Dated to 1722, it sits at the early edge of the Classical revival in Irish domestic architecture, built in the reign of George I when that formal, symmetrical idiom was only beginning to take hold across the island's landed estates and minor gentry seats.

The house is a detached five-bay, two-storey structure over a raised basement, with a dormer attic above. That arrangement, five evenly spaced window bays across the facade, the principal rooms lifted above ground level on a raised basement, and the attic storey tucked behind a roofline rather than expressed as a full floor, is characteristic of the restrained Classical manner that arrived in Ireland in the early eighteenth century, drawing loosely on Palladian principles without the theatrical grandeur of the great showpiece houses. The raised basement in particular was both practical and social, elevating the main reception rooms while accommodating service functions below. At 1722, Ballysallagh is an early example of this type in the Irish midlands, predating the wave of more ambitious country house building that would come later in the century.