’Tubber na Carrig’, 24 Tubber Road, Kircubbin, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT22 2RR

Tubber na Carrig is a large two-storey gentleman's residence built originally around 1800 and substantially extended, renovated and remodelled around 1855–60. The house is situated a quarter mile east of Kircubbin on a slight rise, set back from Tubber Road at the end of a winding drive. It is now a distinctive 'hunting lodge' style building—a form more frequently encountered in late Victorian and Edwardian suburban villas than in the Ulster countryside—with large gabled projections, gabled half dormers, substantial bracketed overhangs at the eaves, decorative barges, finials and tall decorative chimney stacks with octagonal pots.

The main entrance is positioned within a full-height gabled projecting bay on the left of centre of the east elevation. Vertical sheeted double doors are set within an elliptical arch opening with an archivolt stone surround, framed by simple semi-circular pilasters. The doorway is flanked by narrow fixed windows with many small panes. Beside the porch are larger ground-floor window openings with thick centre mullions, high-level transoms and small panes; the left-hand side window has a moulded drip stone with label stops, whilst the right-hand side is now blocked. Above the front entrance projects an oriel window with a lead-sheeted hipped roof, its underside splayed and rising off a decorative corbelled stone. Above the oriel is a small dummy window with moulded drip stone and label stops. To the left of the porch are two mullioned and transomed windows to the ground floor with small panes and moulded surrounds; two similar but smaller windows appear to the first floor, with the left-hand window now a dummy. To the right of the porch extends a much smaller two-storey garage wing, featuring two up-and-over garage doors at ground level and a mullioned and transomed window (larger than those elsewhere). To the first floor are three evenly spaced windows, each set within gabled half dormers. All gable verges overhang with decorative 'incisor teeth'-like barges; timber finials crown most gable apexes. The remaining windows to side and rear follow the same pattern. The south elevation features a small gabled conservatory or porch to the left of centre and a slightly projecting full-height gabled bay at the far right, which has a single-storey semi-octagonal hipped-roof bay at ground level. The front and south facades are finished in roughcast render. The rear and north elevations repeat many features noted previously; the rear elevation appears largely original.

Roofs are pitched with Bangor blue slates, with cast-iron gutters and downspouts. A small gate lodge at the end of the drive is built in a similar style and has been recently extended.

The south-facing portion of the building appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834 under the name 'Summerhill'. On the revised map of 1860 the house is shown much as today and marked as 'Tubber na Carrig' (meaning 'the well of the rock'). The original house is believed to have been built around 1800 and is said to have been the residence of the Dean of Down. The substantial alteration and extension of the house, and perhaps the changing of its name, appear to have been carried out around 1855–60. By the 1870s the house was in possession of a branch of the Ward family. During World War Two, Tubber na Carrig served as headquarters for RAF Command in Northern Ireland. The house's internal layout is quirky, revealing something of the building's evolution, and much 19th-century detailing remains in evidence.