Ardara House, 11 Ballygowan Road, Comber, Co. Down, BT23 5PG

Ardara House is an impressive large two-storey Italianate gentleman's residence built in 1872–3, probably designed by the architect Thomas Jackson. It was greatly but sympathetically extended around 1895–1900, most likely by Thomas Jackson's son Anthony. The house is finished throughout in lined render and sits on a rise at the end of a curving drive to the west of Ballygowan Road, to the south-west of Comber town centre. Around 1988 it was tastefully converted into six apartments by architect Edward Bell, with most of the original 1870s ground floor reception area left intact.

The original house formed the eastern portion of the present building and was roughly square in plan — a relatively simple hipped-roof house without the curved side bays. The later western extension repeated much of the original styling and gave the building a slightly unorthodox rectangular plan with a short front façade. The curved bays to the north and south sides were most likely added to the original section at the same time as the western extension.

The front (east) façade is symmetrical. At the centre of the ground floor is a flat-roofed entrance porch. Set into the centre of the porch's east face is a panelled door with a largely semicircular arched fanlight above. The door is encased with plain pilaster jambs and flanked by very narrow sidelights with sash frames and small panels beneath. The fanlight has a moulded surround with keystone, and a cornice and frieze as a springing course. To either side of the fanlight are two moulded roundel plaques bearing shields. On the north and south faces of the porch there are tall semicircular arch-headed sash windows with surrounds largely matching that of the entrance. The porch is topped with a dentilled cornice and a pierced parapet above, and there are two steps up to the doorway. The porch is flanked by twinned windows similar to those on the porch sides, but with corbels to the cills and panels beneath. At first-floor level across the front are three segmental arch-headed windows with moulded surrounds and keystones.

To the far right of the south façade is a large full-height bay with curved sides. On the south face of this bay are twinned windows as on the front, with a single similar window to each of the curved sides — the frames and glazing of these side windows actually curve to follow the bay. At first-floor level within the bay this arrangement is repeated, but with segmental arch-headed windows matching those of the first-floor front façade. Both ground and first-floor bay windows rest on a cill course. To the left of this curved bay are twinned windows at ground-floor level, with twinned windows directly above at first-floor level. The point to the left of these windows probably marks the end of the original house. Beyond this the south façade is recessed. In the centre of the recessed section is a square single-storey bay with twinned windows on its south face and single windows to the east and west faces, these having much plainer surrounds with a roundel above. The windows of this bay rest on a cill course and the bay is topped with a dentilled cornice and pierced parapet. Immediately to the left of this bay is a single window as on the ground-floor front, with a doorway to its left that is much like the front porch but without the springing course. To the immediate right of the bay is a similar doorway — probably originally a window — and to its right is a flat-arched sash window with a surround matching those of the first-floor front windows. At first-floor level across the recessed section, three windows to the left and centre all match the first-floor front windows. To the right of these is a grouping of three windows set at intermediate levels: the two lower ones are matching flat-arched sash windows with surrounds as the first-floor front, but above each is a shallow moulded, almost Rococo-like scrolled pediment. Above these, near eaves level, is a squat two-pane window (apparently a fixed light) with a moulded surround topped with a more definite scrolled pediment, also almost Rococo in style but different in design from those below. The south façade culminates to the left of the recessed section in a broad square bay with twinned windows on the south face at both floors.

The north façade mirrors the layout of the south. There is a full-height curved bay to the far left — identical to its counterpart on the south — followed by a recessed central and right section, and a large square bay to the far right. To the right of the curved bay are twinned ground-floor openings as on the front, except that the left window of the pair has been converted into a doorway. Directly above this pair at first-floor level are twinned windows matching those of the first-floor front. On the left of the recessed section is a doorway whose surround indicates it was once a window. Directly above this is a flat-arched sash window with a surround as the first-floor front windows, and above that is a fixed-light roundel window. The remainder of the recessed section has three windows at ground-floor level and two at first-floor level, all matching the first-floor front. The large square bay to the right of the recessed section has three similar windows at ground-floor level and three at first-floor level, though the central first-floor window is now blocked.

The rear (west) façade is largely plain, with three segmental arch-headed sash windows at ground-floor level and three directly above at first-floor level. This façade appears to have been re-rendered recently and is unpainted, as is the rest of the building. The north, south and east façades carry a bracketed eaves course, and sections of those three façades are covered in creeping plant growth.

The roof is hipped, covered in Bangor blue slates, and has a slight overhang. The roofs over the curved bays are rounded. Roughly in the centre of the main roof is a large hipped cast-iron skylight. There appear to be at least six rendered chimney stacks. The rainwater goods are cast iron. A tarred drive runs around the house, with a large car port added to the north around 1988.

To the west of the house is a large single-storey former wash house with a sandstone façade, Georgian-paned sash windows, and a recently added porch to the west. The original main drive to the house ran to the north, but a modern housing development has been built upon it. The present drive is the former tradesman's entrance to the south. The cast-iron gate screen along the present drive is in fact the original entrance screen that was once situated to the north; it was relocated to its present position around 1988.

Ardara House was built for Thomas Andrews. Letters written by him in 1871 and 1872 — recently deposited at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland — record that the house was built by a Ferdinand Fitzsimons and that work appears to have been completed by September 1872. Around 1895–1900 the house was greatly enlarged to the west, and the new section included a large billiard room whose dark wood panelling is believed to have been the work of craftsmen later employed in the building of the Titanic, no doubt engaged through Andrews's son Thomas Junior — the man who later designed the ill-fated liner and perished with her. The former grounds of Ardara House were given over in the 1980s and 1990s for modern housing developments.