Ballyowan House, 46 Drumbeg Road, Ballygowan, Dunmurry, Belfast, County Down, BT17 9LE

Ballyowan House is a detached, symmetrical, three-bay, two-storey redbrick and stucco house built around 1860. It is square on plan, faces west, and has a single-storey wing attached to the south side elevation. It is a well-detailed and well-proportioned Victorian residence that retains all its external features and most of its internal ones, and sits within an extensive landscaped site that includes earlier outbuildings and a gate lodge, with which it shares group value.

The roof is hipped natural slate with rolled lead ridges, a flat lead-lined central section, and a pair of redbrick chimneystacks with rendered coping and clay pots. Moulded cast-iron guttering is supported on a corbelled eaves course. The walls are redbrick laid in Flemish bond with rusticated rendered quoins, a continuous masonry sill course, and a moulded render plinth course. Window openings are square-headed with masonry sills and fitted with timber sash windows throughout.

The front elevation is symmetrical with three bays over two storeys, featuring a pair of two-storey three-sided canted bays and a central doorcase. Both canted bays have lead-lined roofs, with concrete walls showing panelled aprons at first-floor level, moulded pilasters at ground-floor level, and redbrick below the ground-floor sill course. The first floor of each bay has a 2/2 timber sash window flanked by single-pane sashes; at ground-floor level all windows are single-pane timber sashes. Above the doorcase is a bipartite window arrangement consisting of a pair of single-pane timber sash windows set within a panelled stucco surround with an arched overpanel and three corbels to the sill.

The doorcase itself has an elliptical-headed opening with a double-leaf timber panelled door featuring raised and pointed panels. The door is flanked by a pair of engaged Doric columns on plinth blocks, which are in turn flanked by a pair of fixed-pane arched sidelights and an outer pair of Doric corner pilasters forming a lintel architrave. Above is a plain glazed fanlight with a moulded architrave surround rising from impost mouldings. The entrance opens onto a concrete paved step.

The north side elevation has three bays over two storeys. At first-floor level, a pair of 2/2 timber sash windows flank a bipartite window opening matching the arrangement on the front elevation; this bipartite window is repeated off-centre at ground-floor level. A tall octagonal rendered pier abutting this elevation supports diagonally-sheeted timber gates to the rear yard.

The rear elevation is abutted by a full-height lean-to projection and a single-storey lean-to glazed rear entrance porch. A 6/6 timber sash window is present at ground-floor level in the main elevation, with various timber sash and steel casement windows lighting the projection.

The south side elevation is abutted by a one-and-a-half-storey rendered block connected to the single-storey rendered wing. First-floor windows match those on the north side elevation; the bipartite ground-floor window is partly blocked up and abutted by a mid-20th-century lean-to greenhouse. The single-bay block on the south side elevation has a lucarne window to the upper floor with a decorative bracketed surround, and an arched single-pane timber sash window. This block has a hipped natural slate roof with lead ridges, plastic rainwater goods, and cement-rendered walling. The single-storey wing continues at an angle to the southeast with a pitched natural slate roof, rendered walling, and replacement steel casement windows.

The house is set within its own landscaped grounds to the east of Drumbeg Road, accessed via a long tarmacadam avenue that opens onto the road at the north end of the site through an entrance screen and gate lodge. The rear yard is enclosed by a two-storey lime-rendered range of outbuildings with a pitched natural slate roof, cast-iron rainwater goods, and square-headed window and door openings fitted with sheeted timber half-doors and shutters. The upper floor of this range is accessed by external stone steps, with round pillars and wrought-iron gates to the east. The north side of the rear yard is enclosed by a two-storey rendered former house now in a ruinous state, with a pitched natural slate roof, a redbrick chimneystack, and a tripartite vernacular-style entrance to the front west gable. A selection of 20th-century farm buildings lies to the north and east of the main yard.

Ballyowan House was built around 1860 by a Mr George Macklin, replacing an earlier dwelling on the site called Drum Cottage. Drum Cottage, the home of George Macklin's father William, had been built around 1800 and appears on the first Ordnance Survey map of 1834 as a one-and-a-half-storey dwelling with a large rear return. Griffith's Valuation records the cottage and its outbuildings as owned by George Macklin and valued at £26 in 1861. According to Dean and William Macklin, Drum Cottage was demolished in 1864 when the current Victorian dwelling, renamed Ballygowan House, was constructed along with the west gate lodge. However, the current north-east outbuilding had already been built by 1858, when it appears on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey.

George Macklin occupied the house until it passed to his son William before 1894, when William sold it and its outbuildings to a Mr Robert Johnston, who is recorded as the occupant in 1901. The single-storey rear return had been constructed by 1901, when it appears on the Ordnance Survey map of that year. The gate lodge to the northwest had also been built by that time; Dean records that it was constructed around 1894 when Johnston took possession.

Robert Johnston had vacated the house by 1901, when it passed to a Mr Lindsey Barrett Johnston, a dairy farmer, who resided there with his wife Ann Jane. The census building return of that year records the property as a first-class dwelling with a large number of out-offices, including three cow houses and a dairy house associated with Johnston's farming business. There was little change by 1911, when Lindsey Johnston continued to occupy the house. By 1932 it had passed to a Mr and Mrs J. Quee, who were members of Drumbeg Parish Church. By 1937 Dr W. A. Anderson had come into possession and renamed it Ballyowan House to avoid confusion with another dwelling of the same name in the village of Ballygowan in Ards Borough. Dr Anderson was a well-respected eye surgeon and a member of Drumbeg Parish Church. His wife Phoebe Anderson allowed the house and its gardens to be used for garden fetes and charity events for the church during the 1960s and 1970s.

The house has been unoccupied since the first survey of the property in 1983. A replacement dwelling has been constructed to the north of the existing house, and the site continues to be owned by a member of the Anderson family, a former managing director of Anderson and McAuley Department Store on Royal Avenue, Belfast, which closed in 1994. The interior has fallen into a state of some disrepair. The single-storey rear return is the only part of the house to remain occupied, being let by the current owner.