38 High Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small single storey vernacular house of pre 1834 origin, situated in the middle of a terrace on the SE side of High Street. The building is set on a slope rising NE to SW.

The front (NW) façade has a doorway roughly to the centre with timber sheeted and glazed door with plain fanlight. To the left of this is a sash window, with horizontal glazing bars (2 over 2). To the right of the doorway is a window, as previous.

To the left at the rear is small, single storey, gabled return. The NE face of this has a doorway (similar to front but with a large single pane of glazing) to the right, with a relatively small double sash window to the left. The gable and the SW face of the return are both blank. To the right of the return (on the main rear façade) is a small sash window.

The entire façade is finished in rough cast and painted. The gabled roof is covered in natural slate, as is the return roof. Rendered chimney stack to SW of roof ridge. Velux window to rear of roof. Aluminium rw goods.

Historical information

This site is shown occupied on the 1722 map of Comber. The present house is probably that (of the same dimensions) noted in the valuation of 1834 as the home of one James Gilliland. The valuers noted that the property (and the rest of this terrace) was of reasonable age at this stage, and may have dated from the 1790s or perhaps slightly later.

The whole terrace on this side is believed to have once housed workers of the near by brewery (later the Upper Distillery)- it may even have been purpose built. In 1920 the terrace was acquired by Andrews flax spinning mill (for use as employee housing) and in 1980 was vested in the Housing Executive. In 1984 the properties were acquired by Hearth Housing Association and renovated and restored two years later.

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/M54/2, 8, 9, 14, Londonderry Papers- Maps of Cow Lane 1793-1810. [High Street was known as Cow Lane in the 18th and early 19th centuries.]
3 PRONI VAL 1B/316A p.65 1st valuation, Comber, 1834.
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.

Secondary sources
1 Hearth Housing Association- notes concerning the history of 28-50 High Street.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
H-. Alterations detracting from building
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Small single storey vernacular house (with attic) of probable pre 1834 origin, set in a terrace all of which was sympathetically renovated in 1986.