Cook Industrial Estate, (Former Upper Distillery), Park Way, Comber, Co. Down, BT23 5AR

Former Upper Distillery, Comber

This is a large former distillery complex situated to the east of Killinchy Street, entered from a narrow lane called Park Way. The buildings represent two distinct phases of construction: the older structures, built in mixed rubble masonry, date from approximately 1835 to 1840, while a large dressed sandstone building and a red brick chimney were added in the early 1920s. A two-storey house with basement and an attached row of outbuildings on the west side of the complex, facing Killinchy Street, may pre-date 1834, as buildings in that position appear on the Ordnance Survey map of that year and a house matching the present dwelling's dimensions is recorded in the contemporary valuation records. The complex ceased large-scale distilling production between 1948 and 1953 and now functions as an informal industrial park housing, among others, a furniture manufacturer and a mechanic. Several buildings belonging to the complex have been demolished in recent years, and the remainder have been altered to varying degrees.

Layout and Buildings

The entrance from Park Way has modern metal gates and opens into a large yard. To the south-west of the gate is a long two-storey hipped-roof building constructed in a mixture of greywacke and sandstone rubble. Its north façade has a modern single-storey flat-roofed extension finished in roughcast render, a few original brick-dressed openings, and a main entrance to the left now with a painted render surround. The roof is covered in natural slates and retains some cast iron skylights. A large modern corrugated iron structure stands to the south-west of this building.

To the east of the entrance, on the south-east side of the yard, is a similarly sized building in similar rubble with a gabled roof and natural slate covering. Its south façade, which faces onto Park Way, has two low doorways with stone surrounds and two upper loft openings. The west gable is rendered. The north façade has a large vehicle entrance with corrugated iron doors, some smaller openings, and a further loft doorway. Additional structures of similar construction formerly stood to the east and north of this building, but most have been demolished and the eastern half of the complex is now largely open yard.

At the far north-east corner of the complex, set on a slope and appearing much lower when viewed from the south, is a large greywacke rubble building. Its low south façade has large sections patched in breeze block to the right, while to the left the façade cuts in at an angle — in the manner of a large chamfer — so that the west gable end, which has a large doorway, is considerably narrower than the east gable. The north façade, which faces outward from the complex, has a few small high-level openings. The roof is covered in natural slate.

Slightly to the south-west of this block, roughly in the centre of the whole complex, is a large two-storey gabled building in greywacke rubble with sandstone quoins and natural slates to the roof. The east façade has a line of small windows close to the eaves and a ground-floor doorway. The south gable has door openings at all levels, some of them fairly recent. The west façade also has openings at all levels, most appearing original, though some at ground level are recent insertions. The north gable has two upper-level window openings.

To the west of this building stands the largest single structure in the complex: the early 1920s dressed sandstone building with red brick dressings to the openings, which replaced some earlier structures on the site and is thought to have been the still house. It is roughly L-shaped, with a larger gabled portion running north-east to south-west, a much smaller gabled portion attached to the north-west, and a two-storey flat-roofed section. The south-east façade retains many original openings, though some at ground floor have been blocked and there are more recent doorway insertions. To the left side of this façade is a gabled bay now covered with badly dilapidated corrugated iron. The south-west façade is linked by a two-storey breeze block section to a building further to the west. The north-east gable is uneven, sloping down into a single-storey projecting section at the north corner, now largely covered in creeping plant growth; the left side of this gable has a large chamfer. To the right of the rear of the building, the smaller but slightly taller gabled portion is attached, along with a slightly incongruous two-storey flat-roofed section to its right. The smaller gabled portion is now largely covered in creeping plant growth; to its left is a large concrete tank, and to the left of that is the projecting single-storey section described above. To the right of the flat-roofed section is a gabled bay forming the rear of the bay on the south-east façade. The roofs of both the large and smaller gabled sections are covered in natural slate. The larger gabled section has two hipped-roof rooflight projections to the ridge, along with a taller hipped-roof tower in corrugated iron projecting from the western end of the same roof. To the north of the L-shaped building stands a tall, tapering octagonal chimney stack in red brick with engineering brick used as quoins.

On the west side of the complex is a long row that is part single-storey, part two-storey, and part three-storey, with its west façade facing onto Killinchy Street. The northern end of the row is split-level. At the very north end is a gabled house in greywacke rubble, which reads as two storeys from Killinchy Street but as three storeys when viewed from the east within the complex. This house is recorded separately. Immediately to the south of the house, the remainder of the row — in similar rubble with a partly slated, partly corrugated iron hipped roof — is single storey on the Killinchy Street side, though the northernmost section is two storey when viewed from the east. A small part of the row immediately south of the house forms part of the house itself. The remainder of the row is now a furniture shop and showroom, with large modern windows to the west façade. On the east façade, the furniture shop has a square-plan single-storey extension in sandstone with a corrugated iron hipped roof and a small rooflight tower to the apex.

Historical Background

Distilling on this site can be traced to the mid-18th century and to one James Patterson, who owned a large malt kiln and premises described as a good large house for the distilling business. When Patterson died in 1761 the business passed to Alexander Riddle, who practised both distilling and brewing. Riddle gave up the business in 1767 and rented the buildings to John Andrews, a local miller and ancestor of the later locally prominent Andrews family, who installed William Murdock as manager. Andrews gave up the lease in 1788, but Murdock — described on his headstone as the eminent distiller of Comber — may have retained his connection with the business until his death in 1805. What happened after this is uncertain, but by the 1820s at the latest, George Johnston and a Mr Gilbert were in possession of the site, by then given over to brewing. In 1825 Johnston went into partnership with John Miller and the buildings were converted for use solely as a distillery. By 1846, Miller was running the distillery in partnership with a Mr Cairns, probably James Cairns of nearby Maxwell Court, Johnston having presumably died or retired. By 1856 Miller was in sole ownership and four years later acquired Comber's other distillery, the Lower Distillery, formerly to the south of the Newtownards Road but now almost entirely demolished. Miller retired in 1871 at the age of 75, and both distilleries were acquired by Samuel Bruce, who lived in England and installed as resident partner a Mr McCance, possibly Blizard-McCance. The Lower Distillery closed completely around 1916 and the Upper Distillery gradually wound down production after 1948, closing for good in 1953. The business was subsequently acquired by an Inverness wine merchant, principally for the remaining stock. The equipment was dismantled and sold, and in 1957 the site was bought by local spirit dealers Hollywood and Donnelly, who sold off the remainder of the whiskey and appear to have used the buildings for storage. The former distillery buildings were later sold, around 1960, to Mr Jack Cook, and a paper recycling business operated on the site until the mid-1980s.

The mixture of rubble used in many of the mid-19th century buildings suggests that salvaged material from earlier structures on the site — those shown on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map — was reused in their construction. Many mid-19th century buildings to the east side of the complex were demolished during the 1980s and early 1990s.