Lissue House, 31 Ballinderry Road, Lisburn, Co.Antrim, BT28 2SL

Lissue House is a detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey rendered former country house, originally built around 1805 and remodelled with a pair of full-height bowed bays around 1900. The building is rectangular on plan, facing south, with a series of rear returns and extensions constructed between 1850 and 1950. The house was known as Lissue Hospital from approximately 1945 until 1988, after which it fell into disrepair until the current owners undertook extensive renovations around 2000.

The roof structure comprises hipped natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, set behind a rendered parapet wall with moulded coping. Rebuilt render chimneystacks have lead-lined coping. Replacement box hoppers and downpipes break through the parapet wall below the parapet cornice on the main elevations, whilst the rear and east elevations are fitted with ogee-moulded iron guttering.

The walls are finished in painted cement render with a deep moulded cornice to the front and west side elevations. The front block has a Portland limestone ashlar plinth course, whilst the remainder has a render plinth course. Window openings are square-headed with moulded Portland limestone sills to the front elevation and plain masonry sills elsewhere. The front block and west elevations have replacement uPVC windows, whilst the rear and rear accretions to the east retain replacement timber sash windows.

The symmetrical front elevation features a central Ionic portico in antis flanked by full-height bowed bays to either end. The portico comprises a pair of Ionic columns flanked by a pair of Ionic piers, supporting a full entablature with pulvinated frieze, all resting on a pair of nosed sandstone steps. Within the portico sits a square-headed door opening with replacement hardwood raised and fielded panelled doors, opening onto three nosed semi-circular sandstone steps.

The west side elevation is extended as a series of two-storey accretions abutted by a canopy supported on Doric piers. The west wing continues further north, built around 1950, with an open passageway leading to the rear yard. The rear elevation is abutted by a series of two-storey returns and extensions with various roof formations. The central return features a Venetian window lighting the stairwell and is generally glazed with replacement timber sash windows. The east side elevation comprises a further series of projections and recessed sections fitted with replacement timber sash windows, except the single-bay side elevation to the front block which has uPVC windows.

The house sits on an elevated landscaped site overlooking surrounding countryside at the end of a long winding avenue. A paved yard at the rear is enclosed to the west by the 1950s wing, to the north by a tall rendered wall, and to the east by an embankment wall and part of an original two-storey former outbuilding (the western section of which has been demolished and replaced by a wall). The remaining outbuilding is rendered with a natural slate roof; most windows are blocked up but remains of sliding sash 6/6 windows are visible. Further north is an extensive stable complex with 20th-century alterations including inserted garages. This complex features hipped natural slate roofs, roughcast render walls, metal-grilled windows, boarded timber ceilings, stable doors and garage doors, and concrete built-in feeders internally.

Further west is an extensive range of original estate accommodation and offices, consisting of a long range of rendered or stone and red-brick single-storey buildings, some now roofless with windows missing or blocked up. To the west of the main house are the remains of an original walled garden. North-east of the house in woodland stands a circular lime kiln constructed of rubble stone with a red-brick high semi-circular access arch with two further diminishing concrete arches above the draw hole and a brick screen wall at the top.

The avenue opens onto Ballinderry Road to the south-east via a replacement gate screen with a three-bay single-storey rendered gate lodge, now boarded up and unused.