Fairholme House, 41 Craigdarragh Road, Helens Bay, Co Down, BT19 1UB

Fairholme House is a three-bay two-storey attached house built around 1880, located off a private road to the north of Craigdarragh Road in Helens Bay. The house is square on plan with a two-storey canted bay to the east. It has a pitched natural slate roof with a hipped roof over the canted bay.

The chimneys are painted render stacks with stone plinth and terracotta pots, with a projecting additional flue to the stack at the north gable. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are mounted on a cavetto moulded eaves cornice. The walling is painted smooth render with plinth and cavetto moulded cornice. A 'box' panel moulding runs between floors on the canted bay, and a continuous bead moulded course sits at the top of the first floor windows. Windows are 1/1 timber-framed sliding sash with moulded surrounds and continuous cills.

The principal entrance elevation faces south-east and is three openings wide, with openings close together in the centre of the façade. A central four-panelled entrance door with fanlight and brass door furniture is set within a chamfered reveal with fluted pilasters, surmounted by shallow broken-bed pediment with decorative console brackets. The south-west elevation is abutted by an adjoining building. The north-west elevation is abutted to the first floor by an adjoining building. The north-east elevation comprises the canted bay to the left; to the right are paired windows to each floor, divided by a simple central Doric pilaster.

The house is set back from the private road with timber electric entrance gates and stone piers with pointed caps. It is pebbled to the south and east, and enclosed on all sides by mature hedges.

Fairholme House forms part of a complex of buildings, some of which were formerly in use as a mill dating from around 1840. The complex is first shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858. According to Griffith's Valuation (1856–64), the site contained a steward's house, flax mill, and offices with land, part of the estate belonging to Craigdarragh House and owned by Robert Francis Kennedy, with Robert Francis Gordon as occupier. The steam flax mill had a 10 horse power engine, 12 stocks and 1 set of rollers, working four months a year, twelve hours a day. An oil mill was also present but could not be worked with the same machinery. In 1863 the property became the property of Lord Dufferin and Clandeboye. The flax mill burned down by 1872, resulting in a reduction in valuation. In 1882 the steward's house was deleted from record and the plot was redeveloped with buildings described as 'in progress'. By 1883 the site was let as three separate properties. Fairholme House and a neighbouring house to the south-west initially formed a single property valued at £45 and let to Margaret Hill.

By 1911, the house comprised three reception rooms, five bedrooms, a servants room, kitchen, pantry, and a pump in the kitchen drawing water from Clandeboye reservoir. The property was then occupied by Edith Ewing. By 1933 Fairholme was the property of the Very Reverend Edward Dupre Atkinson, Archdeacon of Dromore from 1905 to 1930 and local historian, and was valued at £45, later raised to £72. The house then comprised six bedrooms, three reception rooms, a kitchen, scullery, pantry, and two bathrooms, with water supplied from Helen's Bay and electric light. A 1935 valuation note described it as an 'Old type semi-detached residence in good position' with 'Very large rooms, slightly damp in places' and 'Poor offices, good garden'. In 1949 the house was converted into two flats. The house has since been divided into two dwellings, the portion to the south-east retaining the name Fairholme House.

The house is of interest both individually and as part of a group. The setting is notable, with a large kitchen garden to the west, no longer in use, enclosed by an old brick and rubble wall.