The Ivies

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey multi-bay detached roughcast rendered house built c.1870 and located to the north side of Station Road, Craigavad. Rectangular on plan with two canted bays and single-storey porch to front; single-storey porch and large two-storey return with conservatory to rear; attached garage to southeast.

Pitched natural slate roof over exposed rafter tails with blue/black angled ridge tiles and decorative bargeboard to gables; five rendered chimneystacks having moulded caps and paired tall decorative pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on overhanging eaves. Walling is painted roughcast render. Windows are 2/2 timber sliding sash, the majority without horns.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is eight openings wide to first floor; ground floor has canted bays to far left and right; central gabled porch with twelve-paned timber-framed window to each cheek; to left and right of porch is a window. Entrance door is four-panelled with brass furniture accessed by single stone step.

The northwest elevation has two windows to first floor; window to left at ground floor.

The rear (northeast) elevation is abutted by a full height extension to right and a flat-roofed single-storey extension to centre. Fenestration has been altered with original windows remaining to first floor over flat-roofed extension. The two-storey return has large modern window to first floor and plastic conservatory to ground floor at gable; right cheek has three windows at first floor right, and three windows to ground floor; left cheek has two windows to first floor; abutted by flat-roof extension to ground floor containing modern timber door.

The southeast elevation is abutted to ground floor by modern garage.

Setting

Situated on an leafy road to the north side of Bangor Road near Craigavad. Set back from Station Road accessed via squared rendered gate piers with stone caps and modern timber-sheeted gates. Lawn and shrub garden to rear.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Roughca
Windows: timber
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

With the opening of the railway to Bangor in 1865 this area of the North Down coast, previously studded with mansions and gentlemen’s residences, became more accessible to increasing numbers of middle-ranking professional and mercantile families and began to be developed more intensively. A large number of villas were constructed up and down the coast, usually on vacant plots in spacious grounds. ‘The Ivies’ and its neighbour ‘Mosella’, unusually, were built on a site previously occupied, by simpler, perhaps vernacular structures.

The current house is first entered into valuation records in 1872 as a newly-built vacant house and yard valued at £26. OS maps show that there had previously been a house on the site which is shown on both the first and second editions, but the current house appears to be a remodel of the earlier structure. The developer of the house together with its neighbour ‘Mosella’ is James McCutcheon. The current house is first shown, uncaptioned, on the third edition of 1900-02. Valuation records suggest that the garage between the two houses was added in 1923. (Annual Revisions)

The first recorded tenant of the current house is William A Ross in 1880. William Adolphus Ross was a well-known producer of Belfast mineral waters, who went on to build his own house a little further to the south in Glen Road (HB23/16/39A-B). According to Patton, “William A Ross & Son were the chief rivals to Cantrell & Cochrane in the production of Belfast mineral waters.” (Patton, p.338) ‘Industries of the North’ notes that the firm was founded in 1876 by William A Ross and was at the time one of Ireland’s foremost firms in the aerated water industry. “They are also famous for their high-class raspberry vinegar, prepared from a special class of berries grown at Mr Ross’s own gardens at Craigavad, County Down. These berries have a peculiarly delicate and delicious flavour, and produce a beverage which is quite unsurpassed by any fruit drink in the market”. (Industries of the North, p.74) The gardens in question are likely to be those at the present house or those at Glen Road.

When William Ross left the house in 1887 it was taken over by David McCutcheon, the owner of the property, who was resident at the time of the 1901 census. McCutcheon lived on the income from investments in land and other property and shared the house with his wife, their daughter and her husband John M Johnston, a tea merchant with premises at Pottinger’s Entry, Belfast who had previously lived at Mosella, the neighbouring house. (1901 census; Belfast and Ulster Street Directory) The house was subsequently let to a number of tenants, Thomas Elliott in 1908, Captain Percy Gibson in 1911 and by the time of the 1911 census the tenant is Thomas Sawers, a 47-year-old fish merchant from Scotland who had been recently married and lived with his wife and a general domestic servant. Sawers Ltd had large premises in High Street, Belfast and on the Shankill Road and are listed in the 1910 street directory as fish, ice, game and poultry merchants. (Belfast and Ulster Street Directory; 1911 census) James Harper is the tenant in 1917 and in 1923 the house was taken over by Ethel Langlands. It is not clear whether she was the owner of the property but in the same year a motor house was added to the site, and the valuation was increased to £48, suggesting that further improvements or additions were made at the same time.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/1/1 – First Edition OS Map 1834
2. PRONI OS/6/3/1/2 – Second Edition OS map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/3/1/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1900-02
4. PRONI OS/6/3/1/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1919-31
5. PRONI OS/6/3/1/5 – Fifth Edition OS Map 1938-41
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/17/10A-G – Annual Revisions (1867-1930)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/17/11A-C – Annual Revisions (1888-1930)
8. Belfast and Ulster Street Directory, 1910
9. 1901 census online
10. 1911 census online

Secondary Sources

1. “Industries of the North One Hundred Years Ago” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1986 (First published as ‘Industries of Ireland, Part 1. Belfast and the Towns of the North’ in 1891)
2. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

The Ivies is a two-storey multi-bay detached roughcast rendered house built c.1870. An elongated multi-bay dwelling, architectural detailing is minimal and while the main elevation retains an early appearance, the rear has been modified, with additions and alterations to the fenestration that compromise the original character. The Ivies remains as an example of the suburban-style homes built as part of the development of the south side of Belfast Lough during the middle part of the 19th century but is not among the best examples of the type.