Lough House, 1 The Square, Greyabbey, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 2QA

Lough House is a large, much extended two storey gabled house set at the western (lough) side of Main Street in Greyabbey. The building is of complex and sprawling layout, largely of pre-1834 construction, but with significant later additions including a large two storey hipped roof rear return dating from around 1860 and flat roofed porches on the front facade.

The main section of the house runs northwest to southeast with a gabled profile. At the centre of the northeast facade is a large flat roofed porch containing a timber door with decorative elliptical fanlight and sidelights. Either side of the porch are two sash windows with Georgian panes and quoin-like surrounds; the first floor has five similar windows. The southwest gable of this section is blank. Attached to the northwest end is a slightly smaller wing with a hipped roof running roughly southwest to northeast. The southeast elevation of this wing features a flat roofed porch with a four pane window to its southeast side and a timber panelled door to the northeast. The first floor has two windows matching those described above. To the rear, the main section has a large roughly L-shaped two storey return with many evenly spaced sash windows and French doors to the southeast elevation. The rear of the smaller wing contains a large single storey flat roofed section with a terrace to its roof. This section features a bowed bay window to its rear elevation. A part single, part two storey boiler house of modern construction is built into a bank on the northwest elevation of this wing. The northeast elevation of the smaller wing contains a mixture of original sash windows and modern metal windows.

All elevations are finished in rough cast render with quoins to the front facade of the main section. The front facades of both the smaller wing and main section are largely covered in ivy, as are parts of the rear elevation and roof. The roofs are pitched and covered in Bangor blue slates with red and yellow brick chimney stacks. Cast iron rainwater goods are present. A low wall encloses a small front garden. Modernised single storey outbuildings stand to the rear.

The complex layout reflects an interesting historical development. The smallest wing, running southwest to northeast, dates from around 1725–30 according to the current owner. This wing, along with a single storey hall and a two storey section attached to its northeast end (now a separate dwelling), may originally have been built as one property that local tradition suggests began as an inn. The original structure may have been formal in plan, with a single storey central section flanked by two storey hipped roof wings. It is conceivable that this building was one of the "handsome brick houses covered with slates" mentioned by Walter Harris around 1744, though the reference to brick materials raises questions about this attribution.

The road beside the supposed inn originally ran past the edge of the former western limit of the Rosemount estate, probably through the site of the present estate entrance, passing directly along the northeast side of the inn building itself. In the years immediately before publication of the first Ordnance Survey map in 1834, however, the road south of the village was relocated further west of the estate over a specially constructed causeway and directed northeastwards up Main Street rather than across it, thus re-routing traffic away from the inn's side. By this date, what is now the main house section had been constructed. The date at which the inn building became two distinct properties is unclear—this division may have occurred when the new main house section was completed, or later in the 1800s when the central section of the former inn served first as a school and later as a courthouse, with magistrate or judge's quarters in the northeast wing. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of around 1834 refer to a room at the west end of the village used for an infant school, suggesting (if this is the building in question) that the inn had ceased to function by that date.

The large rear return was constructed after 1834, possibly around 1860, as were the two square porches on the front facade. The smaller extension to the northwest elevation dates from the twentieth century. Until 1949, the property served as the steward's house for the Rosemount and Ballywalter estates, with part of the smaller original wing housing estate offices.

The present owner has recently restored some window frames, including the large bowed bay window to the rear, and is currently restoring a window on the first floor of the southwest side of the large return. The listing excludes the modern extension to the extreme northwest.