"White House", off Ardminnan Road, Ballyspurge, Cloghy, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 1QJ

White House is an important ruined one and a half storey house dating from the 1640s, located off Ardminnan Road near Cloghy in County Down, set on a slope overlooking Slanes Bay. Though largely domestic in character, the building incorporates several defensive features that mark it as a transitional structure from an era when fortified dwellings were giving way to undefended houses.

The ruins are constructed of split stone rubble in a single storey rectangular plan with gabled ends and an attic storey. Most of the gables and side walls remain standing, though substantial sections of the north-west and south-east walls are missing. The south-west wall contains a small, almost centrally positioned doorway with a window opening to the right and evidence of another to the left. Two small window openings survive at the rear with recently replaced lintels. The south-east gable has a window opening on the ground floor to the left, while the north-west gable retains a small narrow opening at upper level to the right. A distinctive defensive feature comprises small square holes at each corner and centre of the north-east and south-west walls at various levels, which functioned as pistol loops. The house was originally surrounded by a bawn, of which ruined rubble walls remain partly visible to the south-west with evidence of a gateway, and a small trace to the north-west. Sections of stonework have been repaired in recent times using modern regular-shaped blocks.

The house was probably constructed between 1641 and 1649 by Patrick Savage. It may subsequently have been occupied by a family named Carr during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but had become a ruin by the time of the Ordnance Survey Memoirs in the mid-1830s. The significance of White House lies in its dating to a transitional period in Irish architectural history, when the combining of defensive and domestic functions was becoming obsolete. The presence of both a surrounding bawn and pistol loops alongside largely domestic planning demonstrates this shift. Additional importance attaches to the building as an early example of a one and a half storey house where the upper level was designed for living or sleeping accommodation rather than primarily for storage.