Ballywalter Park House & garden walling, Ballywalter Park, Springvale, Ballywalter, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 2PP

Ballywalter Park is a large, three-storey Italianate mansion with a hipped roof, single-storey side wings, and a port cochere. It stands within a large estate less than one mile south of Ballywalter village and took its present form in the late 1840s when the architect Charles Lanyon remodelled and extended an earlier house of early 18th-century origin, which had itself been remodelled around 1803. The house is roughly rectangular in plan, consisting of a central three-storey block with large single-storey wings to the north and south, and two later wings to the far north side, including a three-storey (in part) service wing set within a low-level yard. The building is almost entirely finished in painted render, with a mixture of plain and vermiculated chamfered quoins.

The central block is covered with a Bangor blue slated hipped roof. Tall rendered, panelled, and bracketed chimney stacks with decorative cream clay pots rise above it, and the roof overhangs on a decorative modillion cornice. At the centre of the ground-floor front (east) elevation stands a large port cochere with a flat roof, twinned Doric columns, vermiculated corner piers, and an ornate parapet. Set within it is a timber-panelled double entrance door encased with panelled pilasters, a plain entablature, and a pediment on console brackets. To either side, stucco balustrades match the parapet of the port cochere and enclose a narrow area at the front of the house. All windows on the east and west facades of the central block are sash windows with Georgian panes, with tripartite sash windows at both far right and far left on the ground and first floors of the east elevation. All ground- and first-floor windows on both the east and west facades have decorative surrounds including cornices on console brackets, cill courses, and panelled aprons below the first-floor windows. On the exposed second-floor section of the south facade there are four small sash windows with simple surrounds. The exposed north elevation has a similar window at each end, with the central portion broken by a large greenhouse-like glazed section stretching from the pitch of the roof. This glazed section covers a glass dome that lights the main stairwell.

Attached to the north and south sides of the central block are single-storey wings, each with a hipped roof largely hidden behind a decorative balustrade. The east elevation of each wing contains a single tripartite sash window with Georgian panes, heavily decorated with Corinthian pilasters to each side and Corinthian columns in front of the mullions, all supporting a plain entablature and pediment with modillions. Both windows rest on a cill course and have plain aprons. A decorative balustrade continues at ground level from the central port cochere around the front of the east facades of both wings. The west facade of each wing consists of a curved bay with three sash windows with Georgian panes, each with a simple panelled surround, entablature, and modillioned pediment on console brackets, with a cill course and brackets to the windows. The south elevation of the south wing has five similar windows, but with a cornice to each rather than a pediment. The middle opening doubles as a doorway and is encased with Corinthian pilasters with entablature, cornice, and blocking course.

To the north side of the north wing, the ground level drops substantially to reveal that this wing actually has three levels, with various sash windows broadly similar to those already described but without surrounds. Attached to the east side of this wing, set at a right angle to it, is a long three-storey wing built around 1902 to designs by W.J. Fennell, and considerably plainer than the rest of the house. Its east facade has two storeys, sash windows with simple surrounds, and is rendered but unpainted, unlike the rest of the building. The west rear facade is largely informal with a large recessed section. This wing was originally twice its current length, but its northern half was demolished in the early 1960s due to poor condition, leaving a plain gable end to the north with a small lean-to section at ground level.

To the west of this wing, attached to the west side of the north wing of the main house, is an L-shaped section added largely in around 1863. The south section of this L-shape, which houses a billiard room, is two storeys to the north and east but single-storey when viewed from the higher ground level to the west and south. Its west facade is sandstone-built and features a series of Corinthian pilasters to the sides of a series of arched recesses, with sash windows with Georgian panes set in three of the arches. This section is topped with a decorative balustrade and is largely flat-roofed with a central raised skylight section. The north section of the L is an ornate sandstone-built conservatory with a semicircular projection at the centre of the south elevation, topped with a glazed ogee dome. The entire south elevation and the west elevation are glazed with sash windows separated by Corinthian pilasters. This section is also capped with a decorative balustrade and has a hipped glazed roof. To the rear, at the north and east sides of the intersection of the L-shaped section, is a two-storey hipped-roof section with an oriel window to the north, added around 1902. The upper floor of this section, which is level with the billiard room and the conservatory, was built as a smoking room and serves also as an internal link to the conservatory.

