COMBER SQUARE
Through the Ages
A short monograph by Adrian Hanna with pictures supplied by William Edgar first published 19th May 2022
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Some incredible images of the town square showing how it has evolved over the years. Thank goodness for aerial photography which has recorded details of buildings and their positions before the developers started driving bulldozers and wiping history from the face of the earth. Some of these images were taken before our lifetime and the town has changed as we have lived and have grown older. Sometimes imperceptably slowly.
This is important history which involves everyone and everything. These images presented here are now reasonably safe and readily available to researchers, historians and town planners. A big thanks to William Edgar for the pictures, it is this sort of support that the history of Comber will be made to last many years longer.
The town was small and the town square was a shortcut for traffic hurtling to and from Newtownards and Killichy directions. Traffic was light in those days in comparison to todays traffic. It was not unusual to see a Constabulary Officer directing the little traffic there was whilst a pigeon on Rollo Gillespies head watched the proceedings.. Note the neatly tended gardens to the rear of the houses. This was before the supermarkets supplied everything and the skills of the gardner to feed his family have gone and the modern garden is now a wasteland.
Note the cannon still in the square it was removed during WWII and was repurposed into more military equipment. There is a private bus just beside the cannon perhaps some historian can give some details. It is interesting to note the old School, demolished to make way for St Mary's Church Hall. The old public weigh bridge still exists when this picture was taken, It was removed in later years.
Comber Square about 1965.
Kane's Car Showroom, filling station and engineering works still in full swing, now demolished and replaced by housing and a Tesco Express. The first T.T. Race through Comber was 1929 the last in 1936. The year 2003 marks the 75th anniversary of the start of the race which was first held on August 18th 1928. There was a re-run of the race, I was there that day and the thunder of those old cars was a wonderful experience a delight to the senses and the smell of burning oil, that made my day.
Because of recent illness I must apologise for the delay in publicising these images. Because of the age of these pictures, I believe, are beyond copyright laws. However it is good practice to acknowledge the original photographer and or the newspaper or source from which they were copied.
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