Ashfield, 56 Gravehill Road, Maze, Lisburn, County Down, BT27 5RW

Ashfield is a two-storey three-bay symmetrical gable-ended farmhouse erected around 1905, situated immediately south of the Royal Down Racecourse near Maze, County Down. The building represents the early 20th-century development of this important regional racing establishment.

The house displays polychromatic brickwork with Flemish bonded red-brick walling and yellow brick detailing to quoins and porch. The pitched roof is finished in natural slate with clay ridge tiles, though the rear pitch has replacement slates. Yellow brick chimneys feature decorative cornice coursing. The principal elevation faces north and is symmetrically arranged, with a flat-roofed red-brick porch abutting the central bay. This porch has yellow brick corner pilasters with decorative cornice courses; its north face features a round-headed arched window with coloured margin panes, whilst the front door, which has four raised and pointed panels with a rectangular fixed light over and cast-iron ironmongery, is positioned on the west face. Paired windows flank either side of the porch with matching diminished openings to first-floor level; a single window is centrally located above the porch. The left gable is rendered and abutted by a single-storey gable-ended pitched-roof extension with paired windows to the north face and a blank gable; this extension has uPVC windows to the rear with large roof lights. The right gable contains a single first-floor window opening. Windows are predominantly 2/2 timber sliding sash windows with horizontal glazing bars and horns, set on stone cills, although significant uPVC replacements exist to the rear and gable elevations. An 8/8 timber sliding sash window survives at ground-floor level in the right-hand bay adjacent to an extension. The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged and has been substantially altered with a centrally abutted double-height lean-to extension and a single-storey pitched-roof extension to the far right; uPVC windows are used throughout this elevation. Replacement uPVC barge and fascia boards and uPVC rainwater goods have been installed.

The site has deep historical significance as a stable-ground associated with the adjacent Maze Racecourse since at least around 1830. An earlier farmhouse existed on or near the site, first appearing on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map as an L-shaped building situated along Gravehill Road. The 1834 map showed the house together with numerous office buildings, many since demolished. The first recorded occupant was Robert Faughenden, who leased the farm from Hercules Bradshaw, Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for County Down, in 1861. At that time the house was valued at ten shillings, whilst its many offices were worth three pounds ten shillings. The property subsequently passed to James Cheyne between 1863 and 1879. The Annual Revisions of the Valuation records indicate that the buildings were primarily used as stables, where horses were reared for the adjoining racecourse. Adam Phoenix took possession of the farm and stables in 1883 and retained them until 1927. The 1901 Census shows Phoenix, then a farmer, residing with his wife Sarah and five children in a small two-room second-class dwelling. By 1911, Phoenix had constructed the substantially larger house that now stands, which comprised eleven rooms. The 1911 Census building return records that Phoenix owned an extensive farm consisting of over twenty farm buildings. The 1911 Census outbuildings return shows that Phoenix possessed eight stables, two cow houses, a piggery, a boiling house, a barn, two potato houses, and two fowl houses. A large outbuilding that first appeared on the 1834 map and stood at the entry to the Maze racecourse had been demolished by 1920; it likely housed many of the stables recorded in the 1911 Census owing to its proximity to the racecourse. The property was first named Ashfield on the 1919-20 Ordnance Survey map. Phoenix occupied the farm until 1927, when Fred Dougherty came into possession. Only a small stable building situated to the east of the house, which appeared on the earliest maps, survives from the original stable complex. A two-storey farm building to the south of the house also survives, though its original use as a stable block remains uncertain.

The outbuildings to the rear, whilst altered, may be earlier than the house itself and may represent structures surviving from the period when only stables and agricultural buildings occupied the site. Although much of the early 20th-century historic fabric and features have been retained externally, alterations and additions to the rear have affected the building's integrity.

The property is bounded to the west by a rendered wall with large squared piers at the driveway entrance accessed from the west. Gardens to the north and west contain various mature trees and vegetation. Hedges and fences bound the north of the site, beyond which lies the large racecourse complex. The south and east are bordered by historic brick outbuildings and modern agricultural units, with open rural landscape beyond.