Nut Grove, 19 Nutgrove Road, Annadorn, Downpatrick, Co Down, BT30 8QN

Nut Grove is a large, two-storey gentleman's residence of around 1845–50, built in a broadly Italianate style with a hipped roof and a prominent projecting entrance bay to the front. It stands roughly 3.5 miles west of Downpatrick, set to the south-east of Nutgrove Road in a hollow, with a terraced garden bank to the north and views largely screened by mature trees.

The house was built by Andrew McCammon, a local miller, on the site of an earlier Nut Grove House — a large single-storey dwelling of probable early 18th century construction, associated with the Cosslet family, who are recorded as living there in 1743–44. The Cosslets also built a large three-to-four-storey corn mill close to the house, both of which are shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834. The family remained at Nut Grove until sometime between around 1810 and 1832. By 1836, valuation records describe the house — which the valuers considered probably at least a century old — as being in a state of dilapidation, while the corn mill and surrounding land had passed to the Forde estate. The mill had not been in use for four years and its machinery had been entirely removed. Shortly afterwards, the estate leased the land to Andrew McCammon, who brought the mill back into working order, built the present house on the site of the old one, and added a gate lodge on what was then the main drive to the east, now Nutgrove Road. The McCammon family remained at Nut Grove until the early 1950s, after which the property was acquired successively by a Mr Gelston and a Mr Cowdy. During the 1980s it was used as a restaurant but has since reverted to private residential use. The old mill building was abandoned when the McCammons left around 1952 and was demolished in the early 1970s.

The front, north-facing façade is symmetrical. At its centre is a full-height, hipped-roof projecting bay. At ground floor level, the main entrance consists of a panelled door with three-pane sidelights, flanked by battered and fluted Doric three-quarter column jambs supporting an entablature. Above this are three semicircular fanlights, the central one — directly over the door — being larger than the two flanking it; all have moulded archivolts. At first floor level within the bay, three sash windows are arranged as a joined group, each with a semicircular arch head and moulded architrave, and each glazed with horizontal glazing bars in a two-over-two pattern. They rest on a sill course with moulded panels below, and a further course below that. The bay is bordered by moulded quoins. The ground floor of the façade is finished in rusticated render; the first floor in plain render. To either side of the bay, the main front façade has two windows at ground floor and two at first floor level. These have identical six-over-six Georgian-paned sash frames with moulded surrounds. The ground floor windows carry a moulded entablature, while those at first floor level share the sill course and panel arrangement of the bay's upper windows. The front façade as a whole is finished to match the bay, with in-and-out quoins to the first floor.

The short east façade is finished in lined render with in-and-out quoins, and has two windows on each floor matching those of the main front section, except that the left-hand window at first floor level is shorter than the right. The west façade repeats this arrangement, with the ground floor windows identical to one another.

The rear elevation is composed of three two-storey gables. The first gable, to the left, has two sash windows at each floor, matching those of the east and west façades. Abutting the second and third gables is a large two-storey gabled return. The west face of this return has a partly glazed doorway and a modern window at ground floor level, and two sash windows at first floor level. To the east, the return has been extended at some point by the addition of a two-storey lean-to, which gives the gable end of the whole return an uneven appearance. Due to the proximity of tree growth, the east face of the lean-to section cannot be inspected directly, though internal evidence and the tree cover together suggest there are no openings on this side, apart from a flat-roofed dormer. The south-facing gable of the return has a single-storey gabled projection to the left with a small high-level window in its gable, and to the right, within the main return gable, a larger ground floor window. Both of these windows have modern frames with Georgian-style glazing. The rear elevation is finished in a mixture of unpainted lined render and roughcast.

Over the front portion of the house the roof is hipped; the rear sections have gables. The entire roof is slated. There are four chimney stacks: two rendered stacks, one centred on the main section of the roof; a plainer stack to the central rear gable; and another to the main gable of the return. Rainwater goods are mainly cast iron.

Immediately to the rear of the return lies a former mill race. Beyond this is a substantial group of rubble-built one-storey and one-and-a-half-storey outbuildings with slated gabled roofs and various openings, which form part of the listed extent along with gates, gate piers, and a fountain.

The historian Walter Harris, writing in 1744, appears to suggest that Nut Grove is situated close to the site of a medieval stronghold built by the MacCartans, Lords of Kinelarty. The present house's position in a hollow suggests that any such fortification would more likely have stood on higher ground to the north-west, where the remains of a fort are marked on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map.