Mill Hill, 52 Church Road, Ballynahinch, Co. Down, BT24 8LP

Mill Hill is a largely symmetrical, two-storey Georgian house built in 1786, located at the end of a drive to the northeast of Church Road on the southern outskirts of Ballynahinch. The building is double piled with its rear portion set back, creating a plan form of two staggered rectangles.

The house is rendered and painted, with lined render applied to the front façade. The corners of the main front section are finished with quoins. A flight of four stone steps, reducing in pyramid fashion, rise to the southwest-facing main entrance. The threshold step bows out slightly. The central panelled front door is framed with simple chamfered pilasters with well-worn capitals, surmounted by a plain rectangular fanlight which in turn is surmounted by a semicircular fanlight with lace pattern. The pilasters sit on a small chamfered base and have the date 1786 inscribed into their well-worn capitals. The pilaster shafts are recent replacements and appear too broad, but the capitals appear to be original. The pilasters support a split pediment.

To the left and right of the door are two window openings with moulded surrounds and modern slim concrete cills. These ground floor windows are recent insertions, replacing two large picture windows from the 1970s, which in turn replaced two late Victorian single storey bay windows (the outline of which can still be seen on the render). To the first floor are five evenly spaced windows with sash frames containing vertical astragals (2 panes over 2). The ground floor windows do not quite line up with those on the first floor. To the left and set back is the southwest face of the rear rectangle, which has a single window to ground and first floor, the lower one with horizontal astragals and the upper with vertical astragals.

The southeast gable of the main front portion is blank except for two small attic sash windows. The southeast gable of the rear section has an off-centre sash window with vertical astragals to both ground and first floors, and a centred window opening with modern timber frame to the second floor. The left side of the northwest façade of the main house has one sash window to first floor. The right side is obscured by the rear rectangle. The rear section has two window openings to the first floor, the left one being smaller, both with modern frames. The ground to the rear rises, resulting in the cill to kitchen windows being level with the outside ground level. The kitchen has a wide modern strip window to the northeast face. The northwest gable of the main house has two small attic windows with modern pivot frames, and to the left side of ground and first floor is a window opening with a sash window containing vertical astragals. The northwest gable of the rear portion has two small windows at attic level.

The roof is covered with Bangor Blue slate and both sections have overhanging eaves and verges with plain barge boards. There is a chimney stack to each gable of the front section and to the northwest gable of the rear section; all appear to have been rebuilt in fairly recent times. Rainwater goods are mainly cast iron. The roof, with its overhang, appears to be a late Victorian reconstruction.

According to the front door surround, the house was built in 1786. It is probably the building shown on William Byers's map of Ballynahinch dating to around 1790, then named "Mill field" and in the possession of a Mr. Hamilton. The building is shown much as today on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834, when according to valuation records it was home to a John Mulholland. By 1863 it was in the hands of a William Lightbody and had adopted the present name of Mill Hill. It remained home to the Lightbody family in 1886. The present owner's family acquired the property around 1940.

The front façade has witnessed significant alteration over the years. It formerly sported single storey hipped roof bays, probably late Victorian additions. The current owner removed these bays around 1973, replacing them with large picture windows. These windows were in turn replaced recently with two smaller windows to either side, returning the façade to something of its original feel. The pilaster shafts to the entrance doorcase have also been replaced.