Martello House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A semi-detached two-storey three-bay house with attic, built c.1835, located on the south side of Bangor Road. The house is L-shaped on plan with lower two-storey mezzanine return to re-entrant angle.

Hipped natural slate roof with angled clay ridge tiles. Chimneystacks are rendered with moulded caps and octagonal clay pots. Ogee cast-iron rainwater goods to projecting stone eaves, supported on a frieze of carved brackets over a moulded architrave. Walling is ruled-and-lined cement rendered. Windows to principal elevations are 2/2 timber sashes (horizontally divided) with projecting sandstone sills. Ground floor windows have moulded architraves; first floor windows have a string course rising over window heads. Windows to rear and return are sashes (1/1 to rear, 6/6 to return, 3/6 to attic) with the exception of two plain glazed insertions.

Garden-facing elevation faces northwest and is three windows wide.

Entrance elevation faces southwest and is four openings wide to each floor. The entrance is offset to left and is contained beneath a masonry porch comprising square piers with responds and plain entablature (cornice and blocking course are lead-capped). The door has six raised-and-fielded panels and bronze knocker, and is set into an elliptical arch with segmented fanlight. It is flanked by multi-pane sidelights with timber aprons, all divided by clustered timber pilasters. To ground floor left is a canted bay with traditional arrangement of three 1/1 sashes with horns. Both windows to right have been extended to ground level and fitted with three-part stacked sashes.

The southeast gable has two modern ground floor window insertions and a replacement sash in original opening at first floor.

The northeast elevation and returning northeast elevation are partially abutted by the lower return. The exposed section of the main house has two attic windows and modern sliding patio doors to right side. The returning rear (east) elevation is obscured by the lower return (with the exception of the attic floor, not seen). The return is lit to east only by two sash windows to each floor (asymmetrically arranged) and is completely abutted at north by the adjoining house (HB23/20/016B).

Setting

To rear is an L-shaped single-storey outbuilding of random rubble stone, partially rebuilt, with brick dressed openings and natural slate roof, now converted to offices. The house is set back from Bangor Road on an elevated site with mature gardens to front. The rear portion of the site has been developed with a modern house, and is overlooked by the shell of a windmill. It is accessed by a sweeping gravel drive with entrance marked by two polygonal rendered piers (of a group of three, that to centre shared with HB23/20/016B) with moulded caps. Gates are cast-iron.

Roof: Hipped natural slate
Walling: Ruled-and-lined rendered
Windows: Timber sashes
RWG: Ogee cast-iron

Historical information

This house is one of a pair of semi-detached dwellings that were among the first houses to be constructed in this part of Holywood. They represent early examples of a semi-detached plan and appear to have been built between 1836 and 1840.

A copy lease of 1850 supplied by the present owner of Clifden (HB23/20/16B) indicates that ‘Hugh Stewart erected two dwelling houses...with office houses in the rere thereof closely adjoining each other covered by the same roof and being separated by a partition wall’. However, the exact date of construction of the houses is not clear from this document. Hugh Stewart appears to have come into ownership of the land on which the houses were built, known as Windmill Field, in 1836, and the houses are shown on the Townland Valuation town plan of Holywood which is dated by PRONI to c1834, but they do not appear on the first edition OS map of 1834. According to information supplied by the owner of Clifden, Hugh Stewart had a great influence on the development of Holywood, building a bathhouse to attract the first seasonal visitors, the first Post Office and a large number of houses including the older part of the Crescent (HB23/20/33A-D).

Martello House appears to be listed in the Townland Valuation as the property of Mr Smyth, a house, office and yard valued at £30. The aforementioned copy lease states that the house was sold by Hugh Stewart to John Murphy in 1848 so it may be that Mr Smyth was a tenant.

The building is shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 and in Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) Martello House is listed as the property of Jane Ashmore and leased from William Linden. It is a house, offices, yard and land (lawn) of which the buildings are valued at £40, later raised to £47. Dimensions are given for a house and two outbuildings.
In 1863 the house is vacant but after 1867 the occupier is William Linden and the house is leased from the Representatives of John Hunter. John Burnett, listed in the proceedings of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society in 1882 and 1889, is the occupier in 1880 and from 1892 William Shaw is in residence. The same year he requests and gets a reduction in valuation to £43. In 1902 the property is leased from the representatives of M Linden but in 1924 William Shaw himself becomes the immediate lessor. The valuation is raised from £43 to £50 in 1923 and in 1927 another Shaw family member takes over the house. William Shaw was a partner in the firm of Messrs Shaw & Jamison ‘wholesale druggists’ of Town Hall Street, Belfast. On his death in 1926 he bequeathed £1000 to the Royal Victoria Hospital to endow a ward to be called the ‘Shaw Holywood’ ward.

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/1/A/3/1 – Townland Valuation Map (1828-40)
7.PRONI VAL/1/B/318 – Townland Valuation (1828-40)
8.PRONI VAL/1/D/3/18 – Townland Valuation Town Plan (c1834)
9.PRONI VAL/2/B/3/1 – Griffith’s Valuation Map (1856-64)
10.PRONI VAL/2/B/3/18B – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
11.PRONI VAL/12/B/17/10A-G – Annual Revisions (1867-1930)
12.PRONI VAL/12/B/17/11A-C – Annual Revisions (1888-1930)
13.PRONI VAL/12/E/123/1/1-6 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (c1860-c1866)
14.PRONI VAL/12/E/123/2/1-6 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (c1867-1900)
15.Pharmaceutical Journal 1926, p.71
16.Report and Proceedings of Royal Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, 1882 and 1889
17.Copy lease supplied by the owner of Clifden, 1850

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

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Martello House is one of a pair of large early nineteenth-century semi-detached houses. Both are of two storeys with attic, and Martello House has recently been restored, leaving much original fabric intact. The houses are distinguished by generous proportions, and retain handsome, though plain, detailing, in a style appropriate to the period. They were among the first houses to be constructed in this part of Holywood, representing its early development, and are an early example of the 'semi-detached' configuration.

General comments

Please note this record has been renumbered, it was previously recorded as HB23/20/016