There is a decorative unpainted stucco balustrade around the forecourt of the house and a similar balustrade enclosing a small area to the rear. To the north of the house is a long, high rubble wall enclosing the stable yard, and to the north-west of this is another long, high brick wall enclosing a large garden with greenhouses.

Internally, the house follows the same Italianate theme established by Lanyon on the exterior. The large central hall or saloon is reminiscent of the interior of Sir Charles Barry's Reform Club in London. The library interior is also of notable quality and was created by Andrew Mulholland's son John, later 1st Baron Dunleath, who was also responsible for stocking it.

The history of the house and estate is closely bound up with two prominent families. The earlier dwelling on the site, known as Springvale House and previously as Ballymagowan, may have been of late 17th-century origin. It was acquired in 1729 by a naval captain, George Matthews, who had improved and rebuilt it by 1744 according to the antiquarian Walter Harris. Around 1803 the house was renovated and re-styled, and perhaps extended, by his son, also George Matthews. By the time of the 1834 Ordnance Survey map and associated records, Springvale appeared as a largely square, south-facing, two-storey Georgian house with a semi-basement, end bays to the front, and small projecting bays at the rear. George Matthews died in 1839, leaving a disputed will that was placed before the Court of Chancery, which in 1843 ordered the sale of the entire estate. In 1846, the house, park, and all the Ballywalter interests were purchased by Andrew Mulholland of Belfast for £23,500.

Mulholland was a younger son of John Mulholland, a Belfast textile dealer of humble origins whose death in 1820 left his children a thriving cotton business. Following the accidental burning of their York Street Mill in 1828, the elder brothers John and William recommenced trading as linen manufacturers, a decision that proved the making of the family's fortune. After John's death in 1830 and William's migration to Jamaica, Andrew and the youngest brother St. Clair Kelburn took over the family business. Andrew rose to become one of Belfast's leading businessmen and Lord Mayor of the town in 1845. On acquiring Springvale the following year, he commissioned his fellow town councillor and architect of growing repute, Charles Lanyon, to completely remodel the house. Between 1846 and around 1852, the old Springvale House was transformed into Ballywalter Park. Lanyon took the existing south-facing square structure, added wings to the north and south, and placed the new entrance with port cochere on the remodelled east facade. Somewhat influenced by the designs of Sir Charles Barry, Lanyon gave the house a distinctly Italianate character through decorative balustrades, modillions to the main roof, cornices and pediments to many of the larger windows, and a liberal use of Doric and Corinthian columns and pilasters. Elsewhere within the park, which Mulholland had largely landscaped and planted with trees, Lanyon added two gate lodges and at least two ornamental garden bridges. In 1863 he received a further commission to add the billiard room and conservatory to the north-east corner of the house.

Andrew Mulholland died in 1866 and the house passed to his son John, who was raised to the peerage as Baron Dunleath in 1892. The last major addition to the building was the so-called cricket wing, built in 1902 to designs by W.J. Fennell to house visiting cricket teams, cricket being a particular passion of Henry, 2nd Lord Dunleath. By the early 1960s this wing had outlived its usefulness and had partly fallen into disrepair, leading the 4th Lord Dunleath to demolish the northern section around 1963. In the 1970s the 4th Lord also undertook extensive restoration of the house, a task complicated by a fire in the north-east portion in 1975. Much of the fire damage has since been repaired and rooms restored, and although work remained to be carried out to the billiard and smoking rooms, the mansion stands largely as it did in the mid-19th century.