Montalto House, Dromore Road, Ballymaglave north, Ballynahinch, Co Down, BT24 8PX

Montalto House is a large three-storey mansion in a restrained late Georgian, mildly classical style, set within an extensive demesne to the south of Ballynahinch. It has a hipped roof, a central full-height canted bay to the front elevation, and a facade finished in render and sandstone. The listing extends beyond the house itself to include a screen wall, a water tower, and a former butler's residence.

ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT

The estate lies within lands granted to Sir George Rawdon by King Charles I around 1641–42. Although the Rawdon family helped develop the town of Ballynahinch, none of them lived there regularly until around 1752, when John Rawdon — recently elevated to the peerage as Lord Moira and freshly married for the third time — began building a house and improving the demesne. This early house appears to have been two storeys, relatively plain, and possibly south-facing. A glimpse of it survives in Thomas Robinson's contemporary painting of the 1798 Battle of Ballynahinch, which was fought within the estate itself. That view, looking southward from the battlefield, shows what is likely the rear of the house with an oblique view of the east elevation: an informal three-bay rear elevation with the centre and right (west) bays gabled, the left bay canted and hipped, and a further canted bay visible on the east side. The last two of these bays are probably those visible today on the east and north-east.

Lord Moira was elevated to an earldom in 1761 and died in 1793. In 1802, his son, the 2nd Earl of Moira, sold the Ballynahinch estate to David Ker of Portavo, near Donaghadee. An account from the following year records that the new owner enlarged some of the windows and repainted much of the building, but later accounts confirm he did not alter the overall form of the house. The Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows the building as a large square block, which, as suggested above, appears to have faced south rather than east at that point.

THE 1837 TRANSFORMATION

In 1837, David Ker's grandson, David Stewart Ker, carried out radical changes to the house. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs recorded in April of that year: "Montalto…was a plain two-storey house; it is now undergoing additions and repairs in the following manner: the house is built on a rock which Mr Ker has caused to be excavated round the foundation and under the house, thus forming an under-storey which is supported by numerous arches and pillars." The house was therefore raised in height not by adding a new storey on top, but by creating one from below — described by the Memoir writer as a startling feat of engineering, though it may in practice have involved enlarging an existing basement level, perhaps in a section where the ground was already uneven and part of the lower storey already partially exposed.

This same campaign of works appears to have involved the addition of a large new wing to the north, the remodelling of the south wing, and the relocation of the main entrance from the south to the east. The logic of this last change is supported by the existence of a room — believed to be the ladies' sitting room — that experts agree has retained its fine circa 1760s plasterwork and is possibly the only room in the building to have survived in its 18th-century form. If the present east front had always been the front facade and had always been symmetrical, the original hallway would have occupied the space now taken by this room. The entrance must therefore have been elsewhere before 1837.

In the years following 1837, further additions were made: a two-storey hipped-roof ballroom section was built at the south-west corner, a service wing was added to the rear, and outbuildings were constructed to the north-west. The ground immediately around the house was landscaped, with rock and earth from the excavations apparently piled up to form the mound to the north-east and possibly also the terrace to the south.

In 1910, the Montalto estate was acquired by the 5th Earl of Clanwilliam — local tradition suggests the Ker family lost it to him in a card game. It appears that the newly married Earl needed a new family home in any case, as his bride had declined to live in the family seat of Gill Hall near Dromore on the grounds that it was haunted. In 1953, the 6th Earl demolished the ballroom section and the service wing to the rear. During this period, land to the west of the estate was leased to the Spa Golf Club for a new nine-hole course, and other peripheral portions were sold off for housing. In 1979, the 6th Earl sold the estate to a consortium of businessmen who used the house for conferences and the land for forestry and farming. In January 1985, an extensive fire led to the demolition of the north wing, the rear apartments, and part of the rear of the south wing. The house was acquired by its present owner in 1995, at which point a new, smaller north wing was added in a sympathetic design, and the damaged portion of the south wing was restored.

EXTERIOR — EAST (FRONT) FACADE

The principal facade faces roughly east-southeast and is symmetrical. At its centre is a full-height projecting canted bay with a hipped roof, constructed in ashlar sandstone. This bay is canted at first- and second-floor levels but square in plan at ground level. The main entrance is set at the centre of the ground-floor east face of this bay. It consists of a mainly glazed door framed by fluted Doric three-quarter column jambs, flanked by large sidelights with margin panes and plain aprons. Plain pilasters mark the outer edges of the sidelights. The entire door-and-sidelight ensemble is crowned by a modillioned frieze with cornice, forming a shallow bay within the main porch bay. The outer corners of the porch itself carry plain pilasters, with ornamental iron lamps attached to the wall in the space between these pilasters and the shallow inner bay. The short north and south faces of the porch bay each have edge pilasters and a central semicircular arched recess.

At first-floor level, each face of the central canted bay has a Georgian-paned sash window (six-over-six) with a simple surround with frieze and entablature. At second-floor level, the windows are noticeably shorter (three-over-six) with plainer surrounds. On the ground floor, to either side of the projecting bay, are tall semicircular arched recesses. Beyond each of these is a single outer window of matching arched form, with a sash frame (ten-over-six). At first- and second-floor levels, two windows appear on either side of the bay, matching those on the corresponding levels of the bay itself. All first- and second-floor windows rest on a string course. The outer portions of the facade are in lime-washed lined render, while the string course, eaves course, and central bay are in sandstone. Almost all windows throughout the house have sash frames.

