The Grey House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A detached symmetrical two-storey three-bay classically-styled house with concealed basement and attic, built c. 1855, located on the south side of Station Road, Craigavad, east of Holywood and overlooking Belfast Lough. The house is square-on-plan, with single-storey classical porch; there is a single-storey pavilion to south-west linked to the house by a kitchen extension and replacement conservatory.

Roof is hipped natural slate with rolled leaded ridges and hips; central rendered chimneystacks with stepped caps and multiple pots; leaded dormers. Gutters are concealed behind an eaves cornice and lead-capped blocking course. Downpipes are cast-iron. Walling is ruled-and-lined render (painted grey) with rusticated quoins, plinth, frieze with elongated panels and architrave. The windows are 1/1 timber sashes with horns in architrave surrounds with bracketed cills; those to ground floor have corniced hoods over a decorative panel. The porch is classically detailed with paired pilasters to front supporting an entablature with blocking course; side elevations each have a plain-glazed window flanked by single pilasters. Entrance door has four bolection-moulded raised-and-fielded panels, beaded muntin, lion’s head knocker and decorative brass knob, with moulded architrave surround and decorative transom, all accessed by four bull-nosed sandstone steps.

Principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged with three openings to each floor, arranged about central porch.

West elevation is abutted by the kitchen extension, which is fronted by the conservatory. The exposed section comprises a mid-level round-headed stairwell window with replacement leaded glazing; there are glazed French doors to a fire escape at left and a window at right. The kitchen extension is single storey with flat roof concealed by a blocking course with decorative detailing. Walls are as main house; windows are replacement, some uPVC; there is a recent extension to north end. The pavilion is detailed as kitchen extension with round-headed Serliana/Palladian-style windows to north and south.

The north elevation is symmetrical with four openings to first floor, and two wide canted bays to ground floor. Canted bays have entablature with decorative detailing corresponding to other openings, and are two windows wide to main face.

The east elevation is three windows wide to each floor; that to ground floor right is has a pilaster surround and is set in a box bay.

Setting

The house is set back from the road in extensive grounds comprising lawns, shrubberies and tennis court, on an elevated side above the south shore of Belfast Lough. There is a tarmac forecourt accessed by a winding lane; no gate piers; the former gate lodge is now a separate residence, and retains few features of interest.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Stucco
Windows: Timber
RWG: ast-iron

Historical information

The house dates from the mid-nineteenth century and is first shown on the second edition OS map of 1858 captioned ‘Olinda’, as a rectangular dwelling with a porch. A ‘bathing house’ is also shown nearby.

Griffith’s Valuation of 1860 lists the house as the property of William Stevenson Mitchell who leases it from the Representatives of Robert S Kennedy. It is a house, gate lodge, offices and land valued at £100, the gate lodge being inserted at a later date. Dimensions are given for the house, basement, porch, offices, stable, shed, mangle, barn and gate lodge. The valuer comments that the house has 4 good rooms, a kitchen and basement, six or seven bedrooms, ‘A fine block of a house in excellent repair. Grounds nicely laid out, but inferior approach...not so improving looking as Mr Crawford’s but [more room?] in it’.

A substantial rise in the valuation took place in the 1870s, to £127, and this appears a likely date for the extension to the west of the house which includes a conservatory and a pavilion which was later used as a billiard room. The extension is shown on the third edition OS map of 1900-02.

The 1877 Street Directory lists ‘Olinda’ as the residence of Joseph and William S Mitchell, of Mitchell Brothers who were linen yarn merchants with a spinning mill in the Crumlin Road, Belfast. In 1864 William S Mitchell was also a director of the York Street Spinning Mills.

The house stayed in the Mitchell family and passed to John Mitchell in 1887 and Joseph Mitchell in 1913, continuing to be shown as ‘Olinda’ on maps up to the fifth edition (1938-41).

The valuation dropped to £108 in 1933 and a plan and dimensions of the building from that period show the house with billiard room and conservatory and numerous outbuildings including stables, byres, a dairy, laundry, fowl houses, and a motor house. The valuer’s notes state that the house has ‘painted walls’, the same phrase used to describe the walls of ‘Ardnalea’ (HB23/16/006) which feature fine Italian painted decoration. William S Mitchell was the immediate lessor of ‘Ardnalea’ and it is possible that the walls of ‘Olinda’ were at one time painted in a similar way.

In 1951 the house was purchased by Henry P Lenaghan, a shipowner of Henry P Lenaghan & Sons, 66 Corporation Street, Belfast. The purchase price was £14,000 and Lenaghan was able to obtain a building license for expenditure of £5,500 on alterations to the house. He also spent a further unknown sum on garden works including £600-700 on a hard tennis court and fencing around the entire curtilage of the property. The alterations included the addition of a new one-storey wing to designs by Blackwood and Jury. The new wing, with roof light, infilled the courtyard and outbuildings to the west of the property and contained a maids’ room, pantry, kitchen, bathroom and store. Lenaghan also had new fireplaces fitted in all the rooms, central heating installed, re-decorated throughout and installed new bathrooms and ‘superior sanitary suites’. As a consequence the valuation was raised to £150.

According to the International Shipping and Shipbuilding Directory of 1958, Henry Patrick Lenaghan was chairman of Henry P. Lenaghan & Sons (Nassau) Ltd.; Chairman and Managing Director of Irish Bay Lines Ltd and Green Isle Shipping Ltd and a Director of Comber Produce Co Ltd and George Flack & Co Ltd. (p.172)

The current map (surveyed 1967) shows the property renamed ‘The Grey House’ and a new house on the plot now bears the name ‘Olinda’.

Dates of recent additions could not be ascertained (see surveyor's comments).

References

Primary Sources

1.PRONI OS/6/3/1/2 – Second Edition OS map 1858
2.PRONI OS/6/3/1/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1900-02
3.PRONI OS/6/3/1/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1919-31
4.PRONI OS/6/3/1/5 – Fifth Edition OS Map 1938-41
5.PRONI VAL/2/B/3/1 – Griffith’s Valuation Map (1856-64)
6.PRONI VAL/2/B/3/18B – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
7.PRONI VAL/12/B/17/10A-G – Annual Revisions (1867-1930)
8.PRONI VAL/12/B/17/11A-C – Annual Revisions (1888-1930)
9.PRONI VAL/3/D/4/4/F/7 – Valuer’s RV Binder (1933-57)
10.Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory, 1861
11.Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory, 1877
12.The Railway News and Joint-stock Journal, Vol II, 1864, p.24
13.International Shipping and Shipbuilding Directory, 1958

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

The Grey House is a two-storey three-bay mid-nineteenth-century house with basement and attic, located on an elevated side on the south shore of Belfast Lough, east of Holywood. The house is displays classical proportions, including the porch with original entrance door and plain entablature. The pavilion located to south-west is in a loose Florentine revival style typical of the period. The house retains its original layout and some good detailing. It has some historical significance as the former home of linen merchant William Mitchell, The Grey House is representative of the period of good quality mid-nineteenth century development along this stretch of coast, in the wake of industrial expansion of the period.