Maxwell Court, 15 Ballygowan Road, Comber, Co. Down, BT23 5PG

Maxwell Court is a large gentleman farmer's residence, Grade B1 listed, set on a slight rise in semi-rural surroundings to the west of the Ballygowan Road, south-west of Comber town centre. It is a complex, multi-period building whose origins probably lie in the mid to later 18th century, though successive renovations and extensions in the later 19th and early 20th centuries have given it a predominantly late Victorian and Edwardian character. The house is in private ownership and remains in residential use.

ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW

The building is mainly two storeys, with a central gabled section that rises to two and a half storeys, single-storey gabled wings projecting to the north and south, and substantial extensions to the rear. All roof sections are covered in Bangor blue slates with a slight overhang, except over the single-storey side wings. The entire exterior is finished in lined render, left unpainted, with chamfered quoins to the front of the main central section and an eaves course along the front façade. PVC rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

FRONT (EAST) FAÇADE

The front façade of the main central section is symmetrical. At its centre is a two-storey gabled projecting bay. At ground-floor level this bay has panelled double doors flanked by tall, narrow sidelights with fixed glazing, a transom, and small diamond-pattern leaded panes. Directly above the doorway, at first-floor level, is a canted oriel window with a slated hipped roof, fitted with sash windows with horizontal glazing bars to each face. To both the shallow north and south sides of the projecting bay there is one window at each floor level, matching the sidelights in style; those at ground floor retain their leaded panes while those at first floor do not. The projecting bay roof has a slight overhang with plain barge boards.

To either side of the central bay, on the main front façade, are two ground-floor windows and two first-floor windows. All have sash frames matching those of the oriel. The ground-floor windows have moulded surrounds and keystones; the first-floor windows have keystones and a cill course.

The front of the main central section also has two gabled dormers fitted with sash windows, pilaster-like jambs, shaped barge boards, and finials. Much of the central entrance bay and the surrounding front façade is covered in creeper growth.

To the north and south of the main central section are the single-storey wings. The east façade of each wing has a central canted bay window with a lead-covered hipped roof, flanked on each side by segmental arch-head window openings with simple moulding and sash frames. Each wing also has further matching windows flanking the bay, these with the addition of a moulded keystone.

The south gable of the south wing has a canted entrance bay with a slated hipped roof. The south face of this bay has a large glazed door screen comprising French doors with diamond-paned sidelights and a fanlight. The outer faces of the bay have windows matching the sidelights of the main entrance.

REAR FAÇADES

The rear of the house is complex in appearance and shows evidence of having been added to in stages.

Behind the main central section is a large two-storey gabled section, which does not align with the south gable of the main house but extends further south. The gap between this rear section, the south gable of the main house, and the rear (west) façade of the south single-storey wing is filled by a small single-storey flat-roofed porch fitted with panelled and glazed double doors and a lattice-paned fanlight. The south gable of the large two-storey rear section has a two-storey canted bay with a slated hipped roof and windows to each face at each floor level; these window frames appear modern, with small top opening lights.

The rear (west) façade of this two-storey section has four sash windows at ground-floor level, the rightmost of which has vertical glazing bars and lattice panes to the top two frames. At first-floor level there are three sash windows: the two to the left have horizontal glazing bars, while that to the right is in an Edwardian style, with glazing bars forming square panes in a squat top sash and a single vertical glazing bar to the tall bottom sash, the panes of which are filled with many small square leaded lights. Between the second and third first-floor sash windows is a small single-pane window, which appears to be a fixed light.

At its north end, the large two-storey rear section is intersected by a large split-level return with a part-gabled, part-hipped roof. Where this return meets the rest of the building to the east it is two storeys, but as the ground rises to the west it becomes single storey. The return roof has exposed rafter tails in rustic Edwardian fashion.

On the south façade of the return, at ground-floor level, is a doorway with panelled and glazed double doors and a plain fanlight. To the left of this doorway is an Edwardian-style sash window, similar to that described above but with leaded lattice work to the panes of the top sash; its reveal is slightly chamfered. To the left of this window the ground rises. At the upper level of the return there are three sash windows matching those at ground-floor level but with coloured glass to the upper sash. Between the first and second of these is a very large square bay, almost entirely glazed with mullioned and transomed frames. The small upper frames of this large window have leaded lattices with coloured glass, while the tall lower panes are filled with many small square leaded lights.

