Millmount House, 9 Millmount Road, Dundonald, County Down, BT16 1UY

Millmount House is a handsome Georgian house of around 1810, built to a rectangular plan with two storeys over a basement and an attic above. It stands at the end of a driveway off Millmount Road, approximately one mile southeast of Dundonald, in a primarily rural landscape. It is a rare surviving example of a building of its type and period in this area.

The roof is covered in natural slate with clay ridge tiles and skews. The rainwater goods are ogee-moulded cast iron, set beneath a replacement moulded eaves cornice. The chimneys are cement-rendered and fitted with clay pots. The external walls are finished in cement-rendered ruled-and-lined render. Windows are timber sliding box sashes, glazed 6/6 and 6/3, set in sandstone cills, some of which have been replaced in concrete. The front door is a replacement timber door with a half-circle fanlight above and hood mouldings without stops.

The principal elevation faces east and is symmetrically arranged. The front door sits above the exposed basement level and is reached by concrete steps flanked by parapets. On either side of the front door are two 6/6 sash windows; the first floor has five 6/6 sash windows; the basement has five diminished-height 6/3 sash windows. The left gable has a single ground-floor window to the left and two diminished-scale 6/6 sash windows flanking the chimney. The rear elevation is symmetrically arranged, with centrally offset windows to the stair landings, flanked on either side by basement doors with outer basement windows, and paired ground- and first-floor windows. Five modern conservation-style windows have been inserted into the rear pitch of the roof. The right gable is symmetrically arranged with attic windows matching those of the left gable.

The internal layout has been partially altered, with a number of rooms modified and some period features lost. At the time of its assessment in 1934, the house was described as moderately well-finished internally and contained three reception rooms, a kitchen, scullery and pantries on the ground floor, with four bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. The overall character of the building remains intact.

The setting is primarily rural landscape extending beyond the site boundaries in all directions. The former outbuildings immediately adjacent to the house have been removed and replaced by a single modern shed to the rear, which is of no architectural interest. The grounds to the front have been neglected and are largely overgrown.

Millmount House first appears in primary records in 1814, when it formed part of the lands, mills, premises and tithes at Ballylisbredan townland, leased for 21 years to Robert Cumming by the Vicars Choral and Organist of St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh. The choir of Armagh Cathedral, in common with choirs in Dublin, Limerick and Kilkenny, were substantial landowners with holdings in both Armagh and Down. Rights in the house and mills were sold several times over the following years. In 1818 and 1821, Robert Cumming leased two mills and associated premises to William Galway of Malone.

The house is shown and captioned as "Mill Mount" on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, together with a mill to the northwest. This complex was one of a series of mills along the length of the Enler River, extending from Killarn townland to the north and terminating in flour, saw and bleach mills at Comber. The house was the residence of miller and farmer William Galway. At the time of the first valuation of 1828–40, his mills were used for the processing of corn and barley, with a corn kiln also in operation; the barley mill was later converted to the processing of flax. The whole property was valued at £23 5s 0d, with dimensions recorded for a two-storey house with an additional basement storey and a coachhouse. The valuers judged the house to have deteriorated with age, suggesting it had been built some years before the valuation. William Galway's hobby was smithwork and he is said to have invented Ireland's first horse-drawn potato-digger. However, being a farmer rather than a gentleman, the house does not appear in contemporary lists of gentlemen's seats.

William Galway senior died intestate in 1847, shortly after purchasing the farm and mills for £1,500, leaving the property to his son, also William Galway. The second edition Ordnance Survey map shows the nearby mill captioned as "Flax Mill", with the corn mill and kiln shown further to the north. By 1860–61, the house and mills were valued at £36 in total — £18 for the house and outbuildings, £6 for the mills and £8 for water power. William Galway died in 1869, and Millmount passed to his wife Margaret Jane in 1871, who appears to have had a young family at the time. She became the owner in fee in 1893, and the house passed to John Galway, probably her son, in 1896. That same year John Galway added a substantial new single-storey outbuilding to the plot.

John Meneely Galway described himself as a farmer in the 1901 census. Contemporary accounts record that at this time the house "could boast magnificent mature gardens (amongst which strutted peacocks, until they broke the byre windows), a croquet lawn, tennis court, a leafy tree-lined avenue and a small ornamental lake", some of which features are identifiable on the 1901–02 Ordnance Survey map. The same source describes Millmount under John Meneely Galway as "a model farm. The hedges were dressed, outhouses whitewashed, and ditches dredged every year or every other year. The yard was kept spotless and the stacks were roped and trimmed so neatly that one well-intentioned English visitor remarked that it would 'put a home counties village to shame.'" By 1906, the valuation records state that the corn mill was "at rest" and the valuation of the house was reduced to £33. No further reference is made to the flax mill, which appears to have been absorbed into the farm outbuildings. By 1911, John Galway and his wife Sophia were raising a large family — their seven children ranged in age from fifteen to one year — and the couple were prosperous enough to employ a small staff of domestic and farm servants, including a governess and nurse. The house was at that time classified as first class, with thirteen windows to the front façade and eleven rooms.

The Galways left the house in 1922 when John became crippled with arthritis. In 1924, the house was bought by the Belfast Co-operative Society as a dairy farm, and a number of small cottages were built on the plot in 1919 by the Rural District Council for farm workers. The house was occupied by the farm manager, but by 1932 its valuation had been reduced to £16. During the period of the First General Revaluation (1933–57), the farm's valuation steadily increased as outbuildings were added in 1939 and 1949. At the initial assessment in 1934, the house had no artificial light, although it was described as moderately well-finished internally. In 1955, one of the outbuildings was converted to a motor house and a new milk house was added, raising the valuation to £22. In 1963, the house and farm became the property of the Northern Ireland Housing Trust, the forerunner of today's Northern Ireland Housing Executive. It was subsequently sold to Gerry Meehan, who restored the building under the supervision of architects Gifford and Cairns. The house continues in use as a domestic dwelling.