7 School Lane, Ballymave, Ballinderry Upper, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 2NT

A 1½ storey, three-bay, modified hearth-lobby type vernacular dwelling predating 1830, located in the Townland of Ballymave, approximately 2.5 miles east of Upper Ballinderry on School Lane. The building retains most of its vernacular style and proportions externally, though the rear and interior have been significantly altered, resulting in loss of character. The setting has been compromised by the erection of a modern dwelling close by.

The dwelling has a linear plan form running parallel to School Lane. It features a pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles and smooth rendered and brick chimney stacks with cast-iron rainwater goods. The walling is ruled and lined rendered. Windows are 1/1 timber sliding sash with horns and stone cills. The front door is centrally located and embraced by a plain flat roofed porch; the door itself is four-panelled with glazed upper panels and brass ironmongery.

The principal elevation faces east and is asymmetrically arranged, with the front door centrally positioned, two windows to the left and a single window to the right at ground floor level, and four diminished windows at first floor level. The right gable is abutted by single storey outbuildings with cement rendered walling and slate roofing, with the furthest block partially demolished. The rear elevation is fully abutted by a single-storey extension dating from around 1950 with a catslide roof, featuring a centrally located flat roofed rear entrance porch flanked by the cat-slide extension, with window openings of various sizes. The left gable has a single window located at first floor level.

The setting includes a large modern dwelling adjacent to the north of the site and modern agricultural buildings to the west. There are extensive views across open rural landscape to the west and south. The front features a modern garden with gated piers and a low rise wall abutting the north elevation.

The house first appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832, where it is depicted as an oblong building, though it is unclear whether the currently adjoining office block had been constructed at that time. The house does not appear in the Townland Valuation of the 1830s. Griffith's Valuation for 1859 records that William Dawson let the house and its offices from the Marquis of Hertford. By 1857, the Ordnance Survey map clearly shows the adjoining single-storey outbuilding, which may have housed lodgers or farm hands. Griffith's Valuation valued Dawson's house and offices at £3 10s., whilst a second smaller dwelling on the same site was valued at 10 shillings. In 1883, a new stable block was constructed to the rear, raising the value to £4.

William Dawson purchased the house from the Marquis of Hertford in 1893 and occupied the site until his death in 1901 at the age of 79. The 1901 Census describes him as a Presbyterian Farmer living in the farmhouse with his wife Jane (75) and two of their children. The census building return of that year describes the house as a first class dwelling consisting of five rooms with a slate roof. The farmbuildings to the rear housed a cow house, fowl house, boiling house, a barn, a turf house and the surviving stable block. On his death, Dawson left effects of £99 10s. to his son George Dawson, who took over ownership. The 1911 Census records George Dawson (49) occupying the farm with his sister Agnes; he continued to reside there until the end of the Annual Revisions for the area in 1923.

Between 1900 and 1921, George Dawson constructed an additional outbuilding to the rear of the farmhouse, though this has since been replaced. Members of the Dawson family continued to occupy the dwelling until around the 1930s. The farm was subsequently occupied by a family named Davidson, who extended the rear of the dwelling around 1950. The house continued to be occupied until 2004, when it fell vacant. The exterior remains in reasonably good condition; however, part of the single-storey extension has fallen into disrepair and has been partially demolished. The stable outbuilding still survives, though the outbuilding erected between 1900 and 1920 has been replaced with a modern iron farmbuilding. The interior has few original features, having been refurbished numerous times, and now lies abandoned and falling into disrepair. The building has not been considered to meet the criteria for listing.