COMBER SOUTH covers 103.9 km² in Northern Ireland. With 52 historic sites and 5 scheduled monuments on record, the ward sits at the 80th percentile across all 462 NI wards for combined archaeological heritage. It also records 74 listed buildings (HED Historic Buildings Record), the 88th percentile for listed-building density across NI wards. Per 1,000 residents, this works out at 34.6 recorded sites — the 80th percentile across NI wards (a measure of heritage density relative to current population). Dated archaeological evidence runs from the Mesolithic through to the Post-Medieval period, spanning 6 archaeological periods, around the NI median for chronological depth.
Heritage at a glance
Percentile rankings throughout this profile compare each ward only against the other 461 Northern Ireland wards.
Population context
The recorded heritage of COMBER SOUTH
Of the 52 historic sites recorded, the most common are Enclosure (8, 15% of historic sites), Rath (2), and Linear Stone Feature (2). For Enclosures, this is the 62nd percentile among NI wards that record this type. For Raths, this is the 14th percentile across NI wards that record this type. Across the ward's 103.9 km², this gives a recorded density of 1.26 sites per km² (all heritage types combined). Scheduled monuments are distributed across approximately 0.03° of latitude and 0.08° of longitude within the ward, indicating dispersed rather than clustered placement. Note: 33% of historic site records carry an 'Unknown' period attribution and cannot be placed chronologically; the chronological breakdown reported below reflects only the dated subset.
Most common monument types
| Type | Count | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enclosure | 8 | — |
| Rath | 2 | — |
| Linear Stone Feature | 2 | — |
Chronological distribution
Note: 33% of historic site records carry an ‘Unknown’ period attribution. The chronological breakdown above reflects only the dated subset.
Terrain and environment
Mean elevation of 29m sits around the NI median (22th percentile), reaching 82m at the highest point. The terrain is broadly flat, with a mean slope of 2.7° (10th percentile across NI). Drainage is poor across much of the ward — the Topographic Wetness Index of 11.5 sits in the 94th NI percentile, reflecting low-lying or impeded-drainage ground prone to waterlogging. The land-cover mosaic combines improved grassland (50%), open water (26%), and arable farmland (13%), giving a mixed agricultural and semi-natural landscape. In overall character, this is low-lying, gently-sloping terrain — characteristic of NI's lowland basins and coastal plains, with land use dominated by improved grassland.
Terrain measurements
Where this ward sits in NI
Geology and preservation
The dominant bedrock formed during the Palaeozoic era (Silurian period). Ancient sedimentary or metamorphic rock dating to before the age of dinosaurs; the resulting landscape has been long-stable enough to host every period of human activity. Bedrock composition is moderately varied (complexity index 0.41), with two or three geological units present within the ward boundary.
Placename evidence
The combined OSNI, Logainm NI, and GeoNames sources record 18 placenames for this ward. Of those, 2 fall into the pre-Christian defensive category (rath-, dún-, lios-, caiseal-) — the only diagnostic heritage stratum identified beyond the generic Gaelic landscape substrate. Note: Irish-language (name_ga) forms are recorded for roughly half of NI placenames in the combined sources, so anglicised forms whose Irish original could belong to multiple categories may be misclassified.
Placename categories
Scheduled monuments in COMBER SOUTH
Scheduled monuments are sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, designated by the Historic Environment Division (HED).
| Monument | Type | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Stone and wooden fishtrap | Stone And Wooden Fishtrap | Unknown |
| Rath | Rath | Early Medieval |
| Chambered Tomb: Ballygraffen Dolmen | Chambered Tomb: Ballygraffen Dolmen | Neolithic |
| Deserted Settlement: New Comber | Deserted Settlement: New Comber | Medieval |
| Windmill Stump | Windmill Stump | Post-Medieval |
Recorded historic sites
| Name | Period | Type |
|---|---|---|
| AP Cropmark- Possible large circular enclosure | Iron Age | Unknown |
| AP Cropmark- Possible small enclosure or barrow | Early Bronze Age | Ritual/Funerary |
| BIVALLATE RATH & possible SOUTERRAIN | Early Medieval | Defence |
| CHAMBERED TOMB: BALLYGRAFFAN DOLMEN | Mesolithic | Ritual/Funerary |
| CIST BURIALS (unlocated) | Mesolithic | Ritual/Funerary |
| CISTERCIAN ABBEY (site of), now modern C of I church (c.f. HB 24/15/2) | Medieval | Ritual/Funerary |
| COURT TOMB: THE FIVE SISTERS; THE HAND OF JACKS | Mesolithic | Ritual/Funerary |
| D-SHAPED RECLAMATION BANK | Post-Medieval | Commercial |
| DESERTED SETTLEMENT: NEW COMBER | Post-Medieval | Domestic |
| EARTH AND STONE RECLAMATION BANK | Post-Medieval | Commercial |
Listed buildings in COMBER SOUTH
| Address / Name | Grade | Period |
|---|---|---|
| St. Mary's Parish Church The Square Comber Co. Down BT23 5DU | B2 | 1840 – 1859 |
| Andrews Family burial vault St. Mary's Parish Church The Square Comber Co. Down BT23 5DU | B2 | 1860 – 1879 |
| The Gillespie Monument The Square Comber Co. Down | B1 | 1840 – 1859 |
| Second Comber Presbyterian Church Killinchy Street Comber Co. Down BT23 5AP | B2 | 1820 – 1839 |
| RC Church of The Visitation Killinchy Street Comber Co. Down BT23 5AP | B2 | 1860 – 1879 |
| Cobbled Footpath In front of 9/11 The Square Comber Co.Down | B2 | 1860 – 1879 |
| 28 High Street Comber Co. Down BT23 5HL | B2 | 1780 – 1799 |
| 30 High Street Comber Co. Down BT23 5HL | B2 | 1780 – 1799 |
| 32 High Street Comber Co. Down BT23 5HL | B2 | 1780 – 1799 |
| 34 High Street Comber Co. Down BT23 5HL | B2 | 1780 – 1799 |
Discover more in Ards and North Down
Want a deeper view?
