Hillsborough Private Clinic, Cromlyn House, 2 Main Street, Hillsborough, County Down, BT26 6AE

Cromlyn House is a former townhouse, built around 1770, that now operates as a private medical and hearing clinic. It stands at the bottom of Main Street in Hillsborough, County Down, at the corner where the street meets the entrance forecourt of St. Malachy's Church. As a three-bay, two-storey building over a basement, it terminates the east terrace of street-fronted buildings lining Main Street, and its modest proportions are typical of the town's early 18th-century built character. The building is listed at Grade B2 and sits within Hillsborough Conservation Area, where it has group value with the adjacent church buildings, including the entrance gate screen to St. Malachy's Church.

The plan is U-shaped, facing west, with two rear projections — one gabled to the north and one hipped to the south — which together give the building its distinctive rear profile. The roof is covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles and rolled leaded hip ridges. There are two rendered chimneystacks with terracotta pots: one to the front pitch and a further stack rising from the rear gable of the north projection. Cast-iron guttering on iron brackets runs to the rendered eaves course, with cast-iron downpipes below.

The front and north side elevations are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render with rusticated rendered quoins. The rear elevation is rough-cast rendered, and rubblestone walling is visible to the south side elevation where the building has been abutted by the adjoining property at No. 4. A carriage arch opening into the adjoining building reveals rubblestone walling to the south elevation of the south projection, finished with lime mortar.

The front west elevation is symmetrical, five windows wide across two storeys over a basement, above a railed basement area. The first-floor windows are original 3-over-3-pane timber sash windows, while the ground floor has 19th-century 6-over-6-pane timber sash windows; the basement has replacement timber sash and casement windows. All openings have square heads with painted masonry sills. The round-headed front entrance contains a square-headed door opening fitted with a replacement double-leaf timber panelled door. The surround comprises rendered pilasters rising to impost mouldings, with a moulded surround and keystone above; there is a timber lintel cornice and a webbed timber fanlight over the door. The door opens directly onto the pavement and is flanked by decorative spear-headed railings set on a plinth wall that bridges the basement area and continues across the full basement frontage of both the front and north side elevations, supported on decorative iron brackets. A plaque beside the entrance door records the building's name as Cromlyn House.

The north side elevation is also two storeys over a basement, four windows wide, and is detailed in the same manner as the front elevation. The rear elevation has an irregular pattern of fenestration: original and replacement 8-over-8-pane timber sash windows appear throughout, while the central recessed bay has original 8-over-12-pane timber sash windows at ground and basement levels. The north projection at basement level has an iron door that opens onto a small paved yard, enclosed to the north by a tall rendered wall with modern steel gates. The south side elevation is obscured by the adjoining building.

The listing covers the former house, its front walling, and the railings.

No. 2 Main Street first appears on an illustrated plan of Hillsborough dated 1803, described as an oblong building near the bottom of the hill close to the gate screen of the Parish Church of St. Malachy, then owned by a Mr. Garrett. The first Ordnance Survey map of 1833 records the building as the first property on the left-hand terrace proceeding up Main Street, at that time showing only one rear return and thus an L-shaped plan. A separate rear out-office, the same width as the main house, is also shown at the rear of the yard; this has since been converted into a separate dwelling. The Townland Valuation map of the same period (1830s) depicts the house in its current U-shaped configuration with two rear returns, and values it at £16. The Townland Valuation records the occupant at that time as a Doctor Moorhead.

The Ordnance Survey maps show no discernible change to the property between 1858 and 1920. However, Griffith's Valuation of 1861 increased the assessed value to £20 10s. and recorded the occupant as a Mr. Henry Murray. Murray remained at No. 2 until 1864, when the Annual Revisions record that a Phileas or Phyllis Moorhead came into possession and resided there until 1873, when a Reverend Smith — likely an assistant minister of either Hillsborough Parish or the Presbyterian Church — became the new owner. The next recorded owner was Mr. James Alexander Vaughan, an accountant, who lived in the house until his death in 1894. Vaughan married a Ms. Isabella Wardhaugh, daughter of Mark Wardhaugh, an agent of Lord Downshire. After Vaughan's death, a Mr. James H. Crane came into possession; by 1903 the Annual Revisions recorded his daughter, Mary Jane Crane, as occupant. The 1910 Ulster Towns Directory records that Sergeant Major James H. Crane served as caretaker of the Downshire Estate Office and also as drill inspector at Hillsborough Fort. Mary Jane Crane continued to be recorded as occupant until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930.

The 1901 Census records James's wife Matilda Crane (aged 51), a local dressmaker, living at No. 2 Main Street with her daughter Mary Jane (aged 32), a teacher of needlework, and her son Joseph John Crane (aged 31), employed as an Assistant Professor at a Training College. James H. Crane (aged 64) was not recorded at the house on the night of the census; he was instead stationed at the estate offices in Small Park, where he worked as an Army Pensioner Office Keeper. The census classified No. 2 Main Street as a first-class dwelling comprising nine inhabited rooms. By the 1911 Census, James and Matilda had been married for 42 years. In that year the house was being used as the local post office, replacing the former post office previously situated at No. 19 Main Street; Mary Jane and her cousin Annie Crane were employed as Post Mistresses. The out-office return for the 1911 Census records that the property possessed two stables, a coach house, two cow houses, a fowl house, a potato house, a shed, and a store in the offices at the rear of the yard. It is noted that the house itself has never possessed a carriage arch; access to the rear was instead gained through a gap between No. 2 and one of the Parish Church gate lodges.

Field inspection supports a construction date of around 1770. The building was listed at category B2 in 1976. Since approximately 1990 it has been in use as a private medical and hearing clinic. Renovations carried out in 1997 resulted in few original interior features remaining. Writing in 2002, Brett described the building as "a five bay two-storey plus basement house of stucco, with fanlight and Georgian glazing upstairs, turning the corner neatly to the Church Screen."