Former rectory, 20 Church Road, Kilmore, Crossgar, Co Down, BT30 9HR

Former Rectory at 20 Church Road, Kilmore, Crossgar

This large, two-storey former rectory was originally built around 1790 but has been substantially altered and extended over subsequent centuries, most notably in 1864 and 1993. The building now presents an irregular, sprawling form, with the original Georgian simplicity largely obscured by its various extensions.

The house is located at the end of a short drive south of Church Road, approximately a mile south-west of Crossgar. The asymmetrical front elevation faces roughly north. The focal point is a large full-height gabled entrance bay added in 1993, which projects from the right of a broader hipped-roof bay dating from 1864. This 1864 section covers slightly over half of the original front façade. Only a small section of the original front elevation remains exposed to the right of these additions.

The entrance bay features a substantial reproduction Georgian-style door screen at ground floor level with a panelled timber door, a large semicircular fanlight with tracery, and sidelights also with tracery, accessed via a short flight of steps. Above this at first-floor level is a sash window with Georgian panes, a pattern repeated throughout the building. To the left of the entrance bay (on the 1864 section) is a single window to both floors. To the right (on the original front façade) are two windows to both floors, with two further windows at semi-basement level.

The east elevation is particularly complex. To the left and centre stands the large two-and-a-half-storey gable of the original house section. At ground-floor level, a recent single-storey offshoot added in 1993 consists of an octagonal hipped-roof summer-house-like structure with semicircular-headed Georgian-paned sash windows to five of its faces. This is connected to the original gable by a hipped-roof conservatory with sash windows matching the main house. To the right is a full-height canted bay (the east face of the 1864 front bay), followed by the east face of the 1993 entrance bay. The original gable has a window to the right at ground-floor level, immediately right of the conservatory, another window to the right at first-floor level, and two smaller windows at attic level. The canted bay has a window to each face on both floors, and the entrance bay has windows to each floor of its east face.

The west elevation features the large west face of the entrance bay with two windows to ground floor and three to first floor. The west gable of the original house is visible to the right, with a window at semi-basement level and two small attic windows. A late Victorian-looking water pump stands to the right of the semi-basement window.

The rear elevation is exposed to semi-basement level to the left, where a small lean-to section features a timber-sheeted door to the west face and a squat four-pane window to the south face. Above this are two windows, then a single first-floor window, and a single attic window set in a gabled half-dormer. At the centre of the rear elevation is the original full-height hipped-roof stairwell projection with a timber-sheeted door with fanlight and gabled projecting hood at low ground-floor level, with a tall window directly above and a slightly shorter window above that. To the right of the stairwell projection is a tall lean-to section, which in its present form appears to date from 1993, featuring a group of three windows to its south face, the central one with a semicircular head within a small gable. Directly above the lean-to is a single first-floor window and an attic window matching that to the left. The lean-to is abutted to the east by the conservatory section.

The façade is finished in unpainted lined render with roughcast to the rear. A small date panel inscribed '1864' is set into the gable of the entrance bay, taken from the front of the bay to which this bay was added. The entrance bay displays crow-stepped eaves to its gable, while the 1864 front bay has a dentilled eaves course. All roof sections are slated, and three large rendered chimney stacks are present. Cast-iron rainwater goods serve the building. Two-storey rubble-built outbuildings stand to the south-west.