15 Comber Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large, sturdy looking two storey gabled house of 1809, set at junction of the Comber and Craigarusky Roads.

Front W facade is not symmetrical. To the right of centre is a timber sheeted door with semicircular ‘spider web’ fanlight over. The doorway is encased with reeded pilasters and archivolt with keystone. Above the entrance is an inscribed panel which reads ‘Built by David Lowry Anno Domini 1809’. To the left of the door is a sash window with Georgian panes (almost all windows in the house have similar frames), with another doorway to the far left with recent partly glazed double doors. To the right of the entrance doorway is another window. To the first floor are four smaller windows, largely evenly spaced.

The S gable has a small window near the centre on the first floor.

The N gable is blank.

To the left of centre at the rear is a small single storey gabled ‘return’ which has a timber sheeted stable door and six pane window to its N facade. To the left of this on the ground floor of the main building are two small windows are with modern frames (and largely obscured by creeping plant growth). To the right of the return is sash window with horizontal glazing bars, with a timber sheeted and glazed door (with narrow fanlight) to the far right. To the first floor are four windows, as front, with the second window (from left) set at a slightly lower level.

The front facade, S gable and part of the N gable are all finished in ‘salt & pepper’ pebbledash with (recent) decorative smooth cement surrounds to openings (apart from the entrance).

The rear and part of the N gable are finished in rough cast.

The roof is covered in Bangor blue slates with four rendered chimney stacks (the third from the left is a dummy) and stone parapets. PVC rw goods.

The large archway to the N was added c.1920s.

Tthis house is largely intact with the quirky Georgian internal layout still very much in evidence.

Historical information

As the date panel above the door suggests, this house appears to have been built in 1809. It appears on the 1834 and 1859-60 OS maps exactly as today, suggesting the return, which does not appear to be original was nonetheless added very early in the building’s life.
Below is an article concerning the history of the house written by the current owner, Lesley Simpson for the Lecale Miscellany in 1989.

Balloo House: A house and its people
By Lesley Simpson

Introduction
The house which now stands at the corner where the road from Ardmillan joins the road to Comber in the townland of Balloo, near Killinchy, was known in the early part of this century as Balloo House. The public house now bearing that name only acquired it in the middle of the present century. The Ulster Architectural Heritage Society survey for the area simply recorded the house as 'a two storey Georgian house, unfortunately pebble dashed, with original glazing bars and fanlight'. However, having stood for over 180 years, it surely deserves a little more attention. What follows is a piecing together of the history of the house and the people who lived in it.

Brief description
The present house is two storeys high with six rooms upstairs and five downstairs, plus one room now partitioned for bathroom, toilet and cloakroom. There is also a small one storey extension at the rear. A keystone above the front door reads 'Built by David Lowry 1809 AD'. Inside and outside, the house shows a pleasing mixture of symmetry and asymmetry. Plate 1 shows it at the beginning of the century, with whitewashed walls.

Construction techniques
Renovation and restoration work carried out in 1987 gave the opportunity to examine the house in more detail. Both internal and external walls are two feet thick and built from random boulder and rubble with the exception of partition walls in the bathroom area. Examination of the roof structure revealed a butt purlin construction, with purlins supported by two transverse walls and a central jointed truss, for which 1809 would be reasonable date (kindly examined and identified by Dr. P. Robinson of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum). Slates on the main roof are regular shaped Bangor Blues but those on the rear extension are irregular shaped but graded in size, from a local quarry at Tullycavy. The third chimney stack from the left is a dummy, placed there for symmetry although the main entrance and one of the ground floor windows are not placed beneath the upper windows.
During almost complete removal of internal plaster, most of the house showed little sign of major alteration. The exceptions were downstairs. The fireplace in the kitchen showed signs of more than one phase of alteration, incorporating bricks marked 'Castle Espie' as well as more modern concrete blocks. The Castle Espie Pottery was in existence between 1852 and 1867, about five miles away on the shore of Strangford Lough. In the adjoining room, a blocked up doorway and window were revealed, with a wooden lintel above them. These were placed between the present window and main front entrance. In the 1940s the bathroom area was converted from what had previously been a dining room. The extension at the rear, which in 1986 was divided into scullery and stone flagged store, gives the impression of having been added onto the rest of the house, as it cut across both kitchen and landing windows.
The conclusion is that the main body of the house was built as a new dwelling in 1809; there is no evidence that the roof was raised to enlarge a one-storey building. Any alterations made since then have been relatively minor.