EXTERIOR — SOUTH FACADE

The south facade of the south wing was probably the front of the original 18th-century house, though it appears to have been altered during the 1837 remodelling. The facade divides into two sections of different character. To the left, the roofline is lower and the facade reads as two-storey, while to the right it is also two-storey on the south side — though, as described below, the left-hand section is actually three-storey to the rear.

The left-hand portion is largely symmetrical, with a full-height canted hipped-roof bay. There are three windows to each floor on the bay itself, and two to each side of each floor beyond it. All windows are semicircular arched with sash frames (ten-over-six at ground level, seven-over-six at first floor). At the centre of the ground-floor face of the bay, the arched opening contains a glazed door, though there may originally have been a window here. To the right edge of the three-storey right-hand portion of the south facade is a further full-height bay similar to the one just described, but rendered rather than sandstone-faced, and canted at ground-floor level. Windows appear on each face of this bay at each level; ground-floor windows are arched as elsewhere on this facade, while those at first and second floor match the bay windows on the east front. To the left of this right-hand bay at ground level are two further arched windows. At first-floor level to the left of the bay is a window matching the bay windows themselves, and to its right a large tripartite window (four-over-four, six-over-six, four-over-four) with thick pilaster mullions set on brackets, and a plain frieze and cornice. At second-floor level there are three windows matching the second-floor bay windows. The entire south facade, except for the string and eaves courses, is in lined render.

EXTERIOR — NORTH FACADE

The north facade of the north wing closely mirrors the south facade in reverse. To the left, the three-storey section has a bay to the far left in the position corresponding to the right-hand bay on the south facade. The ground and first floors to the right of this bay match the equivalent area on the south facade, with the addition of one extra single sash window at each level. At ground floor there is an arched window to the left (as on the south facade ground floor), with two smaller flat-arched windows to the right, both six-over-six. The two-storey section to the right has its canted bay to the left-hand side. Each face of this bay at each level has an arched-headed window, all seven-over-six. To the right of the bay there are three similar windows at each level. The north facade is rendered in the same manner as the south.

EXTERIOR — REAR ELEVATION

The rear elevation is composed of several elements: to the left, the gable of the two-storey section of the north wing; to the right, the uneven gable of the south wing; and at the centre, set further back, the exposed rear facade of the main front wing. A recently added single-storey corridor link, positioned some distance in front of the rear facade of the front wing, spans between the north and south wings, creating a small courtyard containing a garden area. The whole rear elevation is finished in lined render.

The gable of the north wing has an arched window (seven-over-six) to the first floor left, and a taller arched window (ten-over-six) set at an intermediate stairwell level to the right. The gable of the south wing has an uneven appearance, reflecting the fact that the wing is three-storey on its north side and two-storey on its south side. There are two flat-arched windows to the left, both six-over-six and both set at intermediate stairwell levels.

On the rear facade of the main front wing, the ground floor has a small four-pane window to the far left and far right. Above this is a large multi-paned Georgian semicircular arched window lighting the main stairwell, flanked to left and right by a small six-pane window. At second-floor level there are two six-over-six windows, with a tiny single-pane window to the left on a section that was likely once an internal wall of the north wing.

The north-facing facade of the south wing is three-storey and entirely in lined render. At ground level there are three semicircular arched windows (seven-over-six) to the left and centre; to the right, the facade is abutted by the linking corridor. At first-floor level there are five plain windows (six-over-six), with five similar but smaller windows (also six-over-six) at second-floor level.

The south-facing facade of the north wing is two-storey. At ground level there are three windows matching the ground-floor windows just described, with four windows at first-floor level also in the same style. This facade is also in lined render.

The linking corridor is single-storey with a flat roof and appears to be entirely timber-clad. The centre of its west face has a large, mainly glazed double door flanked by large tripartite windows (two-over-two, six-over-six, two-over-two). The rear east face appears to have a similar arrangement.

ROOF AND EXTERNAL DETAILS

The roof is largely hipped and entirely slated. There is a lead-sheeted parapet. Five rendered chimney stacks have corbelling in what appears to be sandstone, with matching pots. Rainwater goods are in cast iron.

NORTH BOUNDARY WALL AND ASSOCIATED STRUCTURES

Stretching from the right-hand edge of the north facade is a tall rubble wall with brick dressings. At its south end is a large gateway with what appear to be recently installed metal gates. At its north end, the wall terminates in an unusual three-storey flat-roofed garden tower of pre-1858 construction, also built in rubble and brick but topped with a sandstone frieze course and cornice. The tower has glazed windows to the east and semicircular arched recesses to the south and north. On the south side, a staircase and walkway — built to the rear of the high wall — leads to a first-floor semicircular arched doorway. To the west, the tower is abutted by a relatively small single-storey gabled return belonging to a not insubstantial two-storey gabled house, believed to have been the butler's residence. This house is finished in what appears to be recently applied lined render with brick dressings and quoins. Its windows are generally small, filled with two-over-two sash frames, and its doors are timber-framed, with one large partly glazed patio door also in evidence. The principal entrance appears to be on the south face of the small single-storey return to the east. To the west facade, a large utilitarian single-storey garage extension with a mono-pitched roof has been attached. The main gabled roof is slated and there are three brick chimney stacks, one of which rises from the garage extension.

SETTING

The house is set within a large demesne to the south of Ballynahinch, with wooded areas to the north, south, and west. To the east lies a small lake roughly in the shape of a fish.