Groomsport House, Groomsport House Road, Groomsport, Co Down, BT19 6GH

Groomsport House is a substantial mid-Victorian country house built in 1849, designed by the architect James Sands for Robert Perceval Maxwell of Finnebrogue. It was built in an ornate Tudor Gothic Revival style, constructed throughout in Scottish sandstone, and remains of considerable interest for its fine architectural detailing and its historic associations with a prominent local landowning family. However, its character has been significantly compromised by 20th-century conversions, first to a hotel and later to residential apartments, particularly through the excavation of a basement level which has altered the building's original proportions and introduced inappropriate additions. The surrounding setting has similarly been affected by modern residential development. The building's relationship with its associated gate lodge and the remains of the gate screen nearby is now interrupted, and both those structures have been degraded. Despite these changes, the quality of the original detailing survives sufficiently to retain the building's special interest.

The house is two storeys with an exposed basement and attic, and is now converted into several apartments. It stands to the east of Groomsport overlooking the sea and forms the centrepiece of a substantial modern residential development. In plan, the main body of the house is rectangular, dominated by a large projecting porch, which is now surmounted by a gabled glazed extension. What was the original entrance level is now part of the upper floor, as the basement on the west side has been excavated to form a basement apartment. There is a full-height service wing to the south. Modern additions include a two-storey extension to the east, a basement extension to the west, and, to the south, a flat-roofed full-height stairwell and sanitary extensions fronted by a large bifurcated entrance staircase set into the re-entrant angle where the service wing meets the main block. Additional porch entrances serving the basement apartments have been added to the north.

The roofs are covered in pitched natural slate with angled clay ridge tiles. The gables have shaped parapets, known as corbie or crow-stepped gables with fractables on kneelers, finished with roll-moulded copings and topped generally with octagonal pinnacles. The sandstone chimneystacks are a particularly notable feature, carrying tall octagonal flues with moulded caps, grouped in threes and fours on the main body of the house and in pairs on the return. Stone moulded gutters and cast-iron downpipes serve the rainwater drainage.

The walling to the principal part of the house is ashlar sandstone above a rubble stone basement, which is partially painted on the east side. The return is in rubble stone with painted rendered two-storey canted projecting bays. Windows to the principal elevations are tri-partite and bi-partite ashlar sandstone transomed-and-mullioned timber casements with label mouldings over them; attic windows to the gables are small single round-headed casements.

The entrance elevation faces west and features a two-storey projecting porch in sandstone over a rubble stone base. This is flanked by projecting brick-dressed piers rising to octagonal piers capped with pinnacles, all with appropriate responds. A fretted stone balustrade encloses a modern gabled conservatory at second-floor level. The porch windows are Tudor-arched openings set within square recesses with label mouldings and carved spandrels; the window on the south face of the porch has cusped tracery and is fitted with 1-over-1 sashes. The entrance at basement level consists of a replacement timber door set within an ashlar sandstone surround with a label mould. To either side of the porch, gabled bays project over the basement extension and contain windows to the principal and attic floors.

The north elevation is symmetrical, three bays wide across the principal floors above a basement, with modern porch extensions at ground level. The central bay features a blind multi-foil headed statuary niche. The side bays have canted bay windows with castellated parapets and a quatrefoil-panelled frieze at upper ground-floor level; these bays are abutted at basement level by modern gabled porches.

The east elevation is adjoined at its right end by a modern two-storey block and is extended to the left by the lower service wing, which is set back slightly. The fenestration here is irregular, consisting mainly of bi-partite and single casements, with the exception of a large castellated canted oriel window carried on a corbelled sandstone base, detailed in keeping with the canted bay windows described above.

The south elevation is adjoined at its left by various modern extensions whose roofs are concealed behind plain parapets, and at the right by the service wing. It contains the entrances to both the upper and basement apartments: the upper-floor entrance is formed by a timber porch set obliquely into the angle between the stairwell extension and the service wing, reached by a sweeping bifurcated concrete staircase positioned above the projecting entrance porch to the basement apartments. The letter G is affixed to mild steel parapet railings on this elevation.

The service wing is built in rubble stone with sandstone quoins to the south, and painted ruled-and-lined rendered finish to the north. It has bi-partite Tudor-arched mullioned windows set in square-headed sandstone surrounds. Its south elevation is abutted by two castellated canted bays rising to first-floor level.

The house is surrounded by tarmac parking on all sides except the north, which is accessed by a narrow entry bounded to the north by a high boundary wall. The wider site, which includes original outbuildings now of no architectural interest, has been developed with several three-storey apartment blocks, all reached by a tarmac drive from Donaghadee Road. The entrance retains the original gate lodge and part of the gate screen. To the west front there are lawns and a tennis court with views to the sea.

The history of the house is well documented. It was designed by James Sands for Robert Perceval Maxwell and is shown on the Second Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858. In Griffith's Valuation of 1856 to 1864, it is listed as the residence of Robert P. Maxwell, leased from his uncle J.W. Maxwell of Finnebrogue, and initially valued at £58. Following improvements including the addition of a gate lodge, its valuation was raised to £75. The Maxwells owned much of the land in and around Groomsport, and correspondence between James Sands and Maxwell concerning the construction of the house survives in the Maxwell estate papers. Sands visited the site in January 1844, freestone was shipped from Glasgow six months later, and the accounts concluded in 1848 at a total cost of over £6,000. In 1870, following the death of his uncle without issue in 1869, Robert P. Maxwell became the owner in fee of the property. The valuation rose to £79 following the addition of a gardener's house that same year, and to £85 in 1908 after the addition of a hayshed. A photograph of the house with a partial view of its grounds dating from around 1910 appears in A Tour of North Down. During this period Robert P. Maxwell's principal residence was Finnebrogue in Downpatrick, but two of his unmarried adult daughters continued to live at Groomsport House until they died around 1930. The house stood unoccupied during the Second World War, when it was used for secret military work. In 1951 the Maxwell family took it over again, and Gavin Perceval-Maxwell gradually restored it before selling it in 1968. The house opened as a hotel in 1994 but closed shortly afterwards, and in 1999 was converted to its current use as apartments.