’The Glebe’, 2 Main Street, Kircubbin, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 2SP

The Glebe, 2 Main Street, Kircubbin

A large, two-storey former glebe house dating from around 1810, now in use as a health centre. The building stands at the north end of Main Street in Kircubbin and comprises a main gabled house with a substantial two-storey return to the rear and associated outbuildings.

The front south-west elevation features a central gabled porch with Bangor blue slates and finial. To the left of the porch is a three-sided bay with a lead-covered hipped roof, flanked by two-pane PVC windows designed to resemble original sliding sash and case windows with top-hung upper openers. To the right of the porch are two similar windows on the ground floor, with five evenly spaced windows to the first floor. A large timber four-pane window with a modern panelled and glazed door and plain fanlight sits to the south-east side of the porch.

The south-east gable displays two windows matching those on the front elevation, positioned to the left on both ground and first floors. The north-west gable has similar windows to the left on ground and first floors, merging into a two-storey gabled return. This return features matching windows to the right on ground and first floors, with an additional window to the left on the ground floor. A small single-storey flat-roofed extension is attached to the rear, fitted with a small fixed-light PVC window.

The front facade and south-east gable are finished in lined render with chamfered quoins to the front. The remainder of the building is rendered in plain render. The pitched roofs of the main house and return are covered with Bangor blue slates and feature four evenly spaced brick chimney stacks to the main house and one to the return, with an additional rendered stack to the gable of the return. Cast iron gutters and downspouts complete the external detailing.

The rear elevations contain a mixture of PVC windows of various sizes, with a shallow full-height extension at the intersection of the return and main house, finished with a lead-sheeted hipped roof. Rubble-built outhouses, probably former stables, survive to the rear, along with a rubble garden wall featuring an ogee-arched door opening.

The north-west gable and side of the return face onto Blackhall Street, with a high rendered wall running along the remainder of the street to its junction with Main Street. A large car park occupies the front of the building facing Main Street and to the south-east. A high rendered wall attached to the right of the south-east gable encloses the rear.

The interior layout appears largely unaltered, and some 19th-century detailing remains, though the external appearance has been somewhat diminished by late Victorian and Edwardian additions—particularly the three-sided bay and gabled porch—and by the recent insertion of PVC windows.

The building is shown on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1834 marked as "Glebe House" to substantially the same plan, and may have been built around 1810 to serve as a glebe for Balligan Church. Until recently, it served as a residence for the manager of the local Northern Bank. The bank's new premises now stand a few yards to the south-east, on former glebe land.