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

Partly overgrown ruins of a small medieval rubble-built church, roughly 1 mile to the W of Ballywalter, set in an old graveyard. This church was originally cruciform in plan with the combined length of the nave and chancel roughly 30m. Substantial portions of the E and W gables and a small low section of the S wall have survived, but the rest of the structure has either been reduced to foundations or vanished completely. The surviving section of the S wall measures c.6m and c.1m thick, but it is now almost completely covered in greenery so that no features are discernible. Some openings within this wall were apparently blocked up in fairly recent times. The gable walls are c.8m wide. In the W gable there is a tall narrow opening, the top of which has disappeared and in the E gable there is a small narrow opening with chamfered (largely) sandstone dressings. There are (now overgrown) foundation ruins of the N transept (which projected c.6m), but nothing of the S transept has survived. There is a graveyard around the church, with discernible headstones dating from 1667, but there are three thirteenth century Norman grave slabs which have been propped up against a modern extension to the NE corner of the ruin, one of which has been damaged. There are headstones in the interior of the former church and the Mulholland family (Ballywalter Park) plot is situated to the NW of the ruin.