Former orphanage, Comber Road, Ballygowan, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT23 5TN

This is a former orphanage of around 1885, built in semi-coursed basalt rubble and standing prominently to the north of Comber Road, on the northwest side of the village of Ballygowan. It is a large, austere, and deliberately imposing building — four storeys in height (three storeys above a ground-floor basement level) — with a central five-storey bell tower and crow-stepped gabled outer bays. Its mannered, late medieval styling and basalt façade bear a resemblance to the workhouse front buildings designed by George Wilkinson in the 1840s, but this building is larger in scale and considerably starker and more angular in character, dwarfing its domestically proportioned rural village setting.

The main façade faces south. At its centre is the projecting five-storey tower. At first-floor level — the entrance level — there is a large timber-panelled double door with a crow-stepped fanlight, reached by a flight of stone steps. Above this is a narrow window with a relatively recent frame and in-and-out dressings in matching basalt. A slightly projecting course sits above this, over which is a projecting crow-stepped diamond-shaped panel bearing a clock face. Above the clock is a triangular crow-stepped window opening with a fixed five-pane frame. Immediately below this opening, the phrase "The time is short" appears in raised lettering. The tower is finished with a castellated parapet and flagpole.

To the east and west faces of the tower, each floor above ground level has a tall, narrow window opening similar in character to those at second-floor level on the front. These windows have varied frames — some sash, some more recent, and a few now partly louvred. At ground-floor level on the west face of the tower there is a doorway, and on the east face a broader, roughly square window with a recent frame. Slightly projecting string courses run between the first and second floors, and again between the third and fourth floors, on both side faces of the tower.

To either side of the tower at ground-floor level are five roughly square windows with a mixture of recent timber and PVC frames, all covered with security grilles. The two outermost windows to each side fall within four-storey outer bays. At ground-floor level, the front and the short north and south façades project slightly in the form of a tall chamfered base. At first-floor level there are three taller windows to either side of the tower, with modern frames and dressings matching those on the tower. The outer bays each contain two further windows at this level, each a double sash with a sandstone mullion and sandstone dressings. The second-floor windows follow the same arrangement as the first floor, except that those in the outer bays are slightly shorter. At third-floor level, the outer bays each have a triple-sash window separated by sandstone mullions, with the centre light taller than the two outer lights. The outer bays are topped with crow-stepped gables.

The short north and south end façades are identical to one another. At ground-floor level each has two windows matching those on the ground floor of the front façade, with a sheeted door between them. At first and second-floor levels, the outer windows match the corresponding windows on the front bays, with an additional single-sash window at the centre. The third floor has a similar arrangement but with considerably smaller openings.

The rear façade is less formal than the front and has been altered and added to over the years. It is finished in roughcast. At each end is a full-height gabled bay with a chimney stack to the apex. To the inner sides of both end bays are gabled stairwell bays with small sash windows to their inner faces. The gables of the main end bays have a sash window at first and second-floor levels, with two much smaller windows at third-floor level. At the centre of the rear elevation is the main stairwell projection, three storeys in height with a gabled roof. To the rear face of this projection are two sash windows with a larger sash window above, the latter having margin panes. To the right of the central stairwell projection is a second-floor sash window, below which another opening has been blocked. A corresponding second-floor window appears to the left of the stairwell projection. Attached to the ground floor at the left-hand end of the rear is a large modern single-storey hall with a shallow-pitched gabled roof and a random rubble basalt cladding to its gable ends, added in around 1993 to 1994. This modern extension is excluded from the listing.

The roof of the main building is covered in Bangor blue slates, with four matching basalt chimney stacks. Rainwater goods are a mixture of cast iron and PVC.

To the south and east of the building is a large car park.

The building dates from around 1885 and was constructed principally through the efforts of Alexander Orr Reid of nearby Orrmount House (now known as Ardmore), who wished to create a memorial to his only son, who had died unexpectedly — apparently in a hunting accident — in October 1880. Reid, who was a partner in Robbs of Castle Place, Belfast, worked initially on the project alongside the Reverend T. S. Woods, then minister of Ballygowan Presbyterian Church. Both men originally intended the building to serve as a boarding school closely associated with the church, and Reverend Woods encouraged his congregation to contribute towards the costs. A dispute subsequently arose between Reid — who was himself a Non-subscribing Presbyterian — and the minister, with the result that the school project was abandoned. Reid then proceeded alone, and the building became an orphanage. Local tradition holds that Reid's choice of site and the building's conspicuously large scale were deliberate, intended to place his orphanage in direct visual confrontation with Woods's church.

The orphanage was ultimately badly managed and closed around 1919. The building was then purchased, with some irony, by Ballygowan Presbyterian Church for approximately £900, to be used as a school and church hall. Local folk memory suggests that the minister encouraged the congregation to buy the building in order to forestall a rumour that it was about to be converted into a convent.

A church publication of 1938 described the building as it then appeared: "It is of blue cut stone from neighbouring quarries, is 142 feet long and 40 feet wide, has three storeys of exceptional height, and the tower in the centre of the front lifts its massive head 90 feet in the air. The yard at the rear can be used as a hard tennis court, and is surrounded by a wall 12 feet high and in harmony with the main building. The first thing likely to impress the passer-by is the strength of the whole structure, and the next is the graceful proportion of its outlines. It contains a large and a minor hall, two well lighted rooms in which a flourishing P.E. school is carried on, a splendid suite of rooms at either end that are used as residences and a variety of other apartments. The woodwork is almost entirely of solid Irish oak."

The building continued in use primarily as a school until the 1960s, when the opening of the nearby Alexander Dickson Primary School brought this to an end, and it reverted to use solely as a church hall. The clock in the tower was installed by the church in 1937, presented by friends of Senator J. Hill Dickson of nearby Ardmore as a token of friendship and esteem. The phrase "The time is short", which appears above the clock in raised lettering, is original to the building — a reference to the early death of Reid's son and a broader reminder of mortality.

Primary sources consulted include PRONI MIC/1P/406, the records of Ballygowan Presbyterian Church, and the publication Ballygowan Presbyterian Church…1838–1938 (Belfast, 1938), pages 10–11 and 14–15.