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

Ballymacarron House is a large two-storey gentleman farmer's residence dating from around the 1840s, set at the end of a long curving drive to the east of the Ringdufferin Road, approximately three miles north of Killyleagh. The house has a hipped roof and a semi-basement, and is finished externally in unpainted lined cement render with chamfered quoins to the front. The rear façade is largely in unpainted roughcast, with part of the basement level exposed in random fieldstone (greywacke) rubble. The roof is covered in natural slate and carries roughcast rendered chimney stacks, one of which is irregularly placed to the north side. A small gabled dormer with a four-pane window is also on the north side.

The front (east) façade is symmetrical. A broad flight of stone steps, bordered by a box hedge, rises to the entrance at ground floor centre. The entrance has been substantially altered, probably around 1960, and now consists of a plain sheeted door with narrow four-pane sidelights, set within a cement-rendered surround with plain pilasters and an equally plain entablature with a simple cornice. The marking on the render above the entablature suggests there may once have been a blocking course, and it is possible the entrance originally had a portico. To the left of the entrance are two sash windows with Georgian-pane glazing (six over six); to the right are two further sash windows, these fitted with horizontal glazing bars only. At semi-basement level directly below the two right-hand windows are two windows with Georgian-style panes and shallow segmental arch heads. To the left of the entrance steps the ground rises, largely enclosing the basement, and the three windows on that side are lit via lightwells; these appear to have matching frames.

The south façade has a large lean-to timber conservatory at ground floor level, open on the right-hand side. Within the open section is a sash window with Georgian panes matching those on the front left. To the left, within the enclosed section of the conservatory, is a glazed door. To the far left the conservatory joins a gabled rear return. At first floor level on the south façade are two sash windows matching those on the front left.

The north façade has a sash window matching those on the front right, with two similar but narrower windows at first floor level. To the far right at first floor level is a doorway with an early to mid-20th-century door, leading to a small concrete walkway that bridges over the basement area below. The basement of the north façade has three sash windows with Georgian panes.

The rear (west) façade features a full-height projection left of centre, with a lean-to-style roof that the render suggests was originally flat and probably carried a water tank. The west face of this projection has a partly glazed door at basement level (which is at ground level on this side of the house), with two small sash windows with vertical glazing bars to both ground and first floors. The north face has a small single-light fixed-pane window at basement level. The south face has a small sash window at each level. To the left of the projection on the main rear façade is a sash window at ground floor level and one at first floor level; the first floor window is larger and has a horizontal glazing bar to both sashes, while the ground floor window has a glazing bar to the bottom sash only.

To the far right of the rear façade is a two-storey gabled return. The north face of this return has a timber-sheeted stable door to the left at ground floor (basement) level, and to the right a double sash window with Edwardian multi-pane glazing. At first floor (actually ground) level there is a centrally placed multi-pane casement window with a half-dormer window directly above it with similar panes, the dormer appearing as an upward extension of the window below. The south face of the return is single-storey and has a large window with multi-pane glazing. The gable of the return is blank. There is a chimney stack to the gable of this rear return.

At basement level on the rear façade, between the full-height projection and the gabled return, is a partly glazed door with an elliptical arch fanlight with spoked tracery. To the right of this is a large triple sash window with Georgian panes and a segmental arch head to the whole opening. Directly above this window, and to the left at stair landing level, are further sash windows with Georgian panes. Two sets of 19th-century-style wrought iron pedestrian gates are located in the garden to the south and west of the house.

To the north of the house is a group of outbuildings, probably dating mainly from the latter half of the 19th century, along with the remains of a walled garden that may be contemporary with the house itself. The outbuildings are arranged in a U-shaped formation: two storeys to the northeast and single storey to the west. Walls are in fieldstone rubble with brick dressings to the openings, and the roofs are covered in natural slate. The coursing of the stonework and the brick dressings to the two-storey northeast section suggest it was built in two phases.

The single-storey southwest section houses stables and a garage, with four traditional timber-sheeted stable doors with 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. Its southwest façade has two pedestrian doors, four windows, and a large carriage entrance at ground floor level, with five small openings to the first floor. Two of the first-floor openings have mid-20th-century-style two-pane window frames; the rest are louvred. At ground floor level the pedestrian doors are relatively modern partly glazed models, and the windows have a mixture of traditional sash and mullioned-and-transomed frames. The large carriage arch has timber-sheeted doors. Attached to the southeast gable of the two-storey section is a single-storey lean-to; above this the gable has a small nine-pane window and a small clock face. The lean-to has an elliptical arch-headed carriage entrance to the southwest and a large mid-20th-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 it. To the left is a large rubble-built lean-to with a small breeze-block piggery attached. The northwest gable of the two-storey section has a modern ground-floor window that does not appear to be original, with evidence of a blocked-up former doorway to its left. The single-storey northwest section has a large shallow elliptical-headed archway running right through it at its northeast end. Its northwest façade has a timber-sheeted doorway with a small six-pane window on 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.

Ballymacarron House is shown on the revised Ordnance Survey map of 1858, along with the walled garden and some outbuildings. It is recorded in the second valuation survey of around 1861 as the property of a John Hart, with the substantial rateable value of £22. The building was purchased by the present owner's family in 1929. The style of the building suggests a date of around 1840, though the rear return may be late Victorian or Edwardian in origin. The window openings to the north façade may have been altered at the same time, possibly in connection with changes to the layout of the ground-floor rooms on the north side — the differing window frames to the right of the front façade also point in this direction. The alterations to the main entrance are likely to date from the mid-20th century and may have involved the removal of a portico.