26-44 Carnesure Terrace,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Carnesure Terrace is situated on the E side of the N end of the Old Ballygowan Road, to the SW of Comber town centre. It is split into three sections of two storey terraced dwellings mainly built around 1904 by John Andrews & Co., for workers at the company’s near by spinning mill. The whole grouping is delightfully set amongst almost semi-rural looking surroundings, with long gardens to the rear and with trees and a small stream on the opposite side of the road.

Nos.30-44 were built as a terrace and are largely identical. The properties are arranged in handed pairs with the front (W) façade of each pair having a central gabled porch with a panelled door to N and to the S leading into their respective properties. Each doorway has a moulded surround with keystone. The gabled (W) face of each porch sports a pair of semicircular arch headed window openings with sash frames and linked label moulding above. The porches are Bangor blue slated with decorative shaped barges, small ‘tie-beam’ and finial.

The front façade of each house has two first floor sash windows with vertical glazing bars, with another to the ground floor (at either left or right of the porch).

To the rear each pair of houses has a two storey gabled return, with a door and at least one (kitchen) window to the ground floor of the return, one window to the first floor (near the intersection with the main house), and one to the first floor of the gable (with two to the gable in all). The rear of the main houses each have a single window to the ground floor and to the first floor. The frames at the rear display a variation not witnessed at the front of the terrace with many modern designs installed. Some of the kitchen windows have been enlarged. The gables of the returns have small single storey lean tos which were once outside toilets.

The façade of Nos.30-44 is finished in lined render to the front with plain render to the rear and unpainted at the front with a few rear yards white washed. The S gable is rendered. Chamfered quoins to SW corner. The roof of the terrace is covered in Bangor blue slates and the RW goods are a mixture of cast iron and PVC (the latter mainly to the rear). Rendered chimney stacks.

Nos.26-28 are set at the N end of the terrace and differ from the rest, being both slightly smaller and sporting different detailing. To the front the arrangement is generally the same as Nos.30-44, the pair having a central shared gabled porch with respective doors to N and S and windows to the gable, and three windows in the same positions as the rest of the front façades of the rest of the terrace. Each front opening, however, has yellow brick dressings and the rest of the facade is sandstone rubble constructed (the rest of the terrace is actually built of brick). At the rear there is no return with simply a single window and door to the ground floor and one window to the first floor, all with red brick dressings. All window openings have shallow segmental arch heads and the sash frames have Georgian panes. The porch windows are the same as the rest of the terrace. The rear and the N gable are in rubble also, though the gable is untidily patched with red brick, roughly along the line of the chimney breast. The roof is Bangor blue slated and there is a yellow brick chimney stack to the N. Mixture of cast iron and PVC rw goods.

Each property has a low rendered wall to the front all of which once sported iron railings, which (like many more) were removed during WWII.

Historical information

The bulk of Carnesure terrace was built in 1904 by John Andrews & Co., for workers employed in the company’s near by spinning mill, the townland of Carnesure having been purchased much earlier by a previous John Andrews with part of his £10, 000 he won in the Irish State Lottery in 1783.

Nos.26-28, at the north end of the terrace, are slightly older (and markedly different) than the rest and appear to be indicated on the OS map of 1901 (but not that of 1858). Local residents state that one of the pair began life as a blacksmith’s forge and the current occupier suggests that his own house began life as single storey. The writers, however, could find no apparent physical evidence to suggest that either of these suggestions was true.

No.32 is the only house in the terrace now outside the ownership of John Andrews & Co., having been sold in 1984.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.4189/E/8 Andrews Papers- Carnesure ledger 1888-1918.
2 PRONI OS/6/3/10/3 OS map 1st rev. 1858, Down 10.
3 PRONI OS/2/3/10 OS map 2nd ed. 1901, Down 10.

Secondary sources
1 Sydney Andrews (ed. John Burls), ‘Nine Generations- A History of the Andrews Family, Millers of Comber’ (Isaac Andrews & Sons, 1958), pp.64, 148 etc.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Slightly picturesque two storey terrace mainly built in 1904 for employees of the near by Andrews spinning mill. Nos.30-44 are identical with shared gabled porches to the front, but some window openings to the rear have been altered. Nos.26-28, with their yellow brick dressings and rubble façade differ from the rest of the terrace and appear to have been built slightly earlier.