36-40 Mill Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey terrace block containing two houses and a shop (formerly just two houses), of possible early to mid 19th century origin. The block is set on the S side of Mill Street, to the W of Comber town centre.

No.36 is a house and is to the E side. To the ground floor left on its front (N) façade is a panelled door encased with plain pilasters entablature and cornice. To the right of this are two windows with simple moulded surrounds and PVC frames. To the first floor are two windows as before but without surrounds. The façade is finished in painted lined render with a chamfered base and quoins above the doorway to left.

At the rear there is a modern window to the left on the ground floor with a small extension to the right of this (with corrugated asbestos mono-pitched roof). This extension links to a two level gabled outbuilding. To the first floor rear façade are two modern windows, similar to ground floor left. The rear is finished in plain render and painted. The roof is gabled and covered in natural slate to the front and asbestos-free to the rear. Rendered chimney stack to W. Cast iron rw goods.

No.40 is another house, part of whose ground floor was converted to a shop (No.38). The house doorway is to the centre on the front façade and is the same as No.36’s. To the left is the simple shop front with timber sheeted door, fixed light shop window and simple sign board. To the right of the house doorway is a window with PVC frame and simple moulded surround. To the first floor are three slightly smaller windows, with similar frames but without surrounds. The front façade is finished as No.36 with quoins to the right.

The rear façade has three modern windows to the first floor with a long lean-to to the ground floor, with doorway to its S face leading to the shop and another to its short W face leading to the house. The lean-to links to a single storey outbuilding. To the left of the lean-to is another modern window. The rear façade is finished in plain painted render with lined render to the lean-to.

The roof is gabled and covered in natural slate to the front and asbestos-free to the rear. Rendered chimney stack to W. Cast iron rw goods.

Historical information

This site is shown occupied on the 1722 map of Comber and all other available maps thereafter. The valuation records of 1834 state that this section of the street contained ‘six houses exempt’ (i.e. below rateable value). It is possible that these buildings were two of six houses and could date from the late 18th or early 19th centuries, but they could well be slightly later than this- perhaps dating from c.1840-50.

The shop (No.38) is a later insertion into No.40, with No.40 itself undoubtedly originally possessing a symmetrical front façade.

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/M54/4, 6, 7, 12, 15, 24, 28-32, 34 Londonderry Papers- Maps of Mill Street 1793-1828.
3 PRONI VAL 1B/316A p.69 1st valuation, Comber, 1834. [The valuation records of Castle/Mill Street and High Street, Comber, are very difficult to decipher. The original details of the buildings, in terms of dimensions, age/condition grading etc., dates from 1834. In 1838 (after the rateable threshold had been raised from £3 to £5), a revaluation was carried out in Comber. This entailed the making of various annotations to the original record book, the (apparent) discarding of the original valuation map and the drawing up of new one to tie in the 1838 findings. Unfortunately, the 1838 annotations do not provide dimensions or age/condition grading of the buildings and the new map has a different numbering system to that used in 1834. As a result it is extremely difficult to tell what properties the more detailed 1834 records actually refer to, making, in many cases, the correlation of buildings as they stand today with those of 1834, at best difficult and at worst impossible. The writers have tried to make as much sense of the records they can.]
4 PRONI OS/1/3/10 OS map, 1st ed. 1834, Down 10.
5 PRONI OS/6/3/10/3 OS map, 1st rev. 1858, Down 10.
6 PRONI 2nd valuation, Comber, 1861. [In print in PRONI search room and in the Linen Hall Library- the town plan to accompany this valuation is missing making identification of owners of properties largely impossible.]
7 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

Relatively plain two storey terrace block containing two houses and a shop (formerly just two houses), of possible mid 19th century origin. The window frames to the front are now all PVC and the window openings to the rear all appear to have been enlarged.