Ardilea House, 8 Ardilea Road, Clough, Downpatrick, BT 30 8SL

Ardilea House is a relatively large, sprawling, and irregularly planned house located on the north side of Ardilea Road, approximately 1.5 kilometres south-south-east of the village of Clough. The building is believed to date originally from the 1740s, though it has been significantly altered in the later 18th century, again around 1857, and with some additions made in the 1970s. The 1834 Ordnance Survey map shows the building with roughly the same plan form as today, though evidence suggests there were originally more two-storey sections.

The house comprises a two-storey section to the south-west with a hipped roof and full-height canted bay, alongside a long, plain single-storey gabled wing stretching to the north-east. The sheer irregularity of the composition and its lack of any recognisable architectural style, combined with extensive recent internal renovations, have made it difficult to discern the sequence of development.

The south-west elevation of the two-storey block features a small gabled entrance porch with a main four-panel door positioned to the left of the north-west side. The porch has matching six-paned casement windows to its south-west and south-east faces, a decorative fretwork barge board, and a roof covered with natural blue and grey slate. Directly above the porch is a large semicircular-headed sash window with coloured leaded panes, though both the arch head and its present frame were added around 1979. The south-west elevation of the main house is otherwise blank. The south-east face of the two-storey portion features a full-height, three-sided chamfered bay with modern top-hung windows with Georgian-like panes to the ground and first floors on each face. To the right side is a small single-storey bay with a hipped and slated roof, fitted with modern top-hung windows with multiple panes on each of its three faces, and a small top-hung window above.

The north-west side of the two-storey portion has a full-width lean-to extension to the ground floor. This contains a small six-paned fixed window to the bottom left and a multi-paned corner window with top openers to the far right. Above the lean-to roof is a small six-pane casement window with a side opener.

The long single-storey gabled section to the north-east has four widely spaced windows with multiple-paned modern frames along its south-east elevation. The north-east gable is blank and separated from a single-storey outbuilding by a narrow gap. The north-west side has a top-hung window to the extreme right, with the remainder obscured by a long single-storey flat-roofed extension containing three small windows with modern frames and two modern panelled doors arranged alternately. The north-east side of the flat-roofed section abuts a large two-storey hipped-roof outbuilding.

The walls are largely rough-cast rendered, with ivy-like creeper covering much of the external walls of the two-storey section. The roofs, with the exception of the flat roof, are covered with natural blue and grey slate. A wide pot-less chimney stack rises to the apex of the two-storey roof. The rainwater goods appear to be mainly cast iron.

To the north-east is a large collection of single and two-storey outbuildings.