Old Vicarage, 56 Ballybunden Road, Kilmood, Killinchy, Co Down

Old Vicarage, Ballybunden Road, Kilmood

A tall two-storey former glebe house of approximately 1820–27, with a basement and an unusually positioned entrance to the gable. Although physically separated, it forms a group with St. Mary's Church, Kilmood and other buildings at Kilmood, situated some 2 miles north-west of Killinchy village, set to the south of Ballybunden Road.

The entrance is sited on the east gable and consists of a large gabled porch with a central timber-panelled door featuring a segment arch fanlight with spiders' web tracery. The door is accessed via a flight of stone steps and has flanking narrow sash windows with Georgian panes. Beneath the porch on the south side is a basement window with sash frame and Georgian panes.

The south facade displays two tall ground floor windows with Georgian-paned sash frames, both set in segmental arch recesses, with a blind window between them. The first floor has three small sash windows with Georgian panes. At basement level are two sash windows with a blind window in the centre, with a moulded course above. To the right on the west gable is a gabled store extension. To the left of this, on the gable proper, is a partly glazed rear door set at high level and accessed via a pyramidal set of steps.

The rear facade has three windows to the ground floor (the right-hand one being smaller) and three to the first floor. At basement level are two sash windows and a central timber-sheeted door, with steps leading to this level to the right of the facade. To the far left is a small gabled projection also attached to the north face of the entrance porch. Attached to the centre of the rear facade is a tall metal frame, probably once supporting a water tank. The entire facade is finished in rough cast and unpainted.

The main roof is gabled and covered in Bangor blue slates. Two tall gable chimney stacks are rendered with original pots. The metalwork rainwater goods are dilapidated.

With its entrance on the gable, this is an unusual and noteworthy late Georgian house. The store extension to the rear and the small gabled projection to the front are probably later additions.

Historical context

The house is shown as the Kilmood Glebe on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834. It was probably built by David Gordon, then owner of Florida Manor, in approximately 1820–22, at the same time as the new church at Kilmood. Documents in the Gordon Family Papers at PRONI, dating from 1819–20, discuss proposals for a glebe house, and a note of 1827 lists costs associated with its building, allowing the property to be dated between approximately 1820 and 1827. Reverend Thomas Tennison is recorded as occupying the house at the time of the first valuation around 1835, with Reverend Frederick Flood the incumbent in 1861. The building probably continued to serve as rectory for Kilmood until approximately 1923, when the parish, along with Tullynakill, was united with Killinchy. The interior appears to have been renovated in the 1930s–40s.