Whitehill Cottage, 54 Craigdarragh Road, Helen's Bay, Bangor, County Down, BT19 1UB

Whitehill Cottage is a one-and-a-half-storey three-bay two-unit vernacular cottage built around 1850, located east of Coyles Lane off Craigdarragh Road in Helen's Bay. It is an unusual survivor of the type of simple rural dwellings that were once common in this area, though internal alterations, a large extension to the rear, and a modern garage to the north have compromised its original character.

The building is rectangular on plan with a pitched natural slate roof featuring blue and black angled ridge tiles and two roughcast chimneystacks, each with a single clay pot. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods run around the building. The walling is smooth painted render.

The principal elevation faces west and is three openings wide, with a replacement timber-sheeted door to the centre, glazed to the upper portion. Windows throughout are 4/4 timber sliding sash with horns, except where otherwise altered. The north elevation is abutted by a modern garage with three window openings to its gable. The east (rear) elevation is dominated by a flat-roof extension and a single-storey extension to the ground floor. This elevation contains three timber-framed modern windows to the first floor and two large window openings to the ground floor facing north, with a timber-mullioned window to the far left. The south elevation has a replacement timber-framed window to the attic.

The cottage first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, shown in an area of farmland south of the railway line. Griffith's Valuation (1856–64) lists the plot as providing dwellings for three occupants—Joseph McIlwain, Catherine Orr, and William Wright—whose houses and gardens were valued at £1 10 shillings, £1, and £3 respectively. The houses were let from Matthew Carruthers, who also leased a more substantial farmhouse to the south.

From the third, fourth, and fifth edition Ordnance Survey maps (1900–41), the building is captioned "Whitehill Cottage". Early twentieth-century street directories and the 1901 census identify Thomas Rea as the occupier; Rea was a farmer who lived with his wife, two sons, a daughter, a grandchild, a boarder named Robert White (who worked as an ironmonger's assistant), and a general servant. Thomas Rea died in 1907. At some point after the fifth edition map of 1941, a range to the north of the property was demolished and the current building was extended by a bay to the north.

The cottage sits in an attractive rural setting on a small lane off Craigdarragh Road, with mature gardens on all sides and unspoilt views of farmland to the rear. It is enclosed on all sides by mature hedgerow and trees, with a decorative cast-iron latch gate to the front. Although it represents a significant vernacular building type, the house does not meet the statutory and policy tests as a building of special architectural or historic interest due to the extent of its alterations.