Former Church School, 28 Main Street, Ballymacruise, Millisle, Newtownards, Co Down, BT22 2PG

Former Church School, 28 Main Street, Ballymacruise, Millisle, Newtownards, County Down

This is a rubble-built gabled building with brick and sandstone dressings, originally constructed as Millisle National School around 1867 with financial assistance from the locally prominent Carmichael family, opening in January of that year. The school closed in 1959 when a new primary school opened on Abbey Road.

The original section occupies the southern part of the site on the west side of Main Street and comprises a single-storey rectangular gabled structure. The front (east) gable is buttressed and features a similarly buttressed lean-to projection forming the former porch, with its north and south facades now blank. The main entrance on the north facade has been blocked. The east facade displays two groups of three pointed-arch windows joined together with yellow brick dressings forming piers between them to create a colonnade effect, with a central buttress dividing the groups. The window frames are modern timber. All buttresses are finished with sandstone quoins. Above the lean-to projection, towards the main gable, is a larger joined group of three similar pointed-arch windows with stained glass. Above this group at the gable apex sits a small yellow brick dressed roundel inscribed "Millisle Baptist Church 1985".

The south elevation has been extended westwards and now displays a large gabled section at its eastern end with a triangular-arch headed doorway to the ground floor and a modern window of similar design directly above. The remainder of this facade features five tall triangular or flat-arch headed windows with modern frames and patterned glass, all surrounded by light-coloured brick. The original section retains its steeply pitched roof with asbestos-free slates and a stone parapet to the east with a cast iron finial.

The building remained vacant until approximately 1984–85, when it was substantially extended and converted into a Baptist church. Large modern extensions to the north, added around 1985, have effectively doubled the building's overall size. These extensions attempt to blend with the original structure, particularly on the front (east) facade, where a squat tower section with a pyramidal roof has been attached immediately to the right of the original gable, followed by a rubble-faced section with windows and dressings broadly consistent with the original design. The north and rear facades of the recent extensions are more functional in appearance, featuring limestone chip and rough cast render respectively, with largely plain window openings. The extensions contain a hall and church offices serving the Baptist congregation. The building is currently used as a church.