Mount Stewart & garden walls, Mount Stewart, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 2RU

Mount Stewart is a large, restrained two-storey Classical country house with a hipped roof, constructed in greywacke snecked rubble with sandstone dressings. The building took its present form around 1835–40 when the 3rd Marquis of Londonderry commissioned architect William Vitruvius Morrison to substantially rebuild what was largely an eighteenth-century dwelling, whilst retaining and blending additions made to the west side in 1805 by George Dance. The property is now in the care of the National Trust and sits within a large estate on the east coast of Strangford Lough, approximately 2 miles north-west of Greyabbey.

The roof is covered with Bangor blue slates and features multiple rendered chimney stacks topped with decorative cream-coloured clay pots. A large central roof light dome illuminates the main hall and stairs but is not visible from ground level. Cast iron rainwater goods are present throughout.

The north-east front elevation is dominated by a central large Ionic columned port cochère with entablature and pediment, constructed in sandstone. Within the port cochère sits a relatively modest main entrance comprised of a timber-panelled double door with simple pilasters, curved brackets, cornice and blocking course. On either side of the port cochère, the walls project slightly to form bays, both featuring central pediments. A similar pedimented bay appears on the west elevation. The rear or garden elevation has a central projection with pediment and single-storey porch with Ionic columns; the carved arms of the Vane-Tempest-Stewart and Chaplin families were added to this pediment in 1924. Each end of the rear elevation features a full-height semicircular bay. The south-east corner section is lower and less grand, merging into an even shorter, more informal L-shaped section with brick dressings to openings and partial brick construction, likely added in the late nineteenth century. A small modern single-storey extension in concrete brick with a concrete brick boiler chimney stands on the north side of this section and is largely obscured by vegetation. Much of the south façade and portions of the north are covered in greenery.

Windows throughout Mount Stewart are generally sashes with Georgian panes. The bays on the front and west side feature tripartite windows, with an elliptical arched doorway on the ground floor of the west bay now serving as a tripartite window. Ground-floor windows on the rear, flanking the porch, are in French or casement style.

A decorative balustrade with urns surrounds the forecourt to the north of the house. The elaborate ornamental garden immediately to the north-west and south-west was begun by Edith, Lady Londonderry in 1921 and gradually developed over 35 years, reflecting her distinctive tastes throughout.

The Italian garden, to the south of the house and roughly square in plan, is approached from the terrace via a flight of stone steps. A low stone wall surrounds this area, featuring balustrades to the north and a tall row of evenly spaced columns to the south. Most columns are moulded in the fantastic shape of monkey-like beasts with urns on their heads and human faces further down each pillar; each pillar bears a different face, possibly corresponding to real persons. At the centre of the south wall stand two sets of matching double pillars topped with griffin figures. Between these is a carved stone basin beyond which a curved flight of stone steps with moulded heraldic lions at each side leads into the Spanish garden, a smaller rectangular plot with a small hipped-roof pantile summer house at its south end. The central portion of this garden is sunken. In the middle of the east wall is a decorative set of stone steps leading from a north-to-south terrace known as the 'Dodo Terrace', named for the moulded dodo figures on stone pillars near the steps. This terrace features other fantastic and conventional animal mouldings on pillars along its length. At the terrace's south end stands a small stone garden with a small portico featuring a flat roof supported by a south wall and four Tuscan-like columns to the north. Two orange-coloured moulded griffin figures stand on the portico roof, with moulded heraldic motifs on the rear wall. Atop the balustrade on the steps leading to the Dodo Terrace is a stylised moulding of an ark. Much of the garden walls are obscured by greenery.

To the west of the house lies the Sunk garden, a sunken square-plan garden joined further west by the Shamrock garden, so named because of its shape. Neither garden appears to have stone work or mouldings, their main features being floral, including a topiary harp. A set of decorative gate posts with moulded heraldic crown and swan motif, paired with decorative wrought-iron gates, stands on the north side of the Sunk garden.