48-50 Mountstewart Road, Ballycastle, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 2AX

A pair of semi-detached, picturesque single-storey rubble-built gabled estate workers' cottages, dating to the 1860s, have been combined into a single dwelling. The property is one of a small group of similar houses located on the north side of Mountstewart Road, near the Mount Stewart demesne, approximately three miles north west of Greyabbey. The main gabled roof has an overhang at the gable ends of the house and porch. Bangor blue slates cover all roofs, and two brick chimney stacks are present on the main house. Cast iron rainwater goods are visible.

The symmetrical front (south) elevation features a central gabled porch with sandstone quoins. Timber-sheeted doors are situated on the east and west sides of the porch; the eastern door is no longer in use. The front gable side of the porch has a three-light timber casement window, featuring a window box and a trefoil in the tympanum. Two similar windows are positioned to the left of the porch, with two further windows to the right. Small two-light casement windows are set into the east and west gables at attic level.

The rear elevation includes a small central single-storey gabled kitchen return with a timber-sheeted door on the east side, alongside two timber windows. A small gabled glasshouse is attached to the west side of the return. A small chimney stack rises from the return roof. Small multi-pane windows with brick flat arch heads are located to either side of the return on the main house.

According to the current owner, the houses were constructed in the 1860s, likely as estate workers' dwellings, and remained part of the Mount Stewart Estate until recently. The two dwellings were amalgamated into a single property sometime after 1971, around 1990. Documentary evidence from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) includes Ordnance Survey maps from 1860 and 1901, and annual valuation revision books from 1866 to 1930. A 1995 study by Anne Casement regarding the Mount Stewart landscape provides further context.