Denmoy, 127 Ballylesson Road, Ballylesson, Belfast, County Down, BT8 8JU

Denmoy is a detached, five-bay, two-storey rendered house built around 1870, though it incorporates fabric from an earlier structure dating to the 1820s. It is a well-proportioned mid-Victorian house set on an extensive mature site to the northwest of Ballylesson Road, with a front entrance porch and two rear projections. The house retains a wealth of original internal and external detailing, and its outbuildings add further interest, as does its documented use as a medical dispensary during the second half of the 19th century.

EXTERIOR

The roof is pitched natural slate with black clay ridge tiles and a pair of yellow brick chimneystacks. Cast-iron moulded guttering runs to a timber fascia on exposed timber rafter feet, with cast-iron downpipes. Replacement timber bargeboards finish either gable end, with sheeted eaves on carved timber brackets. The walls are painted rough-cast render over redbrick laid in English garden wall bond, with a projecting rendered plinth course.

Window openings are square-headed throughout most of the house, with painted masonry sills and double-glazed timber sash windows. The front elevation is five windows wide. At ground floor level, the windows at either end are original tripartite sash windows; the remaining windows are replacements. A central flat-roofed entrance porch projects from the front facade, with plain rendered walling, a moulded cornice, a felt roof with plastic guttering, and a square-headed door opening fitted with a replacement timber panelled and glazed door. A timber sash window sits to either cheek of the porch. The door opens onto a sandstone step, and a decorative cast-iron doorbell is embedded into the wall beside it.

The west gable has a section of partly exposed redbrick walling — formerly abutted by a lean-to — and a single square-headed door opening with a replacement timber glazed door leading onto a red clay tiled area. The rear elevation features a central lean-to, double-height projection with curved corners, and a further two-storey projection at the west end with a catslide roof. In the re-entrant angle between these projections, a single-storey addition houses a rear entrance porch, fitted with a replacement timber glazed door and mostly replacement double-glazed timber sash windows. The east gable is notable for its round-headed window openings — two at ground floor level and one at first floor — which retain original single-glazed timber sash windows with partly exposed sash boxes.

SETTING

The house is approached from Ballylesson Road via a short curved gravel drive to the east, enclosed along the road frontage by a low rubblestone wall. To the rear, a cobblelock-paved yard is enclosed to the west by a pair of two-storey outbuildings in redbrick and rubblestone with pitched natural slate roofs. One of these outbuildings, set perpendicular to the rear of the house and built around 1860, has been converted into a modern studio with sheeted timber walls to the interior; it retains an original closed-string timber winder stair. The other outbuilding retains original sheeted timber stalls and cobbles. Abutting the east gable of the outbuilding running parallel to the house is a single-storey rubblestone outhouse, and beyond that a further roofless redbrick outhouse containing cast-iron panels or stalls. Additional derelict redbrick outhouses stand to the north of the main house.

HISTORY

The site's history can be traced through successive Ordnance Survey maps and documentary sources. An earlier, single-storey dwelling first appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, depicted as an L-shaped building on what is now Ballylesson Road. At that date, the two-storey outbuilding and a small square outbuilding at the rear had already been constructed. By the second edition of 1858, the layout had changed: a two-storey extension had been built joining the original buildings together from the south-west gable at the rear, and the small square outbuilding had been demolished.

Griffith's Valuation of 1861 records the house as valued at £7, occupied by a Ms Mary Orr, who held it from a Mr Charles Dunlop of Edenderry House to the north. The 1861 Ulster Town's Directory records that a Dr Gawin Orr came into possession of the property that year, and later editions record that he operated a dispensary in the area. The current owner, at the time of a field inspection, stated that around 1870, during Gawin Orr's occupation, the house was rebuilt and a second storey added. The third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1901–02 shows little change to the site, except for the addition of a small outbuilding to the northwest; significantly, the property is marked as "Dispensary," confirming that Dr Orr operated his practice from the dwelling.

The 1901 Census records Dr Gawin Orr (aged 61) living at the property with his two sisters, Margaret (67) and Jane (63). The Census Building Return describes it as a first-class private dwelling of 11 rooms, with a number of out-offices in the rear outbuildings including a stable, coach house, dairy, and barn. The dispensary is recorded as being housed in a separate building from the house itself. By the 1911 Census, the dispensary was no longer noted and Dr Orr was described as retired. In early 1912, the Irish Builder recorded that a new dispensary and dwelling for the local medical officer had been completed by the Lisburn Board of Guardians; this new building appears on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1920–21, located to the northeast of the former dispensary site.

The Orr family had been associated with the property since at least 1861. A Mr William Orr was recorded as a freeholder for the townland of Ballylesson as early as 1788, though a direct connection to the later Orr family cannot be verified. By 1922 both of Dr Gawin Orr's sisters had died, leaving him to reside alone until his own death in 1925, when he left effects of £4,207 1d. to a Mr Charles James McKisack, a director of a Belfast-based linen company.

The property was recorded in 1970 as part of the First Survey of Historic Buildings, by which time it had been renamed Denmoy House. The Ordnance Survey map of 1973 shows no discernible alteration to the site since the 1920–21 edition. The current owners acquired the property in the 1980s and converted the south-west extension into a modern garage and office. The outbuilding range to the rear, which retains original stable stalls, is in a lesser state of preservation, and a small outbuilding to the east has fallen into a ruinous state.