Ballywalter Church ruins, Dunover Road, Whitechuch, Ballywalter, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 2LW

Ballywalter Church ruins stand roughly one mile west of Ballywalter in an old graveyard on Dunover Road. The structure comprises the partly overgrown remains of a small medieval rubble-built church, originally constructed in the 13th century and subsequently extended in the 15th century. The church was abandoned around 1704 when Ballywalter parish was combined with those of Ballyhalbert and Inishargy, and a new church was built at Balligan.

The original church was cruciform in plan, with the combined length of the nave and chancel measuring roughly 30 metres. Substantial portions of the east and west gables survive, standing approximately 8 metres wide, along with a small low section of the south wall measuring about 6 metres in length and 1 metre thick. The remainder of the structure has been reduced to foundations or has vanished entirely.

The south wall is now almost completely covered in greenery so that no architectural features are discernible, though some openings within this wall were apparently blocked up in fairly recent times. The west gable contains a tall narrow opening, the top of which has disappeared. The east gable has a small narrow opening with chamfered sandstone dressings, largely surviving. Foundation ruins of the north transept, which projected about 6 metres, are now overgrown, but nothing of the south transept remains.

The graveyard surrounding the church contains discernible headstones dating from 1667 onwards. Three 13th-century Norman grave slabs have been propped up against a modern extension to the northeast corner of the ruin; one of these slabs has been damaged. Additional headstones lie in the interior of the former church. The Mulholland family plot from Ballywalter Park is situated to the northwest of the ruin.

The church appears in the papal taxation records of 1306 as 'Alba Ecclesia', meaning 'White Church'. According to the Archaeological Survey of County Down (1966), the church was built in the 1200s, with the transepts added in the 15th century. The structure was still in use in 1657, though by that time with only a thatched roof, but had fallen into disrepair by the 1680s.