Ballyalton House, 39 Ballyrainey Road, Ballyalton, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT23 5AD

Ballyalton House is an unusual and sizeable two-storey gentleman's residence of pre-1833 origin, situated to the west of Ballyrainey Road, approximately one and a half miles west of Newtownards, in the townland of Ballyalton. The house sits in the shadow of Scrabo Tower and, together with its imposing gate screen, forms a unique composition in the local landscape. The building takes an 'L' shaped plan, and its most striking feature is the formal, mid-19th century Tudor-influenced front façade applied to an earlier structure, making it an intriguing combination of periods and styles.

The east-facing front façade is finished in lined render, painted, and crowned with a castellated parapet and eaves course. At its centre is an open porch with a flat roof screened by a castellated parapet at first-floor level, with a string course below. The porch entrance is formed by a flat pointed (Tudor-like) arch supported on triple cluster column-like pilasters, with trefoil recesses filling the haunches. Within the porch, the main doorway to the house is larger but follows the same design language: a flat pointed arch head above a decorated fanlight with thick tracery, set above a timber transom. Four triple cluster column-like pilasters frame the door, separating it from plain sidelights that have quatrefoil recess aprons. The door itself is timber and carries decorative pointed arch tracery to its top two panels. Inside the porch, the ceiling follows the same flat pointed arch profile as the doorway, though small corbels in the corners suggest the vaulting may originally have taken a different form. The interior walls of the porch are finished in plain render.

To either side of the porch, the façade is divided into full-height bays, each with their own full-height canted bay windows fitted with Georgian-paned sash windows, panelled lintels, and aprons. The panelled lintels to the ground-floor windows are decorated with trefoil-like recesses. The central faces of the upper-floor canted bays contain double sash frames. Above the porch, the first-floor central bay is recessed and has a double sash window with Georgian panes and a label moulding.

Extending from either side of the front façade is a tall, matching castellated screen wall, with a string course continuing from the main façade. At the end of each screen wall stands an octagonal turret, each with a castellated parapet on corbels rising just above the height of the wall. Every face of the turrets carries a large pointed arch window opening with a raised and chamfered surround. The centre of each screen wall contains a doorway with a raised and chamfered stone surround, label moulding, and a sheeted door. The east faces of both screen walls are finished in lined render and painted, while the turrets are left unrendered.

The short south façade of the main house is finished in roughcast render and has a recently inserted set of French doors to the left at ground-floor level. The north façade is long, merging into the return wing, and is also finished in roughcast render. Its left (east) portion rises to the full height of the main house and has a matching hipped roof. This section contains three Georgian-paned sash windows to the centre and right of the first floor, with three corresponding windows directly below at ground-floor level, the rightmost of which has no glazing bars. Beyond this, the return continues to the west in a slightly shorter section with a mono-pitched roof. To the left of this section at ground-floor level is a set of glazed French-style doors. At first-floor level are four evenly spaced roundel windows with quarter panes. Further west, the return merges with a single-storey gabled outbuilding or store whose north façade projects beyond the north face of the return.

The rear of the main section of the house is also finished in roughcast render. Near the intersection with the return at the far left of the first floor is a sash window as described elsewhere. Below this window, and attached to the return, is a single-storey lean-to conservatory with a Bangor blue slated roof, added during the first half of the 20th century and considered an unsuitable addition to the historic structure. At the far right of the main rear façade are a small window with a modern frame at ground-floor level, a narrow Georgian-paned sash window at landing level, and a small four-pane window above that.

The south façade of the hipped-roof portion of the return has a sash window to the left at both ground and first-floor level; the ground-floor window is without glazing bars. Beyond this, the return merges into the shorter mono-pitched section, which from this elevation is revealed to be 'L' shaped, with the short horizontal of the 'L' attached to the west façade of the taller portion of the return. The short west façade of this horizontal section has a modern timber window to the first floor and a sash window to the ground floor. The south façade of the long vertical of the 'L' has three modern windows to the first floor. To the left at ground-floor level is a broader modern timber window in a similar style, and to the right of this is a doorway with a plain stone surround and a timber panelled door.

The main roof is hipped and covered in Bangor blue slates. The mono-pitched roof of the west section of the return is also covered in Bangor blue slates. Three rendered chimney stacks rise from the main hipped roof and return, each carrying four sturdy sandstone pots.

To the south and west of the main house is a large collection of outbuildings. The principal outbuilding to the south is two storeys tall with a part-hipped, part-gabled roof covered in Tullycavy slates and finished in roughcast render. It has various carriage, door, and window openings, and a stone staircase on its west façade leading to the upper floor. A former air raid shelter is attached to its east façade. To the northwest of the main house is a rubble-built outbuilding with a steep hipped roof, now used as a store and shop selling architectural salvage.

The house and much of its outbuildings are shown on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map, at which time it was in the possession of a William Campbell. Historical valuation records show that the complex then included a scullery, stables, cow house, potato house, and piggery. By 1863, the house — by then known as Ballyalton House — had passed to a Francis McKeown, though it was occupied by a Reverend Arthur F. Farrell. The gate lodge to the main east entrance had been built by this time as well. The Tudor-influenced front façade is undoubtedly a mid-19th century addition and may have been applied at the same time as the gate lodge was constructed. In more recent times the house was owned by a member of the locally notable Corry family, who demolished the gate lodge in the late 1960s and removed much of the garden wall to the north. The rear conservatory appears to have been added around the 1940s.

Historical documentation for the property is held at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, including Londonderry Papers covering leases relating to the Ballyalton townland from 1750 onwards, maps relating to the same townland from 1772 to 1828, first valuation records for the parish of Newtownards and townland of Ballyalton from 1833, Ordnance Survey maps for both the first edition (1833/4) and first revision (1858–60) for County Down sheet 5, and Griffith's second valuation records for the parish of Newtownards and townland of Ballyalton from 1863.