2 The Square

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Much altered two storey terrace shop of c.1810-20 set on the NW corner of The Square and the SE end of Mill Street.

The (S) front facade has four tall, modern, equally spaced, plain ground floor openings. The second (from left) of the openings is a glazed doorway, the rest are fixed light windows. Above the windows is a long rectangular sign board. The first floor has no window openings, only the word ‘Chemist’ spelt out in large upper case letters.

The ‘return’ extends into Castle Street. To the far left is an elliptical coach arch. To the right of this are eight tall modern openings as front. The third from the left is a glazed door while the remainder are windows. They are formed in three groups of three, three and two. To the first floor are eight unevenly spaced sash windows with no astragals.

The original building would appear to have been ‘L’ shaped. The ‘elbow’ is now filled with fairly recent single and two storey flat roofed extensions. These extensions all but obscure the original rear facade. Above the rear of the coach arch a single sash window with Georgian panes (6 over 6). Far to the left of this on the first floor (beyond the two storey extension), there is a window opening which is now boarded up. To the rear of the S portion there is a single first floor sash window.

The front and W façades are finished in rough cast and painted, with moulded in/out quoins to the N and S wall edges but not to the E. The rear is mainly finished in plain cement render, apart from the section above the coach arch which is unrendered, revealing the building’s greywacke rubble construction. The roof is hipped and is finished with Bangor Blue slates. There are two plain rendered potless chimney stacks, with a much smaller rendered stack to the N of these (only visible from the rear).

Historical information

This site is shown occupied on the 1722 map of Comber, but not on David Geddas’s 1786 pictorial lease map of the north side of The Square. The greywacke rubble construction (underneath the render) and the one time presence of arch-headed doorways (revealed in old photographs), suggests that this building dates from c.1820-30. Thus it is probably that shown on the OS map of 1834, a building which the valuation records of 1834 note as the property of ‘the representatives of James Allen’, with of 1861 recording the owner as a John McConnell.

Photographs taken in the early 20th century show the property with a chemist’s shop front to the south (The Square) and an entrance to the house to the west (Mill Street). The façade appears to have remained much the same until c.1970, when the chemist’s shop was extended to incorporate the former house and the façade radically altered.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.654/M1B/2 Londonderry Papers- ‘Survey of the town, tenements and parks of Comber…1722’.
2 PRONI D.654/M54/1 Londonderry Papers- ‘A rough plan of the undermentioned tenements in the town of Comber, April 1786’ by David Geddas. [Pictorial lease map of the north side of The Square.]
3 PRONI D.654/M1B/18 Londonderry Papers- ‘A survey of the tenements out of lease in the town of Comber survey’d A.D. 1801’ by David Geddas
4 Linen Hall Library ‘Pigot & Co.’s Dublin and Hibernian Provincial Directory’ (Manchester 1824).
5 PRONI VAL 1B/316A p.55 1st valuation, Comber, 1834.
6 PRONI OS/1/3/10 OS map, 1st ed. 1834, Down 10.
7 Linen Hall Library ‘Slater’s National Commercial Directory of Ireland’ (Manchester 1846), p.442.
8 Linen Hall Library ‘Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Ireland’ (Manchester 1856), p.505.
9 PRONI OS/6/3/10/3 OS map, 1st rev. 1858, Down 10.
10 PRONI 2nd valuation, Comber, 1861. [In print in PRONI search room and in the Linen Hall Library.]
11 Linen Hall Library ‘Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Ireland’ (Manchester 1870).
12 George Henry Bassett ‘County Down Guide and Directory’ (Dublin 1886), pp.303-305.
13 MBR Photographs of The Square, Comber, c.1900-1950. [These photographs appear to be mainly copies of those belonging to the Laurence Collection (with original negatives held at the NLI in Dublin)].
14 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

Much modernised two storey end of terrace shop, probably originally dating from c.1810-20 and possibly originally incorporating a house and shop. Little trace of the original façade remains save for some first floor sash windows to the west side.