Wellington House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

End of terrace three-bay three-storey over basement redbrick townhouse, built c.1780. Rectangular on plan facing south with single-storey extension to rear and L-plan two-storey rubble stone former coach house.

Pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and brick chimneystacks to either end with clay pots, the east stack shared with adjoining house No.12 (HB19/05/039B). Cast-iron guttering on iron brackets to projecting brick eaves course, cast-iron downpipe. Handmade redbrick walling laid in Flemish bond with cement pointing to lead-lined plinth course above pebble dash rendered basement wall. Square-headed window openings with rubbered brick flat-arches, painted masonry sills and twentieth-century timber sash windows with angled horns.

Three-storey over basement redbrick front elevation, four windows wide with evidence of a former door opening to the left bay. Off-centre round-headed painted doorcase comprising: moulded pilasters rising from plinth blocks to impost blocks, archivolt and keystone. Replacement timber panelled door, timber transom and replacement fanlight, door opening onto granite step to concrete paved platform extending to the left bay with three granite steps. Steps and basement area to the east enclosed by wrought-iron railing on low rendered wall.

West side elevation abutted by No.10, The Guards’ House (HB19/05/076C).

Redbrick north rear elevation is three windows wide with a staggered arrangement of window openings having square-headed brick-arched window openings, rendered reveals and 6/6 or 3/3 timber sash windows. At basement level is a redbrick extension, three windows wide with hipped natural slate roof.

East side elevation abutted by No.12 (HB19/05/039B).

Setting:
A landscaped rear garden is enclosed to the west by the tall rubblestone rear elevation of the Military/Stable Yard to Hillsborough Castle (HB19/05/076C), and enclosed to the north by the original rubble stone gable-ended two-storey coach house with natural slate roof and brick lined window openings. The interior retains some cobbled flooring. Abutting the north end of the coach house is a stone and brick mews building, partly rebuilt c.2000, fronting onto a rear access lane with two carriage arch openings and first floor loading bay opening onto cobbled front area.

Part of a terrace of four with three similar houses on the north side of The Square facing the former Market House and attached to No.10 (Military Yard, Hillsborough Castle). Small front railed basement area. Rear coach house and mews building fronts onto small lane giving rear access to the entire terrace and to Hillsborough Castle.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Redbrick
Windows Timber sash

Historical information

This house, named ‘Wellington House’ by Lord Arthur Hill in the nineteenth century, forms part of a terrace of four on the northern side of the Square dating from 1779. The house is shown as a plain rectangle on an estate map of 1788. In a letter to Lord Downshire from his agent, John Gardner, dated February 1779, it is stated that, “we are now clearing the ground for the four houses to be built in the square”. The current house appears to have accommodated senior members of the Downshire entourage up until the late twentieth century. (Brett, p.89; Barry, p.40)

On an estate map of c.1800 the house is shown as the residence of Sir George Atkinson. Atkinson was the surgeon to the Downshire regiment in 1797 but found the position uncongenial and some correspondence with Lord Downshire, on this topic and others, has survived. After settling in Hillsborough he writes to Downshire following disturbances which took place after Admiral Duncan had defeated the Dutch, one of the most significant events in British Naval History. The population of Hillsborough appears to have suspected Atkinson of attempting to dampen the festivities and he reports, “…to cut the matter short in the evening a mob, headed and led on by Mr John Dickson, attacked my house (while I was from home) and threw in a volley of stones into the parlour where my mother and Mrs Greenfield were sitting at tea. Luckily no other mischief was done than breaking a number of windows”.

The Archaeological Survey of County Down comments that the house originally had a ‘vehicle passage’ at the ground floor which has been blocked and the passage converted to living accommodation. It also states that the doorway of this house has been rebuilt. (Archaeological Survey, p.88)

The house is listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) as the residence of George Crichard, a house, offices and yard valued at £14. Dimensions are given. By the time of Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64), William Sands was in occupation and leasing the house from the Marquess of Downshire. It is valued at £23, later raised to £24 and dimensions are given for a house and return, basement, scullery, five outbuildings and a shed.

William Sands was the architect responsible for the remodelling of Hillsborough House in the late 1830’s and 1840’s. He worked with his relative James Sands, extending the south front to the east and adding a giant Ionic portico. He also supervised the erection of the monument to the third marquess in 1848. (Hillsborough Castle, pp.22, 45-7)

William Sands died in 1881, describing himself in his will as a ‘retired architect’ and by 1887 his house had passed to Edwin Sandes [sic], perhaps a son. By 1903 the house was the residence of William John Walker and by 1905 George Allen. A George Allen is listed in the 1910 Street Directory as the secretary of the public reading room and accountant and keeper of muniments for the Downshire Estate office. Brett describes the house as the ‘grace-and-favour residence of Lord Downshire’s secretary and his family’. It was sold by the Downshires in the 1970’s.

In 1976 the house was listed and in 1979 a rear extension replaced. In 2005 an outbuilding to the rear was converted into an apartment. (NIEA file)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/14/1 – First Edition OS Map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/3/14/2 – Second Edition OS map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/3/14/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1902-3
4. PRONI OS/6/3/14/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1919-20
5. PRONI VAL/1/A/3/14 – Townland Valuation Field Map (c.1830)
6. PRONI VAL/1/B/344A-B – Townland Valuation (1828-40)
7. PRONI VAL/1/D/3/5 – Townland Valuation Town Plan (c.1834)
8. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/45A-C – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14/A-E – Annual Revisions (1864-1930)
10. PRONI VAL/12/E/102/1/1-6 – Annual Revisions Town Plan ([c.1864]-1909)
11. PRONI D671/M/8/2 – Map of Hillsborough, 1771
12. PRONI T3153/1 – Map of Hillsborough, 1788
13. PRONI D671/M/8/25 – Map of Hillsborough c.1800
14. PRONI D671/M/8/57 – Map of Hillsborough 1803
15. PRONI D671/M/8/45 - Plan of the park and demesne lands at Hillsborough with alterations, by John Webb, 1810
16. PRONI D607/B/64 – Letter from John Gardner to Lord Hillsborough, 20 February 1779
17. PRONI D607/E/337 – Letter from Sir George Atkinson to Lord Downshire, 19 October 1797
18. PRONI Will of William Sands, died 7th December 1881
19. NIEA file – HB19/05/039
20. Belfast and Ulster Towns Directory, 1910

Secondary Sources

1. Barry, John “Hillsborough, A Parish in the Ulster Plantation” Belfast: William Mullan & Son Ltd, 1982
2. Brett, C.E.B. “Buildings of North County Down” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2002
3. “Hillsborough Castle” Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
4. Ministry of Finance, Government of Northern Ireland “An Archaeological Survey of County Down” Belfast: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1966

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

End of terrace three-storey over basement brick townhouse, built c.1790, facing south onto The Square abutting the Military / Stable Yard to Hillsborough Castle (HB19/05/076C). An elegantly proportioned house, slightly wider than those of the remainder of the terrace and retaining most of its external features, including timber sash windows, nineteenth-century doorcase and its original steps and ironmongery. In addition, the interior of the househas many original features dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries, attesting to the elevated social status of the inhabitants at this prestigious address overlooking the gates to Hillsborough Castle. With the overall composition intact and forming part of an impressive Georgian terrace, this house plays an important part in the setting to both the former Market House and Hillsborough Castle(HB19/05/076A).

General comments

This record has been renumbered it was previously HB19/05/039