Newton Lodge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical three-bay single-storey with attic rendered house, built c.1750 with pair of single-storey returns. U-shaped on plan facing north, located at the end of a gravel lane to the west of Beechill Road.

Half-hipped natural slate roof with black clay and terracotta ridge tiles, lead valleys and a pair of large rendered chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots. Cast-iron guttering on iron drive-through brackets to slightly projecting rendered eaves course, timber bargeboards to either gable end with sheeted eaves and cast-iron downpipes. Painted rough-cast rendered walling. Square-headed window openings with painted