Former schoolhouse, ?4 Drumaness Road, Ballymaglave South, Ballynahinch, Co Down, BT24 8LS

Former Schoolhouse, Drumaness Road

This small single-storey house with a hipped roof stands on the east side of Drumaness Road near its intersection with Crabtree Road, on the south-east outskirts of Ballynahinch, County Down. The building was originally constructed around 1818 as a schoolhouse, probably commissioned by Reverend Charles Boyd, Vicar of Magheradroll parish, whose glebe house (now Millbrook Lodge Hotel) stood nearby to the south. The school remained in operation throughout most of the 19th century as a property of the Parochial and Church Education Society, and is recorded in contemporary directories until the early 1900s, after which it was converted into a private dwelling. The building remained largely unchanged externally until the 1990s, when it underwent substantial extension and modernisation.

The front façade faces north-west and is asymmetrical in composition. A small gabled porch with a timber-sheeted door to its south-west face and a small window to the north-west face sits to the right of centre. The remainder of the front façade is fenestrated with two windows to the left of the porch and one to the right, all fitted with modern frames. The north-east façade features a recessed timber-sheeted door at its centre with a single window on either side. The left side of this façade adjoins the front of a flat-roofed garage. The south-west façade is shorter and contains one central window. The rear façade has a window to the left, with a projecting flat-roofed extension to its right featuring French doors on the south-west face. A small window is set into the south-east face of this extension. To the right, a flat-roofed return projects from the extension, with a small window on its exposed south-west face, connecting to the garage on its south-east side.

The exterior is finished in unpainted rough cast. The hipped roof features an overhang and is covered in artificial slate, with a single central rendered chimney stack. Rainwater goods are PVC.

The 1990s extensions and modernisations significantly altered the building from its original form, though the core structure and hipped roof form of the schoolhouse remain evident.