Tudor House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A fine two-storey with attic 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. Rectangular-on-plan with series of gabled wings extending from rectangular main block.

Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles; raised stone skews and kneelers. Tall stone clustered chimneystacks arranged in groups of three and four, having ovolo moulded heavy plinth. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on drive-in brackets. Walling is smooth rendered/stucco with quoins over a chamfered plinth. Windows are a variety of timber-framed sliding sash in simple chamfered surrounds with chamfered sills; hood moulds to second floor and label moulds to ground floor windows (unless otherwise stated).

Principal elevation (entrance) faces northeast. Main rectangular block to north comprises three-storey entrance bay flanked by two gables, each a single opening wide with canted bay to ground floor (right bay having parapet). Gabled porch with pinnacle and cartouche detail (also diminutive cartouche detailing to exposed section); contains four-and-a-half panelled pointed arch timber door in bead-moulded recessed surround, accessed by stone step; exposed section to north with slender window. To south are three gabled wings; that to right containing two-storey entrance bay with panelled timber entrance door; those to left have multi-pane openings to ground and first floor (both having label moulds and stops) and diminutive window to second floor. To extreme left there is a garden wall with panelled timber door in exposed section to north. Exposed section of gable to main block has stained glass window to first floor.

The southeast elevation of main block is two windows wide with stained glass window to left at first floor and dormer window with decorative bargeboard to right. The south elevation of rear wing is blank to first floor (ground floor concealed by garden wall).

The southwest elevation is abutted by adjoining building (HB 23/20/018A)

The northwest elevation is gabled and a single window wide with canted bay to ground floor having four openings.

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 hedgerow.

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

Historical information

This house forms part of a pair of semi-detached houses, built in 1849 by Henry Murney, a prosperous merchant, and substantially remodelled by Boyd and Batt in 1868.

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 were built in 1848-9, at a total cost of just over £6,000 by Henry Murney, a tobacco merchant with a business in High Street, Belfast. On a staircase landing of Tudor House there is a stained glass window inscribed ‘Tudor House. H.M. 1848’. The houses are set within a group of three pairs of semi-detached houses, that together were known as ‘Tudor Park’. The houses 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. Brett attributes the buildings, somewhat uncertainly, to Millar. (Merrick, p.58; Brett, p.104)

The property is listed in Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) as occupied by Daniel Currell and leased from Henry Murney. It is valued at £71 and a sketch plan and dimensions are given. Daniel Currell, his residence given as ‘Holywood’, is listed in the Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory for 1861 as a linen and cotton manufacturer with premises in Linenhall Street, Belfast.

In 1868, following severe damage in a fire, the building was restored by Boyd and Batt architects, which resulted in a rise in the valuation to £86 by 1870. The restoration was announced as ‘nearly finished’ in the Irish Builder of 1 November 1868. However, the valuation began to drop gradually thereafter and by 1891 it was £54. The house undergoes many changes of occupier and periods of vacancy but J K Vallely was in residence in 1884, followed by W H Lyons (1900) Thomas Orr (1913), Richard Birch (1927) and Frederick Hoey (1929).

William Henry Holmes Lyons of Old Park, Belfast was born in 1843 and educated at Harrow school. He was Grand Master of the County Antrim Orangemen, JP for County Antrim and High Sheriff in 1904. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant for the City of Belfast. He had four children, three of whom were born at 23 University Square, Belfast. The fourth, Lily Eileen, was born at ‘Tudor House’ in 1894. (Howard and Crisp, p.112)

Frederick Hoey became immediate lessor of the two houses in 1907 when Henry Murney, son of the Henry who had originally built the house, and Isabella Murney, his sister, died in a fire. Their wills grant probate to Charles Hoey, solicitor and Frederick Hoey, merchant, who was a nephew of the Murneys. Frederick appears to occupy the house by 1929. (McKee)

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)
8.Irish Builder, Vol 10, 1 November, 1868, p.273

Secondary Sources

Belfast and Ulster Street Directory, 1861
1.Brett, C.E.B. “Buildings of North County Down” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2002
2.Howard, JJ and Crisp, FA “Visitation of Ireland” London, 1973
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

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
V. Authorship

Evaluation

A two-storey with attic multi-bay semi-detached stucco house in Tudor-Revival style, built c.1850. Much of its architectural detailing and character survives 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 HB23/20/018