Ard View, 31 Ardview Road, Killinchy, [near Killinchy village], Newtownards, Co Down, BT23 6TG

Ardview House is a large two-storey gabled house of the 18th century, possibly dating from 1722 or representing a later 18th-century remodelling of a house of that date. It is situated just north of the intersection of Killyleagh Road and Ardview Road in its own wooded grounds. The building displays mild Palladian touches to the front facade and is constructed of brick finished in rough cast render, with a roof of Bangor blue slates and cast iron rainwater goods.

The house is built over a sunken basement, with a large two-storey hipped roof return added circa 1920 to the rear. The front south-east elevation is symmetrical, featuring a projecting central bay of approximately 100mm. The central bay contains a panelled timber door surmounted by a rectangular fanlight with radial pattern. The doorway is flanked by simple panelled pilasters, which are in turn flanked with margin windows and shallow plasters. Above the door and margins is a plain entablature, with the inner pilasters supporting a pediment. Within the central bay are three evenly spaced first-floor sliding sash and case windows with Georgian panes. To either side of the door is a matching window set within a shallow recessed panel with a semi-circular head. The bay is finished with a simple pediment containing one wide but squat window lighting the attic space within the tympanum. Either side of the projecting bay is one matching window each to ground and first floors. The ground floor rests on a projecting string course, with a string course extending to either side of the pediment above the first floor. The windows to the sunken basement match those previously described and align with windows above but are shorter. A low rendered wall with decorative stone balusters guards the drop to the basement area and flanks the sides of the short bridge providing access to the front door. The gable parapets are finished with stone dressings and tall, centrally placed rendered chimney stacks, which may have been raised with large pots added in early Victorian times.

The south-west gable has a French door to the left-hand side ground floor and one tall sliding sash and case window to the right. The first floor contains two evenly spaced but shorter matching windows, and the attic floor has two similar but very short windows. This gable has no sunken basement. The north-east gable is identical at attic and first floors, although the ground floor has one blind window and the sunken basement continues along this face with no windows to the basement on this side.

The sunken basement continues to the left-hand side of the rear north-west facade. Also to the left-hand side of the rear facade are two sliding sash and case windows, with the right-hand window being shorter due to a small projecting half-landing flat-roofed extension supported on a short rendered column. At first floor are two similar windows. To the right side of the rear elevation is a two-storey hipped extension constructed in the 1920s, possibly replacing an earlier single-storey return. This extension has a hipped roof with exposed rafter ends and windows generally matching those on the main house, although two at first floor on the south-west side are PVC. A small hipped roof single-storey extension to the north-west of the main return contains the rear porch. To the south-west side of the return is a long single-storey pitched roof wing recently added as a kitchen and dining area, with walls largely obscured by greenery.

The rear courtyard is surrounded by outhouses. Those to the north and west are used as stables, and those to the south are used as a family den. In the centre of the courtyard is a small hipped roof pavilion formerly used as a milking parlour, with walls completely obscured by ivy. A terrace to the immediate south of the den contains an open-air swimming pool. A dry closet stands a short distance to the east of the house.