Ballyloran House, Ballyhampton Road, Ballyloran, Larne, Co Antrim, BT40 2ST

Ballyloran House is a plain, somewhat Georgian-looking two-storey gabled farmhouse of 1868, set in wooded surroundings to the north of Ballyhampton Road, roughly a mile west of Larne. It has rendered façades and a large two-storey return to the rear which may contain the fabric of an earlier, probably 18th-century house. The listing covers the house, outbuildings, walls, and two sets of gates to the south side.

The front elevation faces directly east and is symmetrical. At the centre of the ground floor there is a panelled timber entrance door with a plain segmental arched fanlight, set within a segmental arched opening with moulded dressings. To the left of the entrance is a segmental arched window with a Georgian-paned sash frame of six panes over six and a simple moulded surround; to the right is an identical window. On the first floor there are three flat arched windows, positioned close to the eaves. The front façade is finished in plain painted render with moulded in-and-out quoins.

The south gable has two windows at ground floor level similar to those on the first floor of the front elevation, and a single window to the right on the first floor directly in line with the one below. The south gable is finished in painted roughcast with smooth render surrounds to the windows and a smooth rendered course to the verge.

The north gable merges with the north face of the two-storey return. On the first floor there are two windows as described elsewhere. On the ground floor to the right, stretching onto the ground floor of the return, is a small single-storey gabled porch with a timber-sheeted door to its north face and a small eight-pane window to the south. Immediately to the right of the porch, at ground floor level in the return, is a window similar to those on the gable but slightly smaller, and further right is a small six-pane window. On the first floor of the return, to the left and centre, are two windows matching those at ground floor level to the left. The north gable, porch, and north face of the return are all finished in painted roughcast with plain smooth render surrounds to the windows, and a smooth rendered course to the verge of the gable.

The west gable of the return contains a nine-pane window to the centre right on the ground floor and two very small, widely spaced four-pane windows on the first floor. This gable is finished in plain painted render with a smooth cement string course below first floor window level. On the south face of the return there is a timber-sheeted door to the far right at ground floor level, with a tiny four-pane window to its left. On the first floor are two windows similar to those on the first floor of the front elevation but slightly smaller. The lower half of this face is finished in plain painted render and the upper half in painted roughcast, with smooth cement surrounds to the openings.

On the rear of the main block there is a very narrow window to the far left at ground floor level, with a pointed arch head with cusps and a two-over-two sash frame. To the right of this is a tiny four-pane window, and to the far right a larger window matching those on the first floor of the front. On the first floor there is a similar window to the right and another at half-landing level to the left. To the far left on the first floor is a very narrow window matching the one at ground floor far left. The rear façade is finished in painted roughcast with plain smooth render surrounds to the windows.

The roof is covered in slate and carries three rendered chimneystacks to the main section of the house and a further one to the gable of the return. The main roof has an unusual slate-covered raised edge to the south gable. The roof originally had an overhang in typical late 19th-century fashion. To the south gable, the return gable, and the east end of the north gable there are squat piers with figurative finials. The rainwater goods appear to be wholly cast iron.

To the northwest of the house stands a very long one-and-a-half-storey gabled outbuilding in whitewashed rubble with a slated roof, dating from around 1835. To the south gable is a large segmental arched vehicle doorway with timber-sheeted double doors and a stone surround, flanked by three-pane pointed arched windows with another above to the left. On the long east face there are two timber-sheeted pedestrian doors roughly to the centre and a very large vehicle doorway to the far right. Windows of various sizes with various frames are interspersed across this face: six at ground floor level and two at the upper level touching on the eaves. From left to right at ground floor level these are: a very small four-pane window, a much larger window with a two-light Tudor arch frame, another very small four-pane window, one of the pedestrian doors, a very squat high-level two-pane window, the second pedestrian door, another squat high-level two-pane window, and the large vehicle doorway to the far right. The two upper-level windows each have four-pane frames. The west face of the building and the north gable appear to be completely blank. To the east of the long outbuilding is a much smaller single-storey outbuilding, a large section of the northern half of which had collapsed at the time of survey.

There are two drives to the house: one to the west leading to the rear, and one to the east leading to the front. The western drive appears much older, with curving rubble-built walls, large round rubble-built pillars with pyramidal caps, and unusual curving blacksmith-made wrought iron gates. The eastern gateway appears to be late 19th century, with a rendered wall, square rendered pillars with pyramidal caps, and a decorative iron gate.

By the time of a survey update in January 2011, the condition of the house and outbuildings had degraded to some extent. The external walls and plan form of the house remained intact, with windows and door openings as before but blocked up with concrete blocks. Two small windows and a door on the ground floor had had their concrete blocks removed, leaving the frames exposed. The roof remained covered in natural slate and was in reasonable condition without obvious defects, except for the small rear porch where the slates were largely missing. The outbuildings retained their general floor plan and external walling, but the various roofs had degraded substantially: the section of the outbuilding containing the decorative masonry openings had lost most of its roof covering including its structure, while the remainder of the roofing retained its roof structure but had lost more than half of its natural slate covering. The grassed area to the front of the house had become overgrown, some rubble had been dumped to the rear, and one of the wrought iron gates to the older entrance had been removed from its fixing but remained attached to the other gate.

The earliest house on this site was built around 1700 by the Reverend William Ogilvie, then minister of the Larne and Kilwaughter Presbyterian congregation. Ogilvie, a native of Scotland, had taken up his post as minister in 1699 and shortly afterwards married Jane, daughter of Patrick Agnew of the nearby Kilwaughter House. As part of the marriage settlement, Patrick Agnew gave Ogilvie a lease of the townland of Ballyloran, and by early 1700 the Larne and Kilwaughter Congregational records mention the presence of a dwelling house, barn, stable, and cow house. William Ogilvie died in 1712. A lease in the Killen Papers at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland shows that his descendants still held the property in 1800, but by 1835, when the first valuation of Ballyloran was carried out, it was in the hands of a John McFall. The original Ogilvie residence was probably still standing at that stage: the valuers recorded a very old, grade C+, low two-storey dwelling measuring 49 feet by 13 feet, along with some equally old single-storey outbuildings and a newly built two-storey outbuilding whose dimensions appear to match the present one to the west side of the house. The same buildings were still standing when the second valuation was carried out around 1860, but post-1863 annual valuation revision notebooks record that in 1868 the rateable value of the property almost doubled, rising from £6 10s 0d to £12 10s 0d, indicating that the present house was built at that time. Ordnance Survey map evidence shows that the new house was built at a completely different orientation from its predecessor; however, a comparison of pre- and post-1868 maps shows that the return of the present building appears to lie along the line of the original dwelling, suggesting that it may incorporate some of the fabric of the original structure. During the mid-1980s Ballyloran House lay vacant for some years before being restored by the then owner, a descendant of the McFalls. The cut stone Gothic windows in the outhouse were installed by that owner. The house, outbuildings, and gates were listed in 2002. In 2007 or 2008 Ballyloran House became vacant again and suffered vandalism in early 2009. Windows and doors were blocked up in April 2009 to secure the building against further damage.