36 Ballytrim Road, Ballytrim, Killyleagh, Co Down, BT30 9TJ

36 Ballytrim Road, Ballytrim

A long, relatively plain two storey farm house set at the end of a lane to the south of Ballytrim Road, approximately two miles west of Killyleagh. The building probably began life as a single storey dwelling and was raised to two storeys in the mid 19th century. It was extended lengthways in around 1990 by raising the height and lengthening of a former barn section.

The front façade faces roughly north and is asymmetrical. The western portion is the original two storey section. This has a right of centre doorway with a plain sheeted timber door framed with pilaster mullions, two pane sidelights with aprons, and a three pane elliptical fanlight. To the right of the doorway are two sash windows with Georgian panes, and a single sash window with horizontal and vertical glazing bars arranged in an early Victorian rather than Georgian fashion. The first floor of this section has four windows similar to those on the ground floor. The eastern portion is marginally lower. The front façade here has three widely spaced windows to each floor, all with PVC frames made to echo the style of the original windows. The eastern gable is blank and has a small single storey lean-to boiler house attached. The western gable has a window to each floor, both with modern frames.

The rear façade of the original two storey western portion has been extended with a large two storey lean-to. This has three windows of varying size with modern frames and a stable door to the ground floor, with three relatively large modern windows to the first floor. To the right is a projecting section with a single ground floor window. The eastern portion of the house has four windows and a stable door to the ground floor and three windows to the first floor, all with modern frames.

The façade is finished in roughcast with large sections to the front now covered in creeping plant growth. The gabled roof of the original portion is covered in natural slate, while the extension roof appears to be finished in artificial slate. There are three chimney stacks: that to the west in yellow brick, that to the east in red brick, and that to the centre covered in plant growth but possibly yellow brick. The rainwater goods are mainly PVC. Single and two storey gabled outbuildings stand to the rear.

The property is recorded on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834, where contemporary valuation records indicate it was then a long single storey house with an attached single storey barn, belonging to a Robert Weaver. At some point in the mid to later 1800s, possibly in the 1860s, the dwelling was raised a storey. The barn was probably converted and integrated with the main house in the mid 20th century. In recent years, around 1990, the converted barn section was itself lengthened and raised in height, bringing its roof largely in line with the original house. The lean-to portion at the rear of the original house may have been added when the building was heightened in the 1860s. The Weaver family remained in possession of the property through the 1860s and, according to local accounts, stayed there well into the 1900s. Many of the windows, both in the original and new portions, have modern frames.