Eusemere, 20-22 Killinchy Road, Comber, County Down, BT23 5LU

Eusemere is a fine example of an Edwardian villa built around 1909, located to the east of Killinchy Road approximately one kilometre south of Comber town centre. Now divided into two properties (numbered 20 and 22), the building demonstrates a complex and inventive design in a free architectural style that blends Arts and Crafts and Domestic Revival influences.

The exterior walls are finished in artificial rock-face stone with smooth ashlar dressings and string courses, which probably encloses a brick structure beneath. The roofing combines gable and hip forms with characteristic Edwardian overhangs, covered in natural slate. Rafter ends are exposed in typical Edwardian fashion. Multiple tall chimney stacks, also finished in artificial stone with projecting cope stones, punctuate the skyline.

The west façade is dominated by a projecting two-storey bay with an asymmetric cat-slide gable positioned right of centre. This bay contains the main entrance, with a timber-panelled door featuring a central leaded glazed light, protected by a projecting bracketed semicircular canopy. Above the door is a paired sash window, with a projecting bracketed stone string course higher still. A two-storey corner window lights the staircase. The bay's ground floor features a mullioned and transomed nine-light Venetian-style window with leaded panes containing Art Nouveau references, while the north side has a similar mullioned and transomed window with six lights. Above these, a small centrally placed window serves the second floor of the bay. To the left of the bay, ground floor has two narrow sash windows without astragals, with two similar but wider windows further left. A section of wall is set back slightly, now much obscured by climbing plants. The first floor contains four similar but unevenly spaced windows. Above this section runs a wide flat-roofed dormer. The façade then recesses, with a Diocletion window set within a small first-floor gable on the resulting north-facing wall. To the right of the main bay are single sash windows to ground and first floors. A low two-storey wing extends to the far left (north), with a projecting porch bay containing a central half-glazed door with leaded panes. A screen wall encloses a small yard with a mono-pitch roofed store.

The south façade features a canted two-storey bay with sash windows to each face and a hipped roof. To its left are modern French doors with an elliptical fanlight within a square-headed opening, with a single sash window above. A flat-roofed dormer sits above the bay roof, containing five windows arranged in two groupings of three and two, separated by a wide mullion.

The east façade has a projecting square two-storey reducing bay slightly left of centre. Its ground floor contains three evenly spaced sash windows to the front and one narrower matching window to each side reveal. The bay is terminated by a bracketed string course at the flat roof edge. Above it sits a narrower and shallower second-floor bay (not original) with a paired sash window and single sash windows to the side reveals. Directly above is a flat-roofed dormer with double paired sash windows separated by a wide mullion. To the left of the bay is a centred paired sash window at ground floor and a right-of-centre sash window at first floor. To the right is a canted first-floor oriel window with pierless casement windows following the line of the chamfer. Below this oriel sits a projecting conservatory. The east face of the north wing contains two first-floor oriel windows, which appear not to be original. The left oriel is a straightforward canted example with sash windows (leaded to the upper lights); the right oriel has a wider front face and pierless casement windows. Below the conservatory are four unevenly spaced ground-floor sash windows. The north-facing return wall is blank and gabled.

The building was constructed around 1909 by Major Bruce, a major shareholder in Comber Distilleries. The architect's name is uncertain. It was subsequently sold to James Andrews, a member of a local mill-owning family who became Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland in 1937. Around 1930, Andrews divided the house into two properties. From the 1950s onwards, both properties passed through several owners including Mr. Clokey and Mr. Mitchell (occupying the larger dwelling, No. 22) and Mr. Ashdown, father of former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, and a Mr. Miskimmin (in No. 20). The upper portion of the reducing bay to the rear and some (if not all) of the oriel windows are later additions, possibly dating from around 1930 under James Andrews' ownership.

The building sits within relatively large grounds and retains considerable architectural interest despite alterations that have somewhat detracted from its original appearance.