Farm Buildings, Portaferry House Demesne, Ballymurphy, Portaferry, Co Down

Extensive complex of farm buildings, mainly built before 1820, originally constructed to serve the Portaferry House demesne and now used as stores and dwelling houses. The complex is situated to the rear (north-west) of Portaferry House, roughly half a mile north of Portaferry town.

The buildings are grouped around two courtyards in a roughly figure-of-8 arrangement, accessed via a gateway in a high stone wall to the south. The western courtyard is the farmyard proper, surrounded by a varied U-shaped grouping of single and two-storey buildings that originally functioned as milking parlours, dairies, piggeries, and foul houses. The eastern courtyard, grouped around a smaller yard, is a former stableyard surrounded by a more uniform U-shaped two-storey rendered block which originally contained stables, quarters for hands, tack room, carriage house, and laundries. A distance to the north of both courtyards stands a former threshing mill with the dilapidated remains of a horsewalk.

The former stableyard to the east is bounded to the south by the high stone wall (against which stands an interesting early petrol pump), to the east by a two-storey rendered building recently converted to living accommodation and originally containing stable hands' quarters, to the north by a slightly taller two-storey rendered general farm building, and to the west by another similar structure. The latter two buildings probably mainly housed hay lofts with stables and carriage houses on the ground floor. A coach arch leads through the east building to a walled lane which continues to the rear of Portaferry House. The walled lane also encloses a small garden to the rear of the east building. The windows in this courtyard are generally sash with Georgian panes, whilst the doors are set in elliptical arch openings with painted smooth render dressings. A large carriage doorway to the right on the inner façade of the east building is now largely filled with glazing, and a former pedestrian doorway next to it has been blocked. The upper level of the building to the west of the yard is reached via a stone stair from the farmyard to the west. The inner façades of the stableyard buildings are finished in unpainted rough cast, whilst the exposed outer façades are in unrendered rubble with brick dressings to openings. The roofs are a mixture of gabled and hipped, all covered in natural slate. The dwelling block to the east has two yellow brick chimney stacks, with another to the block to the north. The north building is currently being re-slated, with the window frames to the outer façade undergoing repair. To the north-east outside corner of the stableyard block is a now disused smithy with lean-to roof and open porch, with the roof supported over the porch on harled columns.

The farmyard to the west covers a larger area and displays less uniformity. It is bounded on the east by a large single-storey building with a lean-to roof which rests on the west side of the two-storey west stableyard building. This lean-to building appears to have been a milking parlour and retains stalls with the names of cows above them. To the north is a long, low two-storey block with a series of open elliptical archways, the two central of which lead through to the north side of the building. Above the two central archways is a large gabled half-dormer containing a loft doorway. The west side of this courtyard is bounded by another two-storey building, and to the south-east by a single and two-storey L-shaped grouping which almost creates an additional smaller courtyard to this corner. All buildings in the farmyard have whitewashed stone inner façades with some brick dressings to the openings. The roofs are mainly gabled and covered in natural slate. At survey, the buildings in this former farmyard were largely disused.

To the north are the remains of a single-storey threshing mill and horsewalk. The horsewalk is rubble-built with a partly gabled, partly conical slated roof and an elliptical arched opening in the south side. Joined to the west side of the horsewalk is a long, low hipped roof building with small doorway openings to the north. Joined to the north is a tall single-storey gable building with a large doorway to the west side fitted with modern sliding timber doors. Joined to the east side is a longer building of similar height, which further to the east joins a modern corrugated iron-clad barn. Apart from the horsewalk, this grouping is still in use. The horsewalk itself is in poor condition with part of its roof collapsed.