27 Killinchy Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Relatively small two storey terrace house which probably began life as a single storey dwelling with the upper level added perhaps c.1830-40. The house is set in the terrace on the W side of Killinchy Street.

The front (E) façade has a doorway to the left on the ground floor with timber sheeted door encased with plain pilasters, entablature and cornice. To the left of this is a window now with PVC frame. To the first floor are two similar windows. The lower half of the façade is in greywacke rubble, the upper half in Scrabo sandstone.

To the rear there is a large modern full height return with a mono-pitched roof. This has modern windows and doors and a PVC conservatory attached to the rear (W). The narrow exposed section of the main rear façade (to the N of the return) has a PVC window to the first and to the ground floor. Both this section and the façade are finished in a contrived looking rough cast.

The gabled roof of the main house is covered in natural slate. Red brick chimney stack to N. Cast iron rw goods to front PVC to rear.

Historical information

What is now Killinchy Street is shown as a narrow country lane, without any buildings, on the 1722 map of Comber. By 1834 some development had taken place and this site was occupied. Unfortunately most of the houses in this terrace were not of sufficient value to merit recording during the 1833 valuation survey, however.

From the difference in stone types to the front façade of this house we know that the property began life a single storey dwelling. It may have been one of the ‘new stone houses of 1 storey…lately built on the roads to Belfast an Downpatrick’ referred to in the OS Memoirs of 1837, but the fact that the lower storey was built in greywacke rubble (a material which had largely ceased to be used in house building in Comber after c.1830) suggests that it may not have been ‘lately built’. Judging from the use of sandstone to the upper storey and the style of the door surround, it is possible that the building may have been raised in height around c.1840.

The return is a fairly recent addition, but may have replaced an earlier (?single storey) extension.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.654/M1B/2 Londonderry Papers- ‘Survey of the town, tenements and parks of Comber…1722’.
2 PRONI OS/1/3/10 OS map, 1st ed. 1834, Down 10.
3 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II’, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB1991), p.32.
4 PRONI OS/6/3/10/3 OS map, 1st rev. 1858, Down 10.
5 PRONI 2nd valuation, Comber, 1861 [In print in PRONI search room and in the Linen Hall Library- the map to accompany the valuation is missing making it largely impossible to be sure of the occupants of most houses within Comber at this date.]
6 PRONI OS/2/3/10 OS map, 2nd ed. 1901, Down 10.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Small two storey terrace house which began life as single storey but was raised in height probably around c.1830-40. There is a large modern return to the rear.