9 Cunningburn Road, Cunningburn, Newtownards, Co Down, BT22 2AR

9 Cunningburn Road is a converted mill-related dwelling, most likely built between 1760 and 1779, situated within the Cunningburn Mill group — a picturesque collection of dwellings in a hollow approximately one mile north-west of the Mount Stewart estate, near Newtownards, County Down.

The house sits on the opposite side of a narrow lane from a thatched cottage within the group. Its position on sloping ground means that from the lane it reads as a single-storey building, but as the ground drops sharply to the south, it is revealed to be two storeys tall. The front, north-facing façade presents a lean-to projection to the left containing a timber stable door, with a sash window with Georgian-style panes to the right on the main wall. The west gable, which is fully two storeys, has a similar sash window at upper level and a glazed door at lower level, both to the left. The rear elevation has two glazed doors at ground floor level, two door-like windows at upper level, and a small sash window to the far right. The east gable has two small sash windows at upper level and a now-blocked doorway at ground level; the lower portion of this gable was largely buried under earth until recently and was undergoing active renovation at the time of listing in 1998.

The building is constructed in random rubble, left unrendered. The roof is gabled and pitched, covered in Bangor blue slates, with stone parapets to the gables. There are two small brick chimney stacks. Two small Velux windows are set into the front roof slope and one large and one small Velux window into the rear slope. To the north-east of the property there is a well with stone steps and rubble-faced walls, and to the south-east there are the remains of a rubble-built outside WC.

The building is of vernacular character and of industrial archaeological interest, forming part of a grouping associated with corn milling and flax scutching. Although the interiors of properties within the group have generally been altered to suit modern domestic use, this work has been carried out in sympathy with the character of the original structures, and the exteriors have been largely preserved.

The Cunningburn Mill group as a whole has been transformed since the late 1980s, when much of the complex was purchased by a single owner after falling into dereliction following decades of disuse. The flax mill had ceased production in 1894, the corn mill in around 1932, and during the Second World War the water supply to the mill pond was cut off, after which most of the buildings served as animal houses before gradually falling derelict.

The history of the site is well documented. The earliest known record is a map of 1777 from the Londonderry Papers held at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), which shows the lands of Cunningburn as part of the estate of Alexander Stewart, father of the future Marquis of Londonderry and then owner of Mount Stewart. The corn mill had been built by Stewart the year before this map was drawn, in 1776, under the supervision of a miller named W. Harris, as recorded on a date stone. The 1777 map also shows the thatched cottage and what appears to be the kiln house. A second map from 1829 shows the same buildings, as does the first Ordnance Survey map of 1834, by which time a windmill had been erected further to the north-west and another corn mill lay to the south-west near the shore of Strangford Lough. By the 1830s the corn mill and a flax mill further north in the townland had passed to a John Cooper. Records from that period note that the corn mill had a wheel 12 feet in diameter and 2.5 feet in breadth, with a water fall of 5 feet. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of the 1830s noted that there was insufficient water in summer, which was frequently diverted before reaching the mills — likely the reason a windmill was constructed to supplement water power. The revised Ordnance Survey map of around 1858 to 1860 shows that the house on the opposite side of the lane from the thatched cottage — the present property — had been built by that time. The flax scutching mill and store, together with the associated engine house and tall chimney, were not yet present at this date, placing that section of the complex in the post-1858 period, possibly the 1860s when linen production increased following the downturn in cotton supply caused by the American Civil War.

As part of the wider Cunningburn Mill group, this property contributes to an ensemble whose collective significance is considered to exceed that of its individual parts.