Legatirriff House, 17 Lough Road, Legatirriff, Ballinderry Upper, Lisburn, Co. Antrim, BT28 2HA

Legatirriff House is a rare surviving example of a two-storey, three-bay, lobby-entry thatched house, with a one-and-a-half-storey thatched annex attached to the south-east gable. The house dates from at least the early 19th century and possibly considerably earlier, and faces north-east, set a little distance back from the south-west side of Lough Road, roughly a mile from the main road running northwards from the Moira roundabout (Junction 9 of the M1 Motorway) towards Glenavy. It is an exceptionally uncommon building type, as very few two-storey thatched houses survive.

The external finish is roughcast throughout. The building sits behind a lawn edged by a beech hedge, which is pierced by an archway formed of ivy containing a hooped iron gate decorated with fleur-de-lis motifs. A low roughcast wall with projecting saddleback coping bounds the lawn on the north-west side.

The thatched roof covering is contained within concrete parapets. Exposed scallops form a decorative pattern along the block ridge, and there is no exposure at the eaves. Each gable rises to a corbelled and moulded chimneystack, and similar stacks occur over the kitchen hearth and over the inner wall of the living room. The right-hand stack carries one pot.

On the front elevation, the entrance door is a four-panel design with integral four-pane mouth-organ glazing in its upper portion. It is flanked on the right (north-west) by one, and on the left by two, six-over-six vertically sliding sash windows. These have exposed framing, sills of traditional depth, and no sash stops. Above each of these windows is a further light of similar construction in a three-over-three format. All openings on the front elevation are set within plain cement surrounds. The right-hand (north-west) gable has a single plain vertically sliding sash window.

At the rear, a timber-framed conservatory has been added to provide covered access between the main house and the annex; while this is an alteration, it does not significantly detract from the building overall. Approaching the conservatory from the north-west corner, the rear fenestration begins with a vertically sliding window whose sashes are each divided horizontally into two lights, with an unexposed frame, sash stops, and a sill of traditional depth. Next is a pair of three-by-two casement windows with exposed framing and a sill of intermediate depth, with a three-by-two casement above lighting a bedroom. The rear entrance door and a six-over-six vertically sliding window lighting the living room are situated within the conservatory, as is a three-by-two casement window lighting a further bedroom. A pitched-roof dormer has been inserted into the thatch to provide light and headroom for the bathroom; it has timber bargeboards and fascias, and its window is a six-over-six vertically sliding sash with exposed framing, sash stops, and a narrow sill.

The annex has a three-over-three vertically sliding window with exposed framing, sash stops, and a sill of traditional depth at the rear, a part-glazed door at the side, and a six-over-six vertically sliding window with exposed framing, sash stops, and a sill of traditional depth above. The annex was originally attached to the main house but has been adapted for use as a separate living unit; its earlier corrugated iron roof has been replaced with a thatched covering.

The plan of the house is little altered from its original form. The building retains most of its early features despite having been adapted for modern occupation.

The house is recorded on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832 and on all subsequent maps. The first valuation of around 1837 records it as the home of Jonathan Peel, with dimensions given as 45 feet by 20 feet by 12 feet — the same as today, excluding later additions such as the annex. A large range of single-storey thatched outbuildings, mostly on the opposite side of the road, was also recorded at that time. The valuers described the property as "neat" and assigned a relatively high rateable value of £5 14s 0d. The quality designation "2B+" indicated that the house was considered to be at least 20 years old at that point, and possibly considerably older. The Peel name is recorded in Legatirriff as far back as 1729, when a Mark Peel is identified as a major landholder in the townland on an estate map of that year, though documentation relating specifically to this house before the 1830s is lacking. The second valuation book of 1859 records identical details to those of 1834, implying no alterations had been carried out in the intervening period, though the rateable value had fallen by four shillings. Later 19th- and early 20th-century valuations note no changes to the house or outbuildings. Jonathan Peel was succeeded by James Peel in 1889, who remained there until at least 1916. A small outbuilding at the rear, matching that shown on the 1966 Ordnance Survey map, appears on the 1857 map.

The thatching history is well documented. In 1976, Robert Douglas of Ballygowan re-thatched the roof using wheat straw, and the covering was flameproofed at the same time. Irish Thatchers Ltd. repaired the roof in 1981, with emergency repairs subsequently carried out by Bob Stevenson later that year following damage caused by birds. In May 1985, Dr Alan Gailey approved the replacement of roof timbers and an alteration to the roof pitch; Bob Stevenson then re-thatched the roof using reed. In 1992, Brian Rogers of Sligo repaired the reed thatch using rye straw. At the time of a survey in 1994, part of the roof structure was noted as "modern."