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

38 High Street, Comber

A small single-storey vernacular house with attic, 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 roughly at the centre, fitted with a timber-sheeted and glazed door with a plain fanlight. To the left of the doorway is a sash window with horizontal glazing bars (2 over 2), and to the right is a matching window. To the left at the rear is a small single-storey gabled return. The north-east face of this return has a doorway similar to the front entrance but with a large single pane of glazing to the right, and a relatively small double sash window to the left. The gable and south-west face of the return are blank. To the right of the return, on the main rear façade, is a small sash window.

The entire façade is finished in rough cast and painted. The gabled roof is covered in natural slate, as is the return roof. There is a rendered chimney stack to the south-west of the roof ridge. A Velux window has been inserted to the rear of the roof, and aluminium rainwater goods have been fitted.

The building is believed to date from the 1790s or slightly later, based on the 1834 valuation which noted the property and its terrace were already of reasonable age at that date. The site is shown as occupied on the 1722 map of Comber. The present house is probably the property listed in the 1834 valuation as the home of James Gilliland. The entire terrace is believed to have once housed workers of the nearby brewery, latterly known as the Upper Distillery, and may even have been purpose-built for this use. In 1920 the terrace was acquired by Andrews flax spinning mill as employee housing. It was vested in the Housing Executive in 1980, then acquired by Hearth Housing Association in 1984 and sympathetically renovated in 1986.