64 Dromara Road, Banbridge, Castlewellan, County Down, BT31 9UF

Detached former farmhouse at 64 Dromara Road, Banbridge, built around 1820 and substantially altered in 1927. The building began as a single-storey vernacular structure and was raised to two storeys in the early 1880s, then further improved in 1927. It is currently vacant.

The house is rectangular on plan, three bays wide, facing northeast towards Dromara Road where it sits at a slightly lower level than the road itself. The pitched roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, cement parged verges, and four profiled rendered chimneystacks. Cast-iron guttering on iron drive-through brackets and cast-iron downpipes serve the roof. The walls are painted ruled-and-lined cement render with rusticated rendered quoins and a rendered plinth course. The south gable is blank rendered but has some exposed rubblestones visible at the base. The north gable is also blank rendered.

The front elevation is three bays with a flat-roofed single-storey rendered entrance porch abutting the main structure and opening into an enclosed front garden. Square-headed window openings contain single-pane timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes, inserted around 1930, set above concrete sills. A rendered date plaque inscribed '1927' set in pebbles marks the principal improvement campaign. The rear elevation is cement rendered with single-pane timber sash windows and steel casement windows, and is abutted by a gable-fronted single-storey rear extension opening onto a concrete paved rear yard.

The setting comprises an enclosed front garden with rendered boundary walls and a concrete paved drive running along the south gable. A single-storey rubblestone outbuilding lines the drive to the south. A barn of iron posts and corrugated iron roof stands to the north of the house, added in 1939.

Historical development: A rectangular structure occupied this site from at least 1833–34, as shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map. In Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, the property was valued at £1 10 shillings and occupied by Michael Conalty, a tenant farmer leasing the house and 12 acres from the Earl of Annesley at an annual rent of £7 18 shillings. The house subsequently passed to Bridget Conalty in 1878 and Peter McCarron in 1881. A significant rise in valuation from £1 10 shillings to £3 in 1881, then to £4 10 shillings in 1882, indicates that the building was raised to two storeys and improved at this time. Hugh Carroll took over the farm in 1900 but died soon afterwards, leaving his widow Anna and two sons aged 18 and 20. Valuer's notes from 1901 describe the house as second class with four rooms, comprising two bays with a single-storey extension to the south. A photograph from around this period shows the lime-rendered house with its original porch. Isaac Henry Stevenson acquired the property in 1912 and undertook substantial improvements in 1927, including raising the west wing to add an extra bedroom and extending the porch—improvements commemorated by the datestone. The valuation rose to £5 10 shillings following these works. The house comprised two reception rooms, a kitchen, scullery and pantry on the ground floor, with three bedrooms above. Part of the ground floor was used as a barn. A barn of iron posts and corrugated iron roof was added in 1939, prompting a further increase in the valuation of the agricultural buildings to £3 10 shillings. Isaac Henry Stevenson died on 23 November 1938, and the property passed to Margaret Stevenson and Scott Henry Stevenson in 1948. The house was then described as a 'substantial rubble masonry and slate building in fair condition'. The dwelling now stands vacant.