147 Scrabo Road, Ballycullen, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT23 4NN

This is a small, plain, ‘L’ shaped, two-storey house located on Scrabo Road, near Newtownards, County Down. Originally the gate lodge to Mountpleasant House, it sits next to the former entrance to that estate on the north side of the road. The building's front facade faces northeast.

Architecturally, the house has rough cast render and gabled roofs with plain surrounds to the window openings. A two-storey gabled projection extends from the left side of the main facade, projecting from a slightly larger gable. A panelled entrance door is located on the northwest facade of this projection. A small roundel bearing the date ‘A.D. 1846’ is set in the gable apex above a small ground floor window with a modern timber frame, and a larger first-floor window with a sash frame and horizontal glazing bars. To the right of the projection on the main facade is a square ground-floor window with a modern casement frame, and a matching sash window on the first floor. The northwest-facing gable is blank, except for a small, ground-floor boiler house lean-to projection. The southeast facade has one ground-floor and one first-floor window mirroring those on the right side of the front facade. A projecting gable is visible on the rear, with a first-floor window similar to the front and a smaller modern window on the ground floor. The roofs are covered with Bangor blue slates, with a slight overhang at the eaves. A single rendered chimney stack is present, and rainwater goods are of cast iron.

A gate screen composed of Scrabo stone is located to the south of the house. It features concave quadrant walls, simple pillars, and late Victorian wrought iron gates.

According to the date on the roundel, the gate lodge was built in 1846, likely by William Mayne, who acquired Mountpleasant in 1842. The Ordnance Survey maps of 1858-60 depict the building as rectangular in plan. It is believed that an upper level, and subsequently the front projection, were added around the 1870s, with the date roundel potentially being relocated during that time. The building was originally single storey.