24 Main Street, Ballymacruise, Millisle, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 2HR

Two storey late Victorian house, dated to approximately 1870–1880, located at the end of a long driveway on the west side of Main Street, Millisle. The house was once the home of David Carmichael, a member of the locally prominent mill-owning family. His daughter, Amy Carmichael (1867–1951), lived here as a child before becoming a noted missionary in China, Japan and India, where she was a respected member of the Dohnavour Fellowship and influenced many lives in the sub-continent. The building is visited regularly by people from India whose lives she touched. In recent times the house served as an office for an egg packing station located to the west.

The front east facade is characterised by fussy, ill-proportioned late Victorian detailing. The central timber-panelled and glazed doorway has three-pane fanlight and sidelights with panelled aprons, fluted jambs resting on an extended bay window cill course, and a dentilled moulded cornice above with segmental arch pediment. The doorway is reached via nine steps with low parapet. The dentilled cornice continues as an eaves cornice around large oversized three-sided bays flanking the doorway. Each bay contains four sash windows and has dentilled eaves cornice, moulded parapet to flat bay roof, a cill course supported on numerous brackets, which themselves rest on another similar moulded course. The upper floor has two gabled half dormers with sash windows with shouldered and heeled surrounds and corbelled cills. The north gable has a small sash window to the right of centre on the upper floor, as does the south gable.

Attached to the left (southwest) side of the south gable is a fairly recent large single storey extension with crude detailing. Its front east facade has three sash windows on a cill course with brackets and a course above with semicircular pediments. A panelled timber door with plain fanlight (reached via functional steps) sits between the first and second windows. The extension facade has a parapet hiding a shallow curved roof.

The rear of the main house comprises a central two storey gabled return. The rear gable has an upper level sash window and a lean-to store extension at ground level. To the left on the north facade of the return is a tall lean-to projection containing the rear doorway on its north face and a small six-pane window on its west face. To the right of the projection is a modern metal kitchen window. The south facade of the return has two modern windows with a modern flat-roofed dormer above. A doorway on the right of the rear facade of the main section is now covered with a timber-glazed porch, which joins the north facade of the large curved roof extension and acts as a corridor between the original dwelling and the extension. To the far left of the rear of the main house is a large sash window with Georgian panes.

The facade of the original house is finished in lined render with vermiculated quoins, eaves course and chamfered base. The main roof is gabled with Bangor blue slates and an overhang supported on corbels. Two rendered and corbelled chimney stacks rise from the main roof. Two Velux windows are inserted to the rear of the main roof. The gabled roof to the return also has Bangor blue slates. Cast iron rainwater goods are present throughout.

A building is shown on this site on the 1858–60 Ordnance Survey map, though its shape does not appear to match the present structure.