Old court house, 18 Kilmood Church Road, Kilmood, Killinchy, Newtownards, Co Down, BT23 6SA

Old Court House

This unusual Gothic court house dates from around 1820-22 and stands on the west side of Church Road in the small hamlet of Kilmood, approximately two and a half miles north-west of Killinchy village. The building is set into sloping ground, which means it appears single-storey from the road level but reveals a lower storey as the ground drops away steeply.

The front east facade is symmetrical and features an eccentric gabled entrance bay at its centre. This bay contains a panelled entrance door with a pointed arch fanlight, flanked by a simple blocked pilaster surround with plain archivolt. The bay is crowned with a crow-stepped gable, each step topped with finials, and a small hipped roof bellcote at the apex. Within the gable is a decorative roundel inscribed "Florida Manor Court House— Date of Patent 1638". The entrance is reached via a gently sloping walkway that spans the change in level at the roadside, with low rendered walls on either side. To left and right of the entrance bay are two pointed arch windows with sash frames featuring horizontal astragals.

The north facade has two small windows at ground floor level and two slightly larger windows at first floor level, all now fitted with modern single-pane frames. A full-height hipped roof extension is partly attached to the right of this facade and partly to the rear. This extension has a timber-sheeted door with a pointed arch window to its right on the north face, a smaller square window to the left at first floor level, and a first-floor pointed arch window to the west face. The rear has been extended in lean-to fashion, with three narrow windows to the first floor of this section and two squat windows at ground floor level to the left, plus a pointed arch window to the far right. A timber-sheeted door is set at ground level on the south face of the lean-to section. Beyond the lean-to, the rear facade has pointed arch windows at both ground and first floor levels. The south facade has two small, narrow pointed arch windows at ground floor level.

The front facade is finished in lined render with chamfered quoins, whilst the north face is rendered plain, the rear combines plain and rough cast, and the south facade is rough cast. The main roof is hipped throughout, with all sections covered in Bangor blue slates and metal rainwater goods.

The manor of Florida was created in 1638 by King Charles I under Sir James Montgomery as proprietor of the area. By the mid-18th century the manor lands had passed to Robert Gordon through his marriage to Ann Crawford, whose ancestor had acquired them from the Montgomerys in 1692. It was Robert's son, David, who commissioned this court house, built around 1820-22 as part of his broader programme of Gothic buildings in Kilmood and the Florida demesne. The building appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834 marked as "Sessions House", and petty sessions were recorded as taking place here on the last Monday of each month throughout the latter part of the 19th century. The building ceased to function as a court house in 1922 and subsequently became a private dwelling. Around 1985 it was converted to a restaurant, at which point the rear was extended. It has since reverted to use as a dwelling house.