Ballyward House, 2 Castlewellan Road, Ballyward, Castlewellan, Co Down, BT31 9RL

Ballyward House is a detached, symmetrical, early nineteenth-century house rendered in painted finish, comprising a three-bay two-storey front elevation with a two-storey return to the west, creating a skewed L-shaped plan. It is listed as Grade B1 and located on a corner site on the north side of Ballyward Road, opposite Drumgooland Parish Church, within the townland of Ballyward, County Down.

The house is pitched with a natural slate roof featuring roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles. Three rendered profiled chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots rise from all gables. Replacement plastic guttering has been fitted to the rendered eaves course. The walling is painted with ruled-and-lined render finish. Window openings are square-headed with granite sills throughout, fitted with horizontally-glazed timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes.

The symmetrical front elevation presents three bays arranged over two storeys. The first floor contains a central fixed stair hall window with coloured glass margin lights and 2/2 timber sash windows to either side. The ground floor features a three-centred arched door opening with a moulded archivolt rising from moulded render pilasters. The doorcase is tripartite timber construction, consisting of a four-panelled door with bolection mouldings and brass furniture, flanked by fixed-pane etched glass sidelights in turn flanked by slender scribed pilasters. A plain lintel cornice with tripartite fanlight sits above. The door opens onto a replacement tiled front area within the front garden.

The west gable is set at an obtuse angle to the front façade, with the return continuing a further two bays. This elevation contains horizontally-glazed 1/2 timber sash windows to the gable and return. An enlarged square-headed former shop display window at ground floor level features a replacement central window flanked by tripartite arch-headed fixed-pane windows, reflecting the building's commercial history.

The rear elevation abuts the two-storey return, which incorporates a central stair hall window matching that of the front elevation and a flat-roofed porch to the re-entrant angle. The east gable has a single off-centre window opening at first floor level with a horizontally-glazed 2/2 timber sash window. At ground floor level is a square-headed door opening with replacement timber glazed door onto a concrete step and granite flagstone.

The property survives on its original corner site setting with a front railed garden enclosed by wrought-iron railings extending across the west side elevations and a geometric clay-tiled footpath to the front. Extensive landscaped gardens lie to the east.

Associated outbuildings include a derelict two-storey rubblestone former coach-house located along Station Road to the north, featuring elliptical-headed brick arched openings and a loading bay to the south gable. A vehicular opening with timber gates between the south gable of the coach-house and the rear gable of the return provides access to the rear yard. A diminutive single-storey rendered structure to the rear, reputed to be a former bath-house, survives with pitched natural slate roof.

Historical Development

Evidence from the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows a house and return on this site, corresponding to the building present today. By the second edition of 1859 the outbuilding to the rear had been extended. The Townland Valuation of 1828–1840 lists James Carson as occupier of a slated house with a single-storey thatched outbuilding. Griffith's Valuation of 1856–1864 records the property as a post office and grocery operated by Thomas, James and Alexander Carson, leased from Francis Charles Leslie. The buildings were valued at £9 and considered first rate. Dimensions provided refer to a two-storey house, single-storey thatched return and two outbuildings, one thatched.

In 1874, the valuation rose to £16 following additions and remodelling, notably the rebuilding of the rear return with an extra storey, raising it to two storeys. The valuation dropped to £15 in 1875, likely following an appeal, with further reductions in 1878 and 1882 when the valuer recorded the property as an 'old house remodelled'. The Carson family took over the shop in 1887, but by 1895 the valuation had decreased as the shop had been 'given up'. James Carson died on 5 February 1895.

The 1901 census records farmer Alexander Carson residing in the house with his wife Sarah, daughter Elizabeth and their servant Rose Ann, a sixteen-year-old general domestic. The house was designated second class with four rooms. Alexander Carson died on 4 April 1908, a relatively wealthy man leaving a fortune of nearly £6,000. His widow Sarah Carson remained in the house with her daughter.

At the 1911 census, Sarah Carson and her daughter were recorded with a married couple staying as visitors—a commission provision agent and his wife. The house was redesignated first class with seven rooms. Sarah Carson, listed in a 1918 directory as a farmer of Castlewellan, died on 2 July 1920, leaving everything to her daughter Elizabeth, who took over the house.

In the 1930s, the rear return of the house was again in use as a shop and local post office, though the post office transferred to other premises nearby in 1954 and the shop subsequently closed. The ground floor accommodation comprised a reception, kitchen with range, scullery and pantry. The first floor contained four bedrooms, a bathroom and WC.

The building represents a good example of a commercial house of the early nineteenth century, well-detailed and proportioned, embodying the local and rural commercial history of the period through its fabric, proportions, ornamentation and survival of features from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reflecting changes arising from altered use. The setting and associated outbuildings survive intact.