Comgall House, Camphill Community Glencraig, 4 Seahill Drive, Holywood, BT18 0DB

Comgall House (formerly known as Glencarrick and later Glencraig) is the substantially altered remains of an early 19th century Gothic Revival manor house, built around 1830 and located on an extensive site to the north side of Seahill Road, Holywood. It is currently used as a residential unit for people with learning difficulties, forming part of the wider Glencraig Camphill Community. The building was delisted in May 2012, having been recorded only, reflecting the degree to which its historic character, layout and original fabric have been compromised by successive alterations.

The house is two storeys in height, three bays wide, and of rectangular plan form. The roof is a pitched replacement natural slate covering with angled ridge tiles, concealed behind a parapet that is partly crenellated, with raised gables featuring finials. The chimneystacks have been removed. Rainwater goods are extruded aluminium. External walls are cement rendered over a chamfered plinth, with a string course between floors and buttresses to the front extensions. Windows are generally triple transom-and-mullioned, four-centred-arched sashes with four-over-six lights to ground floor and four-over-four to first floor, set in chamfered cast stone surrounds with a quatrefoil frieze and offset roofs. Windows to the main house extensions are bipartite sashes with plain reveals and projecting cills with label mouldings over.

The principal elevation faces south. The first-floor side bays are all that survive of the original configuration, each retaining a single transom-and-mullion window. The central bay is occupied by a full-height extension, fronted by a single-storey full-width entrance lobby with flat-roofed single-storey bays to either side — the one to the left being wider and projecting westward. Each side bay has a transom-and-mullion window to the south, and the left bay also has two windows to the west. The entrance lobby features a breakfront four-centred-arched rebated entrance door with a gable over and a window to either side, with three windows at first-floor level above. To the east side is a lower wing, similarly detailed, with a bipartite window to the first floor set in a projecting offset surround and two windows with label mouldings to the ground floor. The west elevation has a window to each floor set within a central breakfront. The north elevation has a full-height canted bay to the centre and a window to each floor in the side bays, with the lower left wing fenestration matching the front. The east gable has been absorbed into a courtyard extension and now has modern openings.

The house sits within the Glencraig Camphill Community in extensive mature planted grounds that also contain several other residential buildings, offices and workshops. The site has views over Belfast Lough and is approached via a long tarmacadam drive from the west.

The history of the site is somewhat complex and partly uncertain. An article published in the journal Perspective in 1993 refers to two earlier houses on the site — one called Child Haven, said to have been destroyed by fire in 1688, and another called Glencraig Manor, said to have been completed in 1743 and later remodelled. However, much of the history given in that article conflicts with primary documentary evidence and its reliability is uncertain. According to the historian C. Auld, construction of the house under the name Glencarrick began in 1833, and the house appears captioned on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe it as a gentleman's seat and the residence of Miss Sims. The Townland Valuation of 1828 to 1840 lists it as a house and offices occupied by Miss Sims and valued at £36 18 shillings.

By the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 the house is captioned Glencraig, and in Griffith's Valuation of 1856 to 1864 it is recorded as the residence of Miss Mary A. Simms, who leased it from the representatives of Robert S. Kennedy. It was valued at £95, with the valuer describing it as "a very neat well-built house, well situated and all in excellent repair...Elizabethan." The dimensions recorded at this date include a kitchen wing, steward's house, cellar store, byre and barn. Miss Symes, described as a generous donor to all Holywood charities, lived at Glencraig until her death in 1863. She was succeeded by Alexander Mitchell and then, in 1881, by William Thompson, whose family remained in residence for some years and added a gate lodge in 1894. By the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1900 to 1902, a section of wall had been added in the garden containing bee boles.

In 1901 the landlord was Sir Daniel Dixon, who had twice been Lord Mayor of Belfast and subsequently served twice more in that role. By 1933 his son, Major Daniel Dixon, is recorded as occupier, but the property was subsequently let to Sir James Craig, the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, as his country seat. Craig died suddenly at Glencraig in 1940. A valuation of 1933 placed the house at £125 and recorded an extensive range of accommodation: on the ground floor — an inner hall, drawing room, dining room, WC, pantry, kitchen, scullery, two larders, servants' hall, store study, boots' room, half landing and storeroom; on the first floor — a dressing room, six principal bedrooms, two bathrooms, WC, housemaid's pantry, servants' bathroom and WC, linen room and four servants' bedrooms; on the second floor — two disused attic rooms; and in the basement — a small wine cellar and strong room.

A valuer's note from 1935 describes the property as beautifully situated on the shores of Belfast Lough, approximately ten miles from Belfast, approached by a private avenue lined with trees and flowering shrubs. The gardens were noted as tastefully laid out, with rooms on one side enjoying sea views and those on the other enjoying sunshine through most of the day with views over wooded country. The house was described as old and unmodernised except for the installation of electric lighting, in good but not first-class repair, with an ornate exterior requiring considerable upkeep, an unsatisfactory water supply in dry summers, and some bedrooms considered too small for a house of that type, with bathrooms not considered up to date.

In September 1943 the house was purchased for £6,000 and operated as a general nursing home, known as Knock Nursing Home, Glencraig, with fifteen patients in 1944 charged between £3 3 shillings and £5 5 shillings weekly. According to Auld, the house was subsequently bought by the Swain family and then the Noble family, both of whom trained racehorses in the grounds. In 1950 the Royal Victoria Hospital purchased the property for £11,000 from private funds, intending to use it as a private hospital, but lack of funds prevented this. The house stood empty and was placed on the market again by 1952.

Glencraig was then purchased by Glencraig (Rudolf Steiner) Curative Schools Ltd from the management committee of the Royal Victoria Hospital for £10,000, funded by voluntary subscription, establishing the first such community in Northern Ireland. It was opened on 18 September 1954 by the Dowager Marchioness of Londonderry. A valuer's note of 1955 records that no government grants were made for the upkeep of the school; the Ministry of Health and Local Government paid fees for ten pupils; a voluntary body known as the Friends of Glencraig helped provide funds and was at that time maintaining one child at the school; and Messrs Short and Harland contributed subscriptions earmarked for the maintenance of children.

The community is now known as the Glencraig Camphill Community and is home to over two hundred people living across a campus of one hundred acres, some of whom have learning difficulties and require special care. The community is guided by the philosophy of curative education proposed by Rudolf Steiner, which holds among its principles that people with special needs are more receptive to the healing and harmonising power of form, and that buildings can communicate through their sculptural properties. The Camphill Movement established its own architectural practice and developed a distinctive style of architecture. In 1964 the community began remodelling the facade of the manor house in a style inspired by the organic movement. Wolodymyr Radysh of Camphill Architects has described the work at Glencraig as coming "from a desire to remould the environment to the human forms around it...it was a positive attempt to find a relationship to nature." These alterations included a large extension to the front facade.

In 1993 the architectural practice Consarc carried out a further remodelling of the property, by then renamed Comgall House, with the aim of restoring its Elizabethan Revival appearance, including rebuilding the porch area. The floor plan was substantially altered at this time to accommodate a wheelchair lift and a series of therapy rooms.

Substantial portions of the original house have been demolished and rebuilt to different designs over the course of these changes. What remains today is an approximation of the original Gothic Revival manor house. Its historical associations with Sir Daniel Dixon, Lord Mayor of Belfast, and with Sir James Craig, first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, are of some interest, but the house as they would have known it has been severely compromised.