Ballywilliam House, 38 Ballygowan Road, Ballywilliam, Comber, Co. Down, BT23 5PG

Ballywilliam House is a fairly large and slightly rambling two-storey farmhouse nestling in a hollow between the Ballygowan and Old Ballygowan Road, approximately 1.5 miles south of Comber. The property appears to be based around a modest two-storey house of the 1780s, extended and renovated around 1850, with further extensions from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The main original section of the house faces south, and its front façade is symmetrical. At ground floor centre is a large flat-roofed, mainly glazed porch added some time after 1858. The front face of the porch has a central timber panelled double door reached via two stone steps. The door is flanked by large four-pane windows and sidelights encased with panelled pilaster jambs. The sides of the porch have similar glazing, and the whole porch is topped with a cornice and blocking course. To either side of the porch is a sash window with vertical glazing bars, each with a simple moulded surround. At first floor level are three similar but shorter windows, all resting on a cill course.

The east gable has a window at ground floor level matching those on the front façade but without a surround, and a sash window with Georgian panes at first floor level. This gable merges with the east façade of a long two-storey rear return, which is set into a slope so that its northern end contains only a single level — added around 1925 — which is actually part of the first floor. On the left of the ground floor of this return façade are two sash windows with Georgian panes (eight over eight), with two more slightly smaller windows directly above at first floor level. To the right of this façade there are first floor windows only: the left-hand one is a large mullioned and transomed window, while that to the right is an oriel window with a hipped roof and a similar mullioned and transomed frame. The north gable of the return is single storey and features a projecting hipped-roof conservatory or porch with mullioned and transomed windows and glazed double doors.

The west elevation is complex in appearance. The west gable of the main front section of the house is to the right, and attached to it is a single-storey lean-to cloakroom added around 1925, with modern metal windows to its west face. A wall attached to the north face of this cloakroom links to a large two-storey gabled housekeeper's section, which is itself ultimately attached to the west face of the long rear return, thus enclosing a small yard. Above the cloakroom, on the gable proper, is a sash window with Georgian panes to the right at first floor level, and above this is a small sash window at attic level.

The small enclosed yard is bounded to the south by a short section of the rear façade of the main house, and to the east by a section of the west façade of the long return. This portion of the return façade has two sash windows with Georgian panes at ground floor level, with a timber sheeted door between them, and two similar but shorter windows above at first floor level. To the north, the yard is enclosed by a two-storey gabled extension linked to the west façade of the return and to the east façade of the housekeeper's section. At first floor level on the south façade of this gabled extension is a small bathroom window with a modern frame. At ground floor level is a timber sheeted door with a four-pane fanlight, leading to a small store. To the left of this door is a flight of stone steps leading to an intermediate-level doorway into the housekeeper's section.

The south façade of the housekeeper's section has several metal casement windows, while the north façade — which, like the return, is built into the slope of the ground — has a curious hipped-roof half-dormer or oriel window with a mullioned and transomed frame. The north gable of the extension between the housekeeper's section and the return has a smallish mullioned and transomed window with a small loft opening above it. To the north of this gable, the remainder of the west façade of the long return has two large mullioned and transomed windows.

The exterior of the house, excluding the housekeeper's section, is finished in lined render with moulded quoins to the front façade. All sections of the roof are covered in Bangor blue slates. The roof of the original front section has an overhang to the gables with shaped bargeboards. This section has two yellow brick chimney stacks, with two rendered and older-looking stacks to the return and a brick stack to the housekeeper's quarters. Rainwater goods are cast iron throughout.

To the northwest of the housekeeper's quarters is a former dry closet, built between approximately 1834 and 1858 and now used as a shed. It is rubble-built with a Bangor blue slated gabled roof, a timber sheeted doorway to the east gable, and a small window opening to the south façade.

To the south of Ballywilliam House is a drive with a gate screen consisting of a low curving wall, simple gate pillars, and plain mid-19th-century-looking wrought iron gates. To the south and west of the house is a large collection of outbuildings, probably dating from the early to mid 19th century. A large two-storey section to the southeast, running along the west side of the entrance drive, is built in rubble and brick and dates from the later 19th century. Large portions of these outbuildings were in the process of being converted to offices at the time of listing.

The garden contains an inscribed stone reading 'D B 1781'. The initials D B probably stand for David Boyd, a member of a family who lived and farmed on this site until 1925. Whether the stone refers to the building of a house at that date is uncertain; however, a building matching the plan and position of the main front section of the present house is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, where it is marked 'Farm Hill'. At that time, Farm Hill was in the possession of a David Boyd, probably a son or grandson of the David Boyd of 1781. Valuation records from that period describe the property as consisting of a house, offices, and a flax mill — the mill situated further to the west — with a rateable value of £11-14-0. By 1858 the rear return appears to have been added and the front drive laid out, so that by the time of the second valuation around 1863, the rateable value had risen to £16. In 1925 the property was bought by a relative of the present owner, who extended the return and added the cloakroom to the west gable. It is unclear whether the porch was added at this stage, and whether the housekeeper's quarters were newly built or simply refurbished. The decorative bargeboards and yellow brick chimneys may also predate the 1920s alterations.

Primary sources consulted include PRONI D.654 Londonderry Papers (Ballywilliam townland was once part of the Londonderry estate); PRONI OS map first edition 1834, Down 10; PRONI VAL1B/316C, p.49, first valuation Comber parish 1834; Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol. 7: Parishes of County Down II, edited by Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB, 1991), p.35; PRONI OS map first revision 1858–60, Down 10; PRONI second valuation Comber parish, approximately 1863; and George Henry Basset, County Down Guide and Directory (Dublin, 1886), p.282.