Well House, Near 14 Brae Road, Creevytenant, Ballynahinch

Well House

This modest utilitarian structure stands in a pastoral landscape south of Brae Road near Ballynahinch. Although seemingly incongruous in its setting, it has been carefully executed in distinctive Belfast City & District Water Commissioners style, with excellent use of contrasting yellow brick for embellishment. It is of considerable historical interest as part of Belfast's first water supply system drawn from the Mourne Mountains.

The building is a single-storey, single-bay well house positioned over the Mourne conduit, oriented north to south in the middle of a field. It contains a valve to regulate the flow of water within the conduit. The pitched natural slate roof is dressed with terracotta ridge tiles and raised chamfered concrete verges, fitted with ogee cast-iron gutters. The walls are constructed of roughly squared random rubble Silurian masonry over a raised base course. Yellow brick provides decorative trimming throughout: to the roof verges, stepped quoins, window and door heads (in flat segmental profile) and jambs (also stepped), on projecting eaves, and on the chamfered top to the base course. Concrete is used for kneeler stones at the top of the quoins, at the gable apex, and in sloping window cills. The south gable contains a double-leaf metal door set within a semicircular headed opening. Circular brick-trimmed louvred openings are positioned at the apex of both the south and north gables. The remaining walls each contain a set of 2 over 2 timber-framed sliding sash windows, all protected by metal frames. The building is surrounded by a thorn hedge with a wrought-iron access gate at the south, whose posts bear ball heads embossed "BWC" (Belfast Water Commissioners).

The Mourne Conduit, which conveyed water to Belfast from the Annalong and Kilkeel rivers, was advertised for construction by the Belfast City & District Water Commissioners in 1896. This well house is one of four identical structures on the conduit, designed by Water Commissioners Engineer L.L. Macassey and erected in the second half of the 1890s. A fifth similar structure exists at Dunnywater. All came into service following the opening of the service reservoir at Knockbreckan in October 1901. This particular well house is positioned at the south end of the Bow Lough siphon—a piped underground section carrying water across a valley. It housed a valve which automatically regulated water flow into the siphon pipe and controlled internal water pressure, with capacity to cut off supply when necessary for inspection. The structure was constructed by Messrs Fisher and LeFanu, who also laid this section of the conduit.

The listing includes both the well house and the access gate.