Ballyfounder House, 16 Ballyfounder Road, Ballyfounder, Portaferry, Co Down, BT22 1RE

Ballyfounder House is a large, two-storey farmhouse of approximately 1850, set on the north side of Ballyfounder Road some two miles south-east of Portaferry, County Down. The building forms part of an impressive group with an extensive range of single and two-storey outbuildings to the north and east, some located on the opposite side of the road, which together create an interesting composition despite various modern alterations.

The house does not appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834 but is shown on the revised map of 1860, suggesting a construction date around 1850. The outbuildings to the east are considerably older, believed to date from the early eighteenth century, and originally served as dwelling houses. Reverend James Armstrong, minister of Portaferry Presbyterian Church between 1743 and 1779, lived in one of these dwellings. The house itself was later the home of James Shanks (1854–1912), a locally notable geologist and antiquarian.

The front façade faces roughly south and is symmetrical, finished throughout in unpainted lined render with moulded chamfered quoins. The ground floor features a large modern flat-roofed porch to the centre with a timber front door facing west, a large modern three-pane timber window to the front, and a smaller modern window to the west. To each side of the porch is a single window with label moulding and lion's head stops. The first floor has three evenly spaced windows of similar character with moulding. The west gable contains a ground-floor window to the left and a first-floor window to the right, both with label moulding and lion's head stops. The east gable has a square window on the ground floor to the right and a similarly detailed window on the first floor to the left. The rear elevation displays windows of various sizes, including four to the first floor and two to the ground floor. To the right of centre on the ground floor is a small kitchen return with a gabled roof and a small PVC conservatory or rear porch to the east side.

Modern window frames are used throughout. The gabled roof is covered with what appear to be Bangor blue slates and carries four evenly spaced yellow brick chimney stacks with simple corbelling; the third and fourth stacks to the east have pots.

The largest of the outbuildings to the north has the appearance of former rooms for farm labourers, with small Georgian-paned windows. A low rubble wall bounds the road and surrounds the front garden of the house. PVC gutters and downspouts have been added. The setting and composition of house and outbuildings together are of architectural and historical interest, notwithstanding the modern alterations that have affected the original character of the main house.