render to the main elevations, with rough-cast render to the return. A circular blue plaque on the front elevation reads: "Birth Place of Harry George Ferguson, Engineer & Inventor, 1884–1960".

Window openings are a mix of elliptical-headed and square-headed types, all fitted with uPVC windows set on painted masonry sills. The symmetrical three-bay front elevation features elliptical-headed window openings, with a pair above the central door opening and further elliptical-headed openings at ground floor level to either side. The central entrance has an elliptical-headed opening containing a uPVC door with sidelights and a fanlight. This door opens into a small front garden enclosed toward the road by a rendered wall curved at either end, with a steel pedestrian gate.

The east gable is abutted by a carriage arch screen attached to the outbuilding. The east gable also has two square-headed window openings at first-floor level only. The rear elevation is abutted by a gable-ended two-storey return with a pitched artificial slate roof and enlarged square-headed window openings. The east elevation of this return is abutted by a lean-to rear porch; the south gable end of the return is abutted by a lean-to extension attached to a further single-storey outbuilding; and the west elevation of the return is abutted by a uPVC conservatory. The west gable of the main house has a single round-headed window opening at first-floor level.

To the east of the house stands a detached gable-fronted lofted rubblestone outbuilding with a pitched natural slate roof and terracotta ridge tiles. The west and front north elevations are rough-cast rendered. The front gable has square-headed window openings fitted with uPVC windows. The rear south gable has a flight of stone steps and various square-headed door and window openings with sheeted timber doors and shutters.

The house sits within an elevated setting on the south side of Magheraconluce Road. On the opposite side of the road, a memorial garden and commemorative statue to Henry Ferguson was erected in 2008.

The house first appears on the 1833 Ordnance Survey map, where it is depicted as an oblong building, already accompanied by the two-storey outbuilding to the rear. By 1859 a small additional outbuilding had been added to the farm, though this had disappeared by the time of later Ordnance Survey editions. Griffith's Valuation of 1861 records the farm as occupied by a James Ferguson, who held the property from the Marquis of Downshire. The farm was valued at £2 5s; Ferguson also held a quantity of arable land and three small houses let to lodgers, valued between £1 5s. and 5s., though it is unclear whether these were located at the farm itself. James Ferguson died in March 1871, leaving effects of under £1,000 and Lake House to his widow Eliza Ferguson, as recorded in the PRONI Wills Catalogue. The property passed to Henry Ferguson's father, also named James, at some point before Henry's birth in 1884.

The 1901 census records James Ferguson (aged 50) and his wife Mary (aged 45) living at Lake House with eight of their children. Henry Ferguson, then 16, was working as a farm labourer. The 1901 Census Building Return described Lake House as a second-class dwelling with a slated roof containing six inhabited rooms; at that time the farm buildings comprised a stable, cow house, and barn. By 1903, the third Ordnance Survey edition shows the outbuilding abutting the rear return to the south-east had been constructed. By 1911, only two of the couple's eleven children remained at Lake House; Henry and his older brother Joseph had left for Belfast around 1902. The farm had expanded considerably by 1911, with out-offices recorded as including a stable, coach house, cow house, piggery, fowl house, barn, and coal house.

Henry Ferguson was born at Lake House on 4 November 1884. His father's family had settled in the Dromara area more than two hundred years previously, and Lake House had been the family home from at least 1861. Henry's parents were members of the Plymouth Brethren, a Christian sect that had separated from the Established Church and which advocated the literal interpretation of the Bible and dispensed with salaried clergy. The sect originally met in members' homes, and Lake House is likely to have been used for such gatherings before James Ferguson donated a plot of land to the north of the farm for the construction of a Mission Hall. Although James Ferguson owned much of the land he farmed, the farm could not adequately support his family. Henry began attending local school at the age of four but was withdrawn shortly after learning to read and write due to lack of funds, and worked as a farm labourer until the age of 16. He had plans to emigrate to Canada but was persuaded by his brother Joseph to travel to Belfast instead, where the two brothers opened a garage selling and repairing automobiles. Henry Ferguson's interest expanded from automobiles to aeronautics through attendance at international airshows. By 1909 he had designed his own monoplane and on 31 December of that year flew three miles along Newcastle Strand in County Down, becoming the first Irishman to make a powered flight — six years after the Wright Brothers' first flight. His later achievements included the invention of the Ferguson P99, the first four-wheel drive Formula One car, and the development of the first modern agricultural tractor, which revolutionised farming worldwide. Ferguson lived in England until his death in 1960.

Lake House remains in residential use and has occasionally been the setting for events commemorating Ferguson's life, including a Homestead Working Day held in August 2002 by the Harry Ferguson Celebration Committee.