7 Bryansford village, Ballyhafry, Newcastle, Co Down, BT33 0PT

7 Bryansford Village, Ballyhafry, Newcastle, County Down

This one and a half storey rubble-built gabled house likely dates from around 1830, though its current appearance is distinctly late Victorian or Edwardian. A building is shown on the site in the Ordnance Survey maps of 1834 and 1859. The 1863 valuation records identify it as the home of Henry O'Prey. The owner believes the property may originally have comprised two separate dwellings, though the presence of only one resident in the 1863 valuation records and an absence of physical evidence suggest any such division was altered well before that date.

The front south-east façade is asymmetrical and built in rubble. Slightly right of centre stands a gabled timber porch, recently rebuilt, with a partly glazed door to the north-east and Edwardian-style multi-paned transomed windows to the south-east and south-west. The porch rises from a rendered base and is painted, with a natural slate roof, relatively plain barges and a finial. To the right of the porch are two double sash windows with Georgian-type glazing to the upper sashes only, in the Edwardian manner, each with smooth render surrounds and slim sandstone cills. A small half-dormer with a steeply pitched hipped roof and finial occupies the upper level to the left, containing a similar window.

The south-west elevation comprises the rendered façade of a large one and a half storey rear return to the left, and the rubble gable of the original house to the right. The return's ground floor features a timber and glazed door with a gabled hood, flanked by small windows matching the front façade, with two gabled half-dormers containing similar windows at upper level. The original house's rubble gable has two ground floor windows and one upper level window all matching the front. The north-east elevation consists of the original house's rubble gable to the left, finished in contrived-looking lumpy render with a single upper level window, and the north-east façade of the return to the right. This façade is actually single storey (the return roof being uneven) and contains French doors with a small pointed arch window to the left, rendered and painted. The exposed rear section of the original house is rendered and painted with a glazed door to the ground floor left. The return's rear gable is also rendered and painted, featuring a glazed door at ground floor with an associated window, and has granite quoins.

The original section's roof has a relatively steep pitch with natural slates, a large off-centre ridge chimney stack and a Velux window to the rear, with slight overhang to the gables, plain barges and finials. The return roof is similarly covered in natural slate with a Velux window.

A two storey extension was added to the rear in the 1990s during a complete renovation of the property, doubling its size. This large rubble-built return has been renovated with timber sheeted doors, multi-pane casement windows and lumpy render to the south-east façade, with an unrendered south-west gable covered in natural slate. A single storey outbuilding stands to the north-east, built sometime after 1859.

The house is positioned to the north-west of the main road running through Bryansford village. Despite recent alterations making investigation of its past more difficult, the building may well be early nineteenth century in origin and may have contained two separate properties, though it appears to have been altered on numerous occasions and now presents the appearance of a house from the later nineteenth or even early twentieth century.