82 Church Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-bay, three-storey mid terrace house built c.1870, located to the east of Church Road near Holywood town centre. Rectangular on plan with two storey return to rear and two-storey canted bay to front.

Pitched natural slate roof with brick chimneys with moulded painted masonry plinths, multiple flues and terracotta pots; stalked brick gable chimney on rear return. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on sandstone corbelled eaves. Walling is Flemish bonded red brick, canted bay is painted stone; windows are timber-framed 1/1 sliding sash with sandstone moulded lugged surrounds, flat brick arches and painted sandstone cills; continuous cill course to upper floors. Bay windows have decorative console brackets to sills.

Principal elevation faces southwest and has triple window openings to left bay (those to ground and first floor contained in projecting canted bay with dentilled eaves); paired openings to upper floor and single openings, including entrance door, to right bay. Door has four bolection-moulded raised-and-pointed panels with brass door furniture; transom light surmounted by sandstone pediment on scrolled console brackets; sandstone architrave; accessed by two bull-nosed stone steps.

Abutted to northwest by adjoining building (HB 23/20/040A)

Rear elevation is abutted by a two storey return. Exposed section has 6/6 sash window at each floor. Return at north wall has two timber-framed 2/2 sliding sash windows to upper floor and modern UPVC window and modern door to ground floor. Gable wall has modern UPVC window at ground floor and timber door to yard at right.

Abutted to southeast by adjoining building (HB 23/20/040C)

Setting

The house is set back from the road with a small garden and paved pathway to front enclosed with a small hedge. Rear garden is across rear access.

Roof: Natural Slate
Walling: brick
Windows: Timber
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

The terrace dates from between 1867 and 1870.

The terrace is drawn onto a valuation town plan dating from c1860-c1866, onto a field described as ‘pasture’ and leased by William Brown from Andrew Cowan. However, it is first listed in the valuation book dating from 1867-79 when the houses are all initially vacant, indicating that they are newly built. By 1870 three of them are occupied and leased from Robert and Daniel Reade. The lessors remain the Reade family throughout the period of Annual Revisions. All the houses are initially valued at £28 each.

By 1880 the terrace is described as ‘Riverston Terrace’, apparently deriving its name from the nearby ‘Riverston House’. In 1883, the valuations are all decreased to £25, most likely as the result of an appeal.

The current house is occupied initially by Robert E Sparks, and there are several changes of occupier over subsequent years; Omar C Nelson (1887), Henry Coulter (1890), W J Gray (1900) and then William Donnan in 1907. Donnan was a ‘wholesale spirit merchant’ and the father of Frederick George Donnan, born in Ceylon, who was an internationally celebrated physical chemist, best known for his theory of membrane equilibrium. The theory had important applications in the technologies of leather and gelatin, but particularly to the understanding of living cells, and how ions and molecules are transported within them and between the cell and its environment. The Donnan family had formerly lived in Ardmore Terrace (HB23/20/65C). (www.oxforddnb.com)

References:

Primary Sources

1.PRONI OS/6/3/1/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1900-02
2.PRONI OS/6/3/1/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1919-31
3.PRONI OS/6/3/1/5 – Fifth Edition OS Map 1938-41
4.PRONI VAL/12/B/17/10A-G – Annual Revisions (1867-1930)
5.PRONI VAL/12/B/17/11A-C – Annual Revisions (1888-1930)
6.PRONI VAL/12/E/123/1/1-6 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (c1860-c1866)
7.PRONI VAL/12/E/123/2/1-6 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (c1867-1900)
8.PRONI Will of William Donnan, Belfast Registry, Probate 2 July 1912
9.Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1890

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Two-bay, three-storey mid terrace house built c.1870, forms part of a terrace of five. The house retains its original character and robust detailing and the group is a good example of the type of larger terrace that formed part of the development of Holywood in the later 19th century.

General comments

Please note this record has been renumbered it was previously recorded as HB23/20/040