36 High Street, Comber, Co. Down, BT23 5HL

36 High Street, Comber is a small two-storey vernacular house of probable pre-1834 origin, situated in the middle of a terrace on the south-east side of High Street. The building is set on a slope rising north-east to south-west.

The front north-west façade features a doorway to the left on the ground floor with a timber panelled and glazed door encased in a painted stone surround with cornice. To the right is a sash window with vertical glazing bars (2 over 2). The first floor has two sash windows with Georgian panes (6 over 6). To the right at the rear is a small single-storey gabled return, shared with No. 34. The south-west face of this return has a doorway to the centre, similar to the front entrance but with a large single pane of glazing, flanked by relatively small sash windows with horizontal glazing bars (2 over 2). A modern hood covers the doorway. The gable of the return is blank. To the left of the return on the main rear façade is a sash window to the ground floor with a similar first-floor window directly above, and to the right a very squat three-pane window set close to the eaves.

The front façade is finished in plain render while the rear and return are in rough cast, with the entire façade painted. The gabled roof is covered in natural slate, as is the return roof. A rendered chimney stack rises to the south-west of the roof ridge. The property has aluminium rainwater goods.

The site is shown as occupied on a 1722 map of Comber. The present house is probably that noted in the 1834 valuation as the home of James Anderson. The valuers recorded that the property and the rest of the terrace were of reasonable age at that stage and may have dated from the 1790s or slightly later. The entire terrace is believed to have once housed workers of the nearby brewery (later the Upper Distillery) and may even have been purpose-built for this use. In 1920 the terrace was acquired by Andrews flax spinning mill for employee housing. In 1980 it was vested in the Housing Executive, and in 1984 was acquired by Hearth Housing Association. The entire terrace was sympathetically renovated in 1986.