4 Tudor Park

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey multi-bay semi-detached stucco house in Tudor-Revival style, built c.1850, located in secluded grounds off Tudor Oaks Road to the east of Holywood. U- shaped on plan with abbreviated gabled return extending from rectangular front block; conservatory and double height lean-to to rear; conservatory extending to west elevation.

Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles; raised stone skews and kneelers. Tall stone chimneystacks, having chamfered stalks to suggest individual flues, with ovolo moulded heavy plinth. Chimneys to rear are rendered with chamfered stalks, simple plinth and tall terracotta pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on drive-in brackets. Walling is smooth rendered/stucco with quoins over a chamfered plinth. Windows are various timber-framed sliding sash in simple chamfered surrounds with chamfered sills. Dormer windows are 1/1 sliding sash.

Principal elevation (entrance) faces southwest and comprises two-storey entrance bay offset to left of centre, flanked by two gabled bays (single window wide); that to right is narrower: extreme right bay two windows wide. Porch contains bolection-moulded six-panel door with brass door furniture and is lit from west and north.

The northwest elevation comprises central projecting gabled bay and single window opening to flanking bays (window to left bay is a replacement dating from 1941).

The northeast elevation is abutted by adjoining building (HB23/20/017B)

The southeast elevation is abutted by a three-storey slightly recessed rear wing (creating the U-shaped plan). Exposed section of gable with diminutive 2/2 sash window to second floor. Wing comprises half-panelled door with transom light at first floor abutted by cast-iron railed balcony over double-height lean-to with raised stone skews; lean-to abutted at ground floor by timber conservatory.

Setting

The house is set on an elevated site looking out towards Belfast Lough. Lawned to front and accessed via a gravel drive from Tudor Oaks Road, the house sits in a mature site (which once extended to the Bangor Road below) and is surrounded by mature boundary trees and hedges.

Roof: natural slate
Walling: render/stucco
Windows: timber
Rainwater Goods: Cast-iron

Historical information

This house forms part of a pair of semi-detached houses, built c1850 by Henry Murney, a prosperous tobacco merchant with a business in High Street, Belfast.

According to Merrick, this area of Holywood began to become popular with well-to-do businessmen and merchants in the1830s and 40s, “The district most favoured by this newly and rapidly evolved class was the triangle of land bounded by Bangor Road, Victoria Road and Croft Road. This higher ground proved attractive because being outside the town, there was the scope to site each villa in four or five acres of prime woodland which could then be landscaped to look like a small country estate and more importantly, the entire area commanded unrivalled views of Belfast Lough and the County Antrim hills without being too exposed. It was soon to become unofficially known as High Holywood”. (Merrick, p.56)

The houses are set within a group of three pairs of semi-detached houses, that together were known as ‘Tudor Park’. They are first shown on the OS map of 1858 together with a ‘gate lodge’ on the Bangor Road entrance to the demesne. Merrick notes that the gate lodge and castellated gates were lost when a private housing estate was built in the grounds in the 1970s. (Merrick, p.58)

This house is listed in Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) as occupied by Robert Megaw and leased from Henry Murney. The house is valued at £62 and a sketch plan and dimensions are given.

There are numerous changes of occupier in the ensuing years, indicating that the house was probably let out. Occupiers include, Martin Jaffe (n.d), John R Sefton (1879), Henry Murney M.D., son of the builder of the houses (1887), Thomas Maguire (1900), who is listed in the Ulster Towns Directory of 1910 as a solicitor, and later lived in the adjoining house, Ann Ormsby (1909) and Thomas N Wilson (1927). The valuation drops by degrees to £45 in 1891, perhaps indicating a want of repair. In 1909 a ‘very small greenhouse’ is added to the buildings but no rise in valuation is deemed necessary. Frederick Hoey becomes the immediate lessor by 1909, following the death of his uncle Henry Murney in 1907. (McKee)

Martin Jaffe was the son of Daniel Joseph Jaffe, founder of the Jewish synagogue in Belfast in 1871, and brother of Otto Jaffe who was later to become Lord Mayor of Belfast. Martin ran the Belfast branch of his father’s business and the first Jewish service to be held in Ulster in the nineteenth century took place in 1864 in Martin Jaffe’s Holywood home. It is not clear exactly when Jaffe moved into the house in Tudor Park but it appears to have been between 1863 and 1867 and this may, therefore, be the house where the service was held. (Keogh, p.8)

Brett states that the building was the subject of ‘extensive, expensive and co-ordinated repairs between 1989 and 1992. (Brett, p.105)
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)

Secondary Sources

1.Brett, C.E.B. “Buildings of North County Down” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2002
2.Keogh, D “Jews in Twentieth Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust” Cork University Press, 1998
3.McKee, M “Ripple, The Murney Brothers and the Marble Clock” in Waterlines, Journal of the Royal Ulster Yacht Club, 2008
4.Merrick, Tony “Buildings of Holywood” Holywood: Holywood Advertiser, 1986
5.Ulster Towns Directory 1910

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

A three-storey multi-bay attached stucco house in Tudor-Revival style, built c.1850. Much of its architectural detailing and original features survive and it is representative of the expansion of Holywood in the first half of the Nineteenth century. Although its setting has been compromised by modern development, there are six houses in total in Tudor Park, built by the wealthy tobacco merchant Henry Murney and they form a notable group. A fine, well-preserved example of the type Belfast’s wealthy merchants were building in the mid 19th century.

General comments

Please note this record has been renumbered it was previously recorded as HB23/20/017