Ashleigh, 85 Bryansford Road, Newcastle, Co. Down, BT33 OLF

Ashleigh is a substantial two-storey house in the late Regency style dating from around 1840, situated at the end of a winding drive north of Bryansford Road, approximately half a mile northwest of Newcastle town centre in County Down.

The main building is roughly square in plan with a projecting porch to the front and a long narrow wing extending to the north, which links to outbuildings. The front (west) façade is symmetrical. At the centre of the ground floor stands a large projecting porch with a slightly projecting bay. Granite steps lead to a broad timber-panelled door on the west front of the porch, topped by a fanlight with chamfered top corners and margin panes. The outer edges of the porch feature pilasters with arched panels supporting an entablature with a simply decorated central panel and projecting cornice. Above this is a parapet with thick outer piers and a pierced balustrade. The north and south faces of the porch each have a narrow window with chamfered top corners and sash windows with margin panes, with plain pilasters to the inner sides. Either side of the porch is a single sash window with Georgian 6 over 6 panes, moulded surround and granite cill on moulded brackets. Three windows to the first floor are smaller than those to the ground floor, with 6 over 3 Georgian sash frames; each has a similar surround to the ground floor, though the windows and cills themselves are raised slightly above the cill course. The south façade has three ground floor windows and three first floor windows, matching the arrangement of the front façade, with the centre windows to each floor being dummies.

The wing extending north appears to have been added in various stages. The largest section abuts the north façade of the main house and is two storeys with a gabled roof. A two-storey lean-to section is attached to the right side of this façade, largely obscured by a tree. The west façade of the large gabled section has a timber lean-to section attached at first floor level. At its north end, this timber section is supported on narrow timber pillars, spanning between the north gable of the two-storey section and the west façade of a smaller two-storey gabled section. At the south end, the timber lean-to spans over an enclosed corridor formed by a glazed door screen between the large gabled wing and a rendered wall some metres to the west, partially covered with lead. The exposed upper section of the north façade of the main house has a centrally placed window with stained glass, without a surround. Directly below this, where the roof of the large two-storey gabled section intersects the two-storey lean-to against the main north façade, is a domed roof light. The upper floor of the lean-to to the main north façade has a casement window; the timber section has three similar casement windows. Two doorways are present on the ground floor of the west façade of the smaller two-storey gabled section; the left doorway forms an entrance to a passage leading to the rear garden. This gabled section links to the south façade of a complex of two and single-storey outbuildings forming a courtyard to the north. The entire north wing complex has its own yard to the south of the outbuildings, enclosed to the west by the rendered wall, set at a slightly lower level than the ground to the west of the wall.

The east façade of the main house features a bay on its right (north) side, with a window to the first floor and a broad window directly below at ground floor level topped by a cornice hood with margin panes as well as Georgian panes. To the left of this façade are two ground floor windows and two first floor windows. The west façade of the largest gabled section of the north wing has three windows to the first floor with modern PVC frames and three ground floor windows also with modern frames, some of which appear to have been recently enlarged. The smaller gabled section has two first floor windows with 2 over 2 sash frames, a small porch-like lean-to on the ground floor to the left, and a much larger sash window with Edwardian glazing with a lean-to greenhouse to the right.

The entire building is rendered and painted. The main house has granite quoins. The roof of the main house is hipped with a considerable overhang and exposed rafter ends, featuring natural slate and a small gabled dormer probably added around 1900 on the north side, with what appears to be a sash window. The roofs of the different sections of the north wing show a mixture of natural and asbestos slate. There are four rendered chimney stacks to the main roof with a similar potless stack to the gable of the large two-storey section to the north.

The house is shown on the 1859 Ordnance Survey map and dates from around 1840. The second valuation of circa 1863 records the house in the hands of Reverend William Slacke, which may suggest it was built as a rectory or manse. Much of the northern wing appears to be original, as indicated on the 1859 map, though the timber lean-to and two-storey lean-to may be later additions dating from around 1900 to 1910.