Ardilea House, 8 Ardilea Road, Clough, Downpatrick, BT 30 8SL

Ardilea House is a relatively large, sprawling and irregular house, part single storey and part two storeys, believed to date originally from the 1740s. It was possibly significantly altered in the later 18th century, again around 1857, and received some additions in the 1970s. Despite these many changes, the house retains definite architectural and historic interest.

The building is situated on the north side of Ardilea Road, approximately one and a half kilometres south-south-east of the small village of Clough. To the south-west is a two-storey hipped-roofed section with a full-height canted bay and a gabled entrance porch, while stretching away from this to the north-east is a long, plain single-storey gabled wing. The building appears with roughly the same plan form as today on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map, though evidence indicates there were formerly more two-storey sections. The sheer irregularity of the composition and its lack of any recognisable architectural style, combined with extensive recent internal renovations, have made it difficult to discern the sequence of the building's development.

The front entrance is set within a small gabled porch on the south-west face of the two-storey block. To the left of the north-west side is the main four-panel front door. The south-west and south-east faces of the porch each have matching six-paned casement windows. The gable overhangs the south-west elevation and carries a decorative fretwork bargeboard. The porch roof is covered with natural blue-grey slate. Directly above the porch is a large semicircular-headed sash window with coloured leaded panes; the arched head and present frame were both added around 1979. The south-west elevation of the main house is otherwise blank.

To the centre of the south-east face of the two-storey portion is a full-height, three-sided (chamfered) bay. Each face of the bay has a modern top-hung window at both ground and first floor level, with Georgian-style panes. The south-east elevation also has a small single-storey bay set to the right side, with a modern top-hung window to each of its three faces, all with panes as before. This bay has a hipped slated roof. Directly above it is a further small top-hung window of the same type.

The ground floor of the north-west side of the two-storey portion is occupied by a full-width lean-to extension. To the bottom left is a small six-paned fixed window, while to the far right is a multi-paned corner window with top-opening lights. Above the lean-to roof, on the main façade, is a small six-paned casement window with a side opener.

To the north-east is the long single-storey gabled section. Its south-east elevation has four widely spaced windows with multiple-paned modern frames as described above. The north-east gable is blank and is separated from a single-storey outbuilding by a narrow gap. The north-west side of this section has one top-hung window of the same type at the far right; the remainder of the elevation is obscured by a long single-storey flat-roofed extension containing three small windows with modern frames and two modern panelled doors, arranged alternately window and door. The north-east side of the flat-roofed extension abuts the side of a large two-storey hipped-roofed outbuilding. To the north-east of the main house there is also a large collection of single and two-storey outbuildings.

The walls are largely roughcast rendered, though an ivy-like creeper covers much of the external walling of the two-storey section. All roofs, with the exception of the flat-roofed extension, are covered with natural blue-grey slate. At the apex of the two-storey portion's roof is a wide chimney stack without a pot. The rainwater goods appear to be mainly cast iron.

The house was originally known as Belville and is mentioned in Walter Harris's 1744 account of the history and topography of County Down. The date of construction and the person responsible for it remain uncertain. The property may have been extended, or possibly largely rebuilt, in 1748, as this date is said to have been inscribed on a portion of the house that was demolished around 1857. The building appears on Taylor's and Skinner's 1777 road map of the Dundrum and Clough area, though it is not named. In 1770 Belville is known to have been occupied by a Hugh O'Neill. It is said to have subsequently been home to a Captain Hoey and then to Edward Southwell Ruthven, though the exact dates of either occupancy are not known. The property was advertised to let by the landlord David S. Ker in September 1789. Ruthven, who was born in 1773, moved in 1813 to lands he had inherited at Crossgar and thence to London, where he died; he may have lived at Belville immediately before 1813, but, given his age, probably not before the mid-1790s. After Ruthven's departure — how long after is uncertain — the lease was acquired by the Reverend William Annesley, who remained there until around the 1840s.

The Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows the house with much the same plan as today, but with a larger portion on the site of the present two-storey hipped-roofed outbuilding to the north-east, and a slightly longer wing extending to where the porch now stands. The near-contemporary valuation returns record that the building, which the valuers indicated was largely 18th century in origin, comprised several two-storey portions — one measuring 31½ feet by 29 feet by 20 feet, another 28½ by 20 by 20 feet, and a third (apparently containing the kitchen and servants' quarters) at 31 by 22½ by 17½ feet — together with various single-storey sections. It is not possible to establish exactly where the other two-storey sections stood, but the apparent discrepancies between the present plan form and that shown in 1834 are no doubt significant.

Some time before 1846, Reverend Annesley built himself a new residence on rising ground a few yards to the west of his existing home, which he named Ardilea House. Belville is believed to have lain vacant for a period thereafter. In 1857 a wing of the property — bearing the aforementioned date of 1748 — is said to have been demolished, though its full extent is unknown. Strangely, the 1858 Ordnance Survey map shows the building much as it appeared in 1834, but with a broader section where the porch now stands, almost as though something had been added rather than removed. This apparent anomaly could be partly explained if what was taken down in 1857 was the upper floor of one of the two-storey portions recorded in the 1830s valuation, leaving the overall plan form largely unchanged. Whatever the case, the construction of Ardilea House clearly resulted in a downgrading in status for its older neighbour — so much so that the earlier property is not even named on the 1858 map.

The later history of the house is obscure. Reverend Annesley appears to have died around 1860, and Ardilea House was subsequently occupied by David S. Ker, whose family held the freehold of the townland. Alexander Knox, writing in his 1875 History of County Down, records that Ardilea had passed from Ker to a Mr Hastings, whose family still held it at that date, and also states that the "old mansion of Belville" remained "undisturbed" — suggesting that much of the older building was still largely intact but vacant. This may have remained the case until at least 1886, as Bassett's directory of that year lists Ardilea as the home of one James Taylor while making no mention of Belville. During the mid-20th century a reversal of fortunes occurred: Ardilea House fell into decay and was eventually demolished, at around 1965, and its name was subsequently adopted by the still largely intact older building. The present owner acquired the renamed Ardilea House in 1968 from a Mr Campbell, who had himself purchased it from a Mr Kennedy in 1961. In 1978–79 the owner added extensions to the north-west side and completely renovated the interior.