The Manor House, High Street, Donaghadee, Co Down

The Manor House is a large two-storey dwelling of circa 1770–80, built around an earlier house of circa 1610, with later extensions dating from circa 1800 and circa 1870. It is situated on the east side of High Street at the junction with Manor Street, slightly south-east of Donaghadee town centre, set back from the pavement with a small front garden enclosed by a low rendered wall and hedge.

The building is approximately L-shaped, with the vertical stroke forming the front north-west facade and the horizontal stroke forming the south-east facade and the rear return. The front elevation faces south-west and features an off-centre panelled front door with a semicircular radial fanlight and sidelights, approached through a projecting porch with fluted Doric columns on squat square bases supporting an entablature with projecting cornice. The side panels are glazed to the upper section with moulded timber panels below. To the right of the doorway are two sliding sash windows (six over six panes); to the left are three similar windows. The first floor has five equally spaced and similar sash windows. The facade is finished in lined render, ivy-covered and neatly clipped to the level of the first floor window cills. The left-hand north-west gable merges with a single-storey extension. The north-west gable comprises two merged blank hipped gables; the north-east gable, executed in painted brick, belongs to the late Victorian extension. The north-west gable is finished in painted lined render.

The rear elevation presents two distinct sections. The right-hand side (rear of the main front) has four levels—lower ground floor, main ground floor (level with the front ground floor), first floor, and attic floor—with a haphazard composition of windows including some "modern Georgian" style, tripartite sliding sash, round-headed, and round-headed half dormers. The left-hand side has two levels, is blank, and merges with a single-storey outhouse which in turn adjoins the Manor Lodge to the north-east. The north-west side of the return features a recessed glazed doorway with fanlight, directly beneath an unusual semi-circular bracketed bay window.

The south-east facade is two-storey with a central two-storey projecting canted bay (probably added circa 1800), to the left of which merges a single-storey flat-roofed bay. The first floor has seven sliding sash windows with Georgian panes: two on either side of the canted bay and one on each face of the bay itself. The ground floor has one tall sliding sash window to the north-west face of the single-storey bay, one to its south-east face, and one sliding sash to the right. A panelled door with multi-paned fanlight is positioned to the right, followed by another sliding sash window. To the far right are two further sliding sash windows of the same type.

The front walls are generally finished in unpainted lined render; rear walls are predominantly unpainted rough-cast. The rear of the Victorian extension is in painted brick. Roofs are hipped with Bangor blue slates. Cast iron gutters and downspouts complete the external detailing.