Carrickmannan Primary School, 77 Carrickmannon Road, Carrickmannan, Ballygowan, Newtownards, Co Down, BT23 6JJ

Carrickmannan Primary School is a single-storey, L-shaped gothic school house built in 1878, probably designed by William Lynn. It stands on the south-west side of Carrickmannon Road, approximately two miles south of Ballygowan.

The building features a steeply pitched roof with Bangor blue slates, several courses of which are shaped. The roof has an overhang with exposed rafter ends and cast iron rainwater goods. The entire façade is finished in painted rough cast with a chamfered base.

The north-east façade contains the entrance at its centre, next to a large gabled projection. The entrance door consists of relatively modern double timber doors with glazed panels, surrounded by a sturdy Portland or composite stone surround with an unusual Egyptian or Art Deco appearance that appears to be a replacement. The large gabled projection has a buttressed north-east facing gable which is otherwise blank except for recent raised lettering spelling "Carrickmannon P.E. School" in what appears to be painted timber. Above this lettering is a small square recessed panel which once held the inscription "Erected by Frederick Temple, Earl of Dufferin 1878", though flaking stone and successive paint layers have largely obscured it. The gable is topped with a buttressed bellcote featuring a gabled head and pointed arch for a bell (now removed). The bellcote is constructed in basalt rubble with a moulded trefoil to each face of the gable. The south-east façade of this projection contains an extremely large window with a relatively modern frame. There is a small recessed panel in the tympanum bearing the Dufferin monogram.

The north-west façade has a large square window to the far left, a projecting chimney breast rising through the eaves line and tapering to a tall square chimney stack in basalt rubble with corbelling, and a smaller window to the right of the chimney breast. Further right is a large modern glazed double door. Flush with the right edge of the north-west façade is a relatively modern single-storey flat-roofed toilet and office extension which spans the whole of the south-west façade, featuring a series of mainly small modern windows and several doorways on its south-west, north-west and south-east faces. To the south-east face of the extension another chimney breast rises to a stack as before.

The school was built in 1878 by Frederick Temple-Blackwood, Earl of Dufferin, probably to designs by William Lynn. It replaced an earlier school established in connection with The Kildare Place Society in 1825, which appears on Ordnance Survey maps from 1833 and 1858-60.

The building has been substantially altered over the years. Rough cast has been applied to the façade, a modern flat-roofed extension added to the rear, and the original windows (which probably had thick sandstone mullions) have been removed and replaced with modern frames. The entrance doorway also appears to have been altered or replaced. Much original detailing has disappeared internally.

A large two-storey house to the south of the school originally served as the master's residence.