The evidence of the maps
The extension at the rear of the house can be seen on the First Ordnance Survey map of 1834 and on an estate map of 1896. Outbuildings to the north of, and at a right angle to the house, are also marked on these maps, as are outbuildings to the east of the house which have since been demolished. The land around the house, marked 37 on the estate map, has been sold off over the years, leaving approximately an acre, comprising parts of areas 1 and 2 (see map).

Property records
Between 1809 and 1982 it appears that four families lived in the house. Property records reveal that it was transferred by deed from Margaret Lowry to John Coulter in May 1852. On 2nd July 1887 it was transferred by mortgage loan from John Coulter to the Misses Sarah, Martha and Margaret Coulter and this was endorsed in a transfer dated 23rd December 1888. In an assignment dated 23rd December 1895, the property was transferred from Margaret Prentice to Samuel Prentice. The property was first registered, under the Irish Land Act of 1903, in the name of Samuel Prentice, on 11th July 1904. The property was sold on 15th March 1923 to William Mulholland, who was registered as a merchant of 317 Albertbridge Road, Belfast. William died in 1948, leaving the property to his son William Hugh Carson Mulholland. It was sold to Terence McClure in 1982 and by him to the present owners, Brian Scott and Lesley Simpson, in 1986.

Other sources
The property records can be filled out with information from several other sources. Lowry is and was a common name in and around Balloo, as evidenced by gravestone inscriptions. A gravestone above a vault in the Killinchy Church of Ireland graveyard records the deaths of the following:
1) David Lowry, who died 29th August 1829, aged 67 years;
2) His wife Margaret, who died 12th May 1856, aged 84;
3) Their daughter Elizabeth, wife of John Stewart, who died 3rd June 1861, aged 50;
4) Elizabeth's husband, John Stewart, who died 10th September 1877, aged 67;
5) Another daughter, Mary Lowry, who died 5th July 1878, aged 69;
6) A grandson, David Lowry Tedford, who died 21st September 1838, aged 2;
7) Another grandson, John Stewart, who died 14th February 1855, aged 14 months.
This appears to be the Lowry family who first built and lived in Balloo House. John Coulter Junior who later lived here also held a miller's house, corn and flax mills, offices and land on the west side of the Killyleagh-Comber Road (Griffith's Valuation 1863). John Coulter Senior held property elsewhere in the same townland. Samuel Prentice is listed as a farmer in Kelly's Directory of Ireland in 1905. The house was used as a spirit grocery either by the Coulter or Prentice family; Mr. Marshall Magowan of Tullymore remembers stories being told to him about this phase of the building's history. Conversation with Mr. William C H Mulholland revealed that the archway and gate into the courtyard were added by his family after the 1920s. Much of the planting and work in the garden was done by the Mulholland family and it seems fitting that the house is still known locally as 'Mr. Mulholland's house'. Plate 4 shows the house, behind much overgrown planting, in 1989.
Something which can help us to get much closer to previous occupants is the discovery of small personal items which they left behind. Among items found behind an old wooden dresser in the kitchen in 1987 were six old postcards. Four were addressed to Miss Rosyl Rosann Spratt, c/o Samuel Prentice Balloo, a fifth to Miss E. Prentice, Balloo House and the sixth to Miss Coulter, Ballyminstra. The latter is dated 24/4/1915. Items such as these, together with the memories of Mr. Mulholland and his neighbours help to fill out the picture of house and owners. While this is a very brief survey it may serve to show how such a building may be studied. There must be many other houses which deserve to have their place in history recognised, particularly at a time when so much is being swept away.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS maps 1st ed. 1834, Co. Down 17.
2 PRONI VAL 1B/335 p.17 (169) 1st valuation, Killinchy parish, Balloo td., c.1835.
3 PRONI OS maps 1st rev. 1859-60, Co. Down 17.
4 PRONI 2nd valuation, Killinchy parish, Balloo td., 1861.
5 Down County Museum A map of houses and land belonging to S. Prentice in Balloo/Killinchy, 1896.
6 Down County Museum Photographs of ‘Balloo House’, c.1900, c.1920s.

Secondary sources
1 Lesley Simpson “Balloo House: A house and its people” in 'Lecale Miscellany' (1989).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Prominently sited, this is a good example of a substantial two storey ‘Georgian vernacular’ house of 1809, which, is largely intact and well preserved. The interior layout appears to be original.