2 The Square, Comber, Co. Down, BT23 5DT

A much-altered two-storey end-of-terrace shop occupying the north-west corner of The Square and the south-east end of Mill Street. The building probably dates from around 1820-30, though the site was occupied as early as 1722. It was originally configured as an L-shaped structure incorporating both a house and a shop, with the house entrance on Mill Street and the chemist's shop frontage on The Square, a layout that survived until around 1970.

The building's construction is revealed where render has been stripped: greywacke rubble, which is consistent with early 19th-century work. The presence of arch-headed doorways visible in early 20th-century photographs further supports this dating. The roof is hipped, finished with Bangor Blue slates, and is topped by two plain rendered potless chimney stacks with a smaller rendered stack to the north.

The south-facing Square frontage has been radically modernised with four tall, equally-spaced ground-floor openings of modern design, the second of which (from left) is a glazed doorway and the rest are fixed-light windows. A long rectangular sign board sits above these windows. The first floor displays no window openings but instead carries the word 'Chemist' in large uppercase letters. The return façade extending into Castle Street to the left features an elliptical coach arch. To the right of this are eight tall modern window and door openings arranged in three groups (of three, three, and two bays), with a glazed door as the third opening from left. Above these are eight unevenly-spaced first-floor sash windows without astragals.

The original building form is now obscured by single and two-storey flat-roofed extensions of fairly recent date that fill the original L-shaped angle and conceal most of the rear façade. Above the rear of the coach arch sits a single sash window with Georgian panes (6 over 6), and to the far left beyond the two-storey extension is a boarded-up first-floor opening. The rear of the south portion retains a single first-floor sash window. Some first-floor sash windows survive on the west side, representing little trace of the original façade.

The front and west façades are finished in rough-cast render, painted, with moulded in-and-out quoins to the north and south edges but not to the east. The rear is mainly plain cement render except where the greywacke rubble is exposed above the coach arch.

Documentary evidence indicates the property was held by representatives of James Allen in 1834 and by John McConnell by 1861. Photographs from the early 20th century confirm its use as a chemist's shop with domestic accommodation until the radical alterations of around 1970, when the chemist's shop was extended to incorporate the former house element and the façade was comprehensively modernised.