Clifden 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 east side of Bangor Road, Holywood. L-shaped on plan with catslide return to re-entrant angle.

Hipped natural slate roof, gabled to rear, with angled clay ridge tiles. Rendered chimneystacks with moulded caps and multiple octagonal clay pots. Rainwater goods are half-round aluminium, over an eaves course. Walling is ruled-and lined cement rendered to north and rear elevations, painted roughcast to west garden front, all over a bevelled plinth. Windows are generally 6/6 timber sashes with projecting sandstone cills; all have plain reveals with the exception of those to west which have slightly projecting smooth rendered reveals with angled heads.

Garden elevation faces northwest and has three equally-spaced windows to each floor.

Entrance elevation faces northeast and has four openings to each floor, those to right being blind. The elliptical-arched entrance is offset to right of centre and comprises a timber door with six raised-and-fielded panels and bronze door furniture, having segmented fanlight and multi-paned sidelights all flanked by clustered timber pilasters. It is accessed by a set of four stone platform steps flanked by stone urns on pedestals.

The rear elevation comprises the gable of the main block, which has French doors to a rear yard and window over to each floor. The return is set back into the angle, also opening onto a yard which is accessed via a set of concrete flag steps. It has a modern door and window to ground floor and remaining fenestration is as the rest of the house.

The southwest elevation is abutted by the adjoining house, HB23/20/016A.

Setting

The house is set back from Bangor Road on an elevated site with mature gardens to front. It is accessed by a sweeping tarmacadam 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. Additional cast-concrete gate piers with stone ball finials on pedestals have been added close to the house.

Roof: natural slate
Walling: rendered
Windows: timber
RWG: aluminium

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 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. However, they do not appear on the first edition OS map of 1834. According to information supplied by the owner, 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). Information supplied by the owner suggests that Robert Francis Gordon, who later built Craigdarragh House (HB23/16/17), lived in Clifden before 1848.

The house appears to be listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) as the property of Mr Leckee, a house, office and yard valued at £30. The aforementioned copy lease states that Clifden was sold by Hugh Stewart to John Finlay in 1850, so it may be that Mr Leckee was a tenant. The building is shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, captioned ‘Clifden’. The plan shows a somewhat more complex layout to the rear than its neighbour Martello House (HB23/20/16A), which would appear to indicate that Clifden had already been extended and altered by this date.

In Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) Clifden is listed as a house, offices, yard and land (lawn) occupied by Isabella Purvis, leased from William Linden and buildings valued at £53.10s, later raised to £58.10s, indicating that it is a somewhat larger house than its neighbour. Dimensions are given for the house and two outbuildings.

Annual Revisions see John Finlay again in residence at Clifden, from at least 1863, but now leasing the property from Isabella Purvis. Finlay remains resident until 1880 when the house is listed as vacant. By 1898 William Parr occupies the house and the same year the valuation is dropped to £43.10s, following an appeal. Valuers’ notes from the appeal give dimensions but no plan and describe the house as ‘very old’. A William Parr is listed in Thom’s Directory for 1857 as the manager of the Newtownards branch of the Belfast Banking Co. In 1902 the house is leased from the representatives of M Linden and it remains in the Parr family until 1923 when it is occupied by Francis W Weldon.

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/1/A/3/1 – Townland Valuation Map (1828-40)
6.PRONI VAL/1/B/318 – Townland Valuation (1828-40)
7.PRONI VAL/1/D/3/18 – Townland Valuation Town Plan (c1834)
8.PRONI VAL/2/B/3/1 – Griffith’s Valuation Map (1856-64)
9.PRONI VAL/2/B/3/18B – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
10.PRONI VAL/12/A/317 – Valuers’ Notebook (1897-99)
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.“Thom’s Irish Almanac and Official Directory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain” Dublin: Alexander Thom & Sons, 1857
16.Copy lease supplied by owner, 1850
17.Information supplied by owner

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

Clifden House is one of a pair of large early nineteenth-century semi-detached houses. Both are of two storeys with attic : the current owners of Clifden have restored most of the original plan form and fenestration. The houses are distinguished by generous proportions, and are plain in detail, in a style appropriate to the period. Original fabric and detailing of survive and the house has a more complex plan form than its neighbour, reflecting early changes in layout, including the addition of a secondary service stair, maintaining the privacy of the main quarters. The pair was among the first houses to be constructed in this part of Holywood, representing its early development.

General comments

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