Cluntirriff House, 1 Clontarriff Road, Ballinderry Upper, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 2JD

Clontarriff House is a well-proportioned, symmetrically arranged three-bay two-storey late Georgian farmhouse built around 1830, located in unspoilt rural countryside southwest of Upper Ballinderry in County Antrim. The building represents a formal style of vernacular architecture, designed as a departure from the more typical asymmetric vernacular tradition towards a planned formal style characteristic of more prosperous farmers of the period.

The house is L-shaped on plan with a conservatory to the rear and rubble-stone outbuildings to the north. It has a pitched natural slate roof with replacement brick chimneystacks and raised stone verges. The walling is painted roughcast render with smooth render plinth and quoins. The rear wing is black rubble stone with Flemish-bonded red-brick dressings, repointed in ribbon pointing. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

Windows are timber-framed sliding sash: 4/8 to the first floor, 8/8 to the ground floor, and 6/3 to the rear, all with projecting painted masonry sills and some exposed sash boxes. Windows to the return elevation are brick-dressed. The principal elevation faces east, is symmetrically arranged across three openings, and features a central entrance at ground floor comprising a four-panelled timber door with brass lion-head knocker and door knob, surmounted by a segmental-headed fanlight with side-lights set in a smooth render reveal with aprons to the sidelights.

The south elevation has a single 6/6 sash window to the left at ground floor. The west (rear) elevation is abutted by the return to the left, with a modern timber conservatory to the re-entrant angle. The return has two windows to the gable at the centre of the first floor and a single window at ground floor centre. To the right, the right cheek has three windows to the first floor and a single window to the left of the conservatory. The left cheek has two 6/3 windows at ground and first floor levels, with a central half-panelled timber door. The north elevation has a single window to the right at both ground and first floor.

The house sits in a slightly elevated position amongst farmland, within large mature grounds with gardens to the front and south. A gravelled driveway to the northwest is accessed via round rubble-stone gate piers with rendered caps and an original cast-iron farm gate, leading to a laned access to the northeast with cast-iron gates on masonry piers now overgrown with vegetation. To the north is a vegetable garden enclosed by a pebble-stone wall with saddleback coping stones, round gate piers, and a cast-iron water pump positioned at the lane side of the wall. A stable yard with rubble-stone outbuildings featuring Flemish-bonded red-brick dressings lies to the northeast, including a large hay-barn and stables complete with original timber half-doors.

Documentary evidence shows that Clontarriff House first appeared on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps in 1832, depicted as a small square house with a large and smaller out office to its north. The Townland Valuation of 1837 lists John Taylor as occupant, though Sarah Jane Taylor took over as resident in the same year. The dimensions were recorded as 43 feet by 23 feet and 16 feet high. The house was classed as 1b+ and valued at £6 17 shillings, including an office and stable; the stable was the larger of the two northern offices and still stands today. By Griffith's Valuation in 1859, the house value had risen to £10, though the valuer noted that the offices were not in good condition. Sarah Jane Taylor retained possession until 1874, when Alexander Taylor briefly occupied the property, followed by James Smith the same year. In 1889, Thomas Fleming came into possession and converted it to a caretaker's house. The property's value was reduced to £5, with the valuer recording that the house was in bad repair with some offices down. Fleming purchased the house from the Marquis of Hertford in 1893 and owned it until 1930. The third and fourth editions of the Ordnance Survey maps (1900–1921) show alterations made during this period: a two-storey return was added to the house and an additional out office was built next to the stables. The 1901 Census records two buildings in Cluntirriff owned by Fleming, though he did not occupy either at that time; Clontarriff House was likely the uninhabited building used as storage for the caretaker, recorded as a second-class dwelling that included a cow house and store.

The house was listed in 1989, and renovations were carried out in 1990. It has been sympathetically restored in recent years, retaining the original floor-plan, though some loss of historic detailing occurred through interior refurbishment. Despite this, it remains a good and increasingly rare example of its type. The listing encompasses the house, outbuildings, boundary walls, gates, and water pump.