13-13a High Street, Comber, Co. Down, BT23 5HJ

13-13a High Street is a much-altered two-storey terrace shop set on the north-west slope of High Street in Comber. It was originally two separate houses, probably built before 1834, though construction may date to around 1800. One of the original house entrance doorways has been removed and the ground floor front windows have been enlarged.

The ground floor entrance to the centre-left consists of a recent ten-panel door with plain fanlight, set within a doorway encased with panelled pilasters with fluted capitals supporting an entablature with dentilled cornice. To the left is a recently enlarged shop window, with a slightly smaller enlarged window to the right. To the far right is a tall carriage entrance with flat arch, curved in-and-out dressings, and double timber sheeted doors. Between this arch and the adjacent window stood another doorway identical to the main entrance, now removed. The first floor has four unevenly spaced windows with simple moulded surrounds and modern frames, with spotlights positioned between them. The front façade is finished in lined render and painted.

To the centre and right of the rear elevation extends a large two-storey gabled return or outbuilding, set at an angle, largely constructed in fieldstone rubble. Many former openings on the long north-facing side are now filled with breeze block and red brick. At ground floor rear, to the left of this outbuilding, is the rear of the carriage entrance, now with a modern flat roof extending to another two-storey rubble-built outbuilding further north-west. To the right of the carriage entrance is a doorway with modern partly-glazed door. The first floor far left has a small window with sash frame retaining Georgian panes (originally 6 over 3), though the upper sash now contains a modern extractor fan. To its right, above the rear door, is a larger window with plain sash frame. The exposed main rear façade is mostly finished in plain render, but the far right edge is unrendered, revealing fieldstone rubble construction. The gabled roof is covered in natural slate. There are no chimney stacks. Cast iron and PVC rainwater goods are present. A large two-storey outbuilding in fieldstone rubble stands to the north-east at the rear.

Documentary evidence shows the site was occupied in 1722. The 1834 valuation returns record two houses on this site under the ownership of John Duncan, whose combined dimensions match the present building, suggesting pre-1834 origin and supporting a construction date around 1800, though subsequent alterations make this difficult to confirm. The fieldstone rubble construction is consistent with this period. By 1861 the entire building, still containing two houses, had been acquired by surgeon James Trame (also referred to in contemporary sources as James Frame), who remained resident in 1870. When first surveyed in December 1975, number 13a was still in use as a dwelling house, but number 13 had been converted to a shop, with its original house doorway still extant at that time.