The north façade of the large return is more complex. To the left, the return connects to the main house via a large uneven gable facing north, which itself terminates in a smaller gabled section to its right. The large gable rises two to three storeys; the smaller gable is two storeys; and the remainder of the return to the right (west) is single storey. The sharp change in ground level on this north side is the result of the bank having been cut into at some point to form a yard.

The large uneven gable has two windows at ground-floor level: the left one is a sash, while the right (largely obscured by greenery at the time of inspection) may have a more modern frame. To the left of these windows is a doorway with a panelled and glazed door, situated within the ground floor of the smaller gable. To the right of the windows there appear to be panelled and glazed doors, though this opening was also obscured by greenery. At first-floor level are five Edwardian-style sash windows as described above, the far left of which is contained within the smaller gable. At second-floor level within the large gable are two sash windows, similar to the others but slightly smaller. The north façade of the return proper, which projects further north than the gable, has three sash windows as described. Where the large uneven gable meets this north façade there is a water tank supported on steel beams.

The west gable of the return appears to have two attic-level sash windows with semicircular arch heads, and at ground-floor level at least one window with a similar frame but with a flat arch head to the opening.

The exposed section of the south gable of the main house has a small flat-roofed oriel window on the left at first-floor level, with a fixed-light window to the right at attic level. The rear façades of both single-storey side wings are blank.

CHIMNEYS

There are two chimney stacks to the main central section, one to the gable of the north single-storey wing, a tall one to the rear of the south single-storey wing, one to the large two-storey rear section, and two to the return. All are broadly similar in style: rendered with corbelling and fitted mainly with yellow clay octagonal chimney pots.

SETTING

To the south and west of Maxwell Court is a large collection of farm outbuildings, some rubble-built and probably of considerable age. There is also an early 20th-century greenhouse and a two-storey farm manager's house of around 1900, whose architectural style matches that of the main house. A walled garden to the south is now largely overgrown. A corn mill to the south of the house was once part of the wider Maxwell Court estate but was sold off and converted to a dwelling in the 1980s.

HISTORICAL NOTES

Maxwell Court probably originated as a house built by a family named Wilson in the mid to later 18th century. It may have been built by David Wilson, who later became a merchant and ship owner in Belfast and gave his name to Wilson's Court in that city. A Belfast News-Letter notice of May 1795 records the marriage of David Wilson Esquire to a Miss Andrews of Comber, who was a distant relative of the Andrews family who would later come to live at Maxwell Court.

The house is recorded in Pigot's Directory of 1824 under the name Maxwell Court, described as the property of Mr William Wilson-Maxwell, who may have given it its name. By 1835 ownership had passed to a James Kearns (sometimes written as Cairns), who lived there until at least 1846. By 1856 it was home to a James Anderson, but by 1863 appears to have been vacant, with ownership in the hands of the representatives of a George Crea. The property seems to have lacked a permanent resident until at least 1870. By 1883 the house and its farm had been purchased by John Andrews and Company, owners of the nearby spinning mill. One member of the Andrews family who lived at Maxwell Court, John Miller Andrews, served as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland between 1940 and 1943.

The architectural development of the house can be partially traced through historical maps and records. The first-edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows the main central section of the house along with the side wings. Contemporary valuation records describe it as a house measuring 45 feet by 25½ feet by 21 feet in height, with one return of 20 by 12½ by 7½ feet and another of 24 by 12½ by 16½ feet. The measurements of the house itself appear to match the present main central section. The fact that the south return was larger than the north and was either two storeys or contained an attic level suggests that the present wings are at least in part later rebuilds. The valuers graded the house 'B', indicating a building they considered possibly fifty years old or more at the time of assessment, which supports an 18th-century origin.

The revised Ordnance Survey map of 1858 shows a building of broadly the same plan but with a projection at the centre of the front façade, which later photographic evidence suggests was a single-storey entrance porch, since replaced by the present two-storey canted bay.

The most significant changes to the house appear to have been made by the Andrews family after they acquired the property around 1883. A photograph dating from after 1883 shows the dormers in place and indicates the presence of the rear two-storey section, but without the central gabled bay or the bays to the side wings, suggesting that the major Andrews modifications were carried out in distinct stages. The large rear return is thought to date from around 1915 to 1920, the period at which much of the interior also appears to have been renovated. The front bays may have been added at the same time. The farm buildings to the south and west are partially pre-1834 in origin, but most do not appear on the 1858 map and are probably all of Andrews-period construction.