Cattogs House, 58 Killinchy Road, Cattogs, Comber, Co. Down, BT23 5LU

Cattogs House is a large two-storey residence located at the end of a long drive to the east of Killinchy Road, roughly a mile south of Comber, County Down. The house displays a double-gabled form with canted bays to the front, presenting the appearance of a property that has evolved significantly over time. The main front section is probably pre-1834 and may well date to the 18th century, but the house owes its present form to the late 1800s, when the rear gabled section was added along with the canted bays.

The front façade faces west and is symmetrical. At the centre of the ground floor is a timber-panelled door flanked by Ionic column jambs, with two-pane sidelights beyond. Above this is a wide elliptical arch fanlight with spoke tracery, with the entire doorway ensemble contained within an elliptical arch with simple moulded surround. To either side of the doorway is a two-storey, hipped-roof canted bay. Each face of each bay on each floor has a sash window with Georgian panes. Pilaster-like piers separate the ground floor windows. Simple moulded panels divide the ground and first-floor windows. All bay windows rest on a cill course. Between the bays, directly above the doorway, is a single first-floor window with matching frame and simple moulded surround. The front façade is rendered, possibly lined, and painted, with chamfered quoins.

The rear gabled section of the house stretches south beyond the line of the front gable, exposing a west-facing portion finished in unpainted rough-cast render with a first-floor sash window. The north front gable has a first-floor sash window to the left and a small semicircular-headed two-pane attic window. The front section of the roof is covered in Bangor blue slates. Two yellow brick chimney stacks with octagonal pots stand on the front section, with two similar pots appearing to serve the rear section also.

The 1834 Ordnance Survey map shows Cattogs House marking the site of the present front gabled portion, with another building to the south-west. The 1833 valuation survey records the house as the residence of James McKee with a rateable value of £8-2-0, measuring 41 feet by 22 feet by 20½ feet. The valuers judged it to be relatively old, possibly 18th century. These dimensions, which included half the height of any attic level, appear to match those of the present front section. By 1858, when the revised Ordnance Survey map was prepared, an extension had been added to the rear, shown at its present size on the 1901 map. The canted bays, which do not appear on any six-inch Ordnance Survey map including the most recent, were probably added in late Victorian times. The 1863 valuation records the house still in possession of a James McKee, presumably the same man or a relative, but by 1886 it had passed to either Robert Bell or John Petticrew.

When first surveyed in 1973, the house had sash windows to the front with horizontal glazing bars only, and the chimney breasts were flush with the gables with stacks placed on top of the ridge. Subsequently, the chimney breasts became projecting from the gables with stacks positioned beyond the ridge, and a stack to the south rear gable was removed altogether.