Ballymacarron House, 69 Ringdufferin Road, Ballymacarron, Killyleagh, Co. Down, BT30 9PH

Ballymacarron House is a large gentleman farmer's residence dating to around the 1840s, situated at the end of a long curving drive east of Ringdufferin Road, approximately three miles north of Killyleagh in County Down. The house is a two-storey building with a hipped roof and semi-basement.

The front elevation facing east is symmetrical. At ground floor level, a broad flight of stone steps bordered by a box hedge leads to the central entrance. The entrance has been substantially altered, possibly around 1960, and now comprises a plain sheeted door with narrow four-pane sidelights. The immediate surroundings of the door and sidelights are finished in cement render and enclosed by plain pilasters linked to a plain entablature with simple cornice; whilst this surround may be original, its clean lines appear modern. Markings on the render above the entablature suggest it may once have been topped with a blocking course, raising the question of whether this entrance once supported a portico.

To the left of the entrance are two sash windows with Georgian panes (6 over 6), and to the right are two further sash windows with horizontal glazing bars only. At semi-basement level, directly below the right-hand windows, are two windows with Georgian-like panes and shallow segmental arch heads. To the left of the entrance steps the ground rises, largely enclosing the basement; three windows here are lit via lightwells.

The south façade features a large lean-to timber conservatory at ground floor level, open to the right. Within the open section is a sash window with Georgian panes matching those on the front left, and to the left (within the enclosed section) is a glazed door. Two sash windows with Georgian panes occupy the first floor of the south façade.

The north façade has a sash window matching those on the front right, with two similar but narrower windows to the first floor. At the far right of the first floor is a doorway with an early to mid-twentieth-century door leading to a small concrete catwalks bridging over the basement. The basement contains three sash windows with Georgian panes.

The rear elevation includes several distinctive features. At left of centre is a full-height projection with a lean-to-like roof; render marks suggest this was once flat and probably once supported a water tank. The west face of the projection has a partly glazed door to basement level with two small sash windows (vertical glazing bars) to both ground and first floors. The north face has a small single-light fixed pane window to basement level, and the south face has a small sash window to each level. To the left of the projection on the main rear façade is a sash window to ground floor and one to first floor; the first-floor window is larger with horizontal glazing bars to both sashes, whilst the ground-floor window has a glazing bar to the bottom sash only.

At the far right of the rear façade is a two-storey gabled return. Its north face has a timber-sheeted stable door (left, at basement level) and to the right a double sash window with Edwardian multi-pane glazing. To the first floor (ground level on this side) is a centrally located multi-pane casement window with a half-dormer window directly above featuring similar panes; this half-dormer appears to be an extension of the window below. The south face of the return is single-storey with a large multi-pane window. The gable is blank.

At basement level of the rear façade, between the full-height projection and the return, is a partly glazed door with an elliptical arch fanlight featuring spoked tracery. To the right is a large triple sash window with Georgian panes and a segmental arch head. Directly above this window are sash windows to each floor with Georgian panes. At stair landing level to the left is a similar window.

The front façade is finished in unpainted lined cement render with chamfered quoins. The rear façade is mainly unpainted rough cast, except for part of the basement level which is in random fieldstone rubble (greywacke). Basement windows to the north and east are set within a tall base largely covered in creeping plant growth. The roof is hipped with rough-cast rendered chimney stacks, one irregularly placed to the north. A small gabled dormer with four-pane window sits to the north side. The roof is covered in natural slate, with a chimney stack to the gable of the rear return. Two sets of nineteenth-century-looking wrought iron pedestrian gates stand in the garden to the south and west of the house.

North of the house is a group of outbuildings, probably dating mainly from the latter half of the nineteenth century, together with the remains of a walled garden which may be contemporary with the house. The outbuildings form a U-shaped arrangement, two-storey to the northeast and single-storey to the west. They are largely gabled with walls in fieldstone rubble featuring brick dressings to openings. The coursing of the stone and brick dressings to the two-storey section suggest it was built in two phases. The roofs are covered in natural slate.

The single-storey section to the southwest contains stables and a garage, with four traditional timber-sheeted stable doors (four-pane fanlights) to its northeast façade and a modern up-and-over garage door in the centre. The two-storey section houses a tack room and stores, with two pedestrian doors, four windows, and a large carriage entrance to the ground floor on the southwest façade. The first floor has five small openings, two of which have mid-twentieth-century two-pane window frames whilst the rest are louvered. Ground-floor doors are relatively modern partly glazed models; the windows are a mixture of traditional sash and mullioned-and-transomed frames. The large carriage arch has timber-sheeted doors. To the southeast gable of the two-storey section is an attached single-storey lean-to section, with a small nine-pane window and a small clock face in the gable above. The lean-to has an elliptical arch-headed carriage entrance to the southwest and a large mid-twentieth-century window to the southeast.

The northeast façade of the two-storey section has an elliptical arch-headed carriage entrance to the right, with a timber-sheeted store door directly above, and to the left a large rubble-built lean-to with a small breeze-block piggery attached. The northwest gable has a modern ground-floor window (not appearing to be original) with evidence of a blocked former doorway to its left.

The single-storey section to the northwest has a large shallow elliptical-headed archway running through its northeast end. Its northwest façade has a timber-sheeted doorway with a small six-pane window to either side.

The walled garden lies to the southeast of the outbuildings and retains much of its reasonably high rubble wall, though it no longer appears to be used as a garden.