Grounding History: 10 Maps of Northern Ireland’s Past
A spatial history report bringing together analysis of all 462 wards into one place through 10 high-quality maps — covering monument density, archaeological periods, placename heritage, terrain, wetland, and the historic landscape at first survey.
About this profile
What is a ward?
A ward is the smallest electoral and statistical geography used by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). The boundaries used here are the 2014 NISRA / OSNI Wards (462 across Northern Ireland), each typically covering 1-700 km² and a population of a few thousand. Wards do not align with parishes, townlands, or any historic administrative unit — they are a modern statistical convenience, used here only as a fixed spatial frame within which to summarise heritage records.
What counts as a site?
Three distinct heritage record types are reported separately, not combined: (1) Historic Sites — entries in the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (NISMR), the inventory of recorded archaeological sites and findspots, dated from prehistoric to early-modern; (2) Scheduled Monuments — sites legally protected under the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (NI) Order 1995 and maintained by the Historic Environment Division (HED); (3) Listed Buildings — buildings of architectural or historic interest protected under the Planning Act (NI) 2011 and graded A, B+, B1, B2, or Record-Only by HED. A site appearing in more than one register is counted in each register independently.
Editorial principles
These ward profiles describe evidence, not history. They report what is recorded, not what occurred. Where the data is ambiguous, we say so. We do not infer historical processes — population movements, settlement expansion, periods of decline — from patterns in the record. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence: in Northern Ireland, where antiquarian survey was uneven and modern excavation is geographically biased, a gap in the record almost always reflects the limits of recording rather than a genuine historical absence. We mark such gaps explicitly where they appear in the data.
Limits of coverage and known caveats
Several caveats apply to every ward profile: (1) NISMR coverage is uneven across NI — some areas (notably parts of the south-east and the Belfast urban fringe) have been more intensively surveyed than others, so a low recorded site count does not reliably indicate a low past density of activity; (2) period attributions in NISMR are often 'Unknown', and chronological breakdowns reported here reflect only the dated subset; (3) placename classification depends on the Irish-language form (name_ga), which is recorded for approximately 50% of NI placenames in the combined sources, so ecclesiastical and pre-Christian counts may be understated where anglicised forms remain unparsed; (4) terrain percentile ranks compare each ward only to the other 461 NI wards; they are not absolute thresholds. For absence-dominant land cover categories (wetland, water, cropland), percentile ranks are suppressed below 1% raw value, since the ranking of zero-value wards is not meaningful.
Data sources (11)
- Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (NISMR) https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/articles/nismr-public-mapviewer
- HED Scheduled Monuments Dataset https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@historic-environment-division/scheduled-monuments-northern-ireland
- HED Historic Buildings Record https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/topics/historic-environment/listed-buildings
- OSNI OS Open Names (Northern Ireland) https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@ordnance-survey-of-northern-ireland/osni-open-data—50k-gazetteer
- Logainm — Placenames Database of Ireland https://www.logainm.ie/
- GeoNames https://www.geonames.org/
- Census 2021 (Northern Ireland) https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/2021-census
- OSNI Open Data — Largescale Boundaries https://www.opendatani.gov.uk/@ordnance-survey-of-northern-ireland/osni-open-data-largescale-boundaries-wards-2012
- Copernicus GLO-30 DEM https://spacedata.copernicus.eu/collections/copernicus-digital-elevation-model
- ESA WorldCover https://esa-worldcover.org/
- GSNI 1:250,000 Geology https://www.bgs.ac.uk/geological-data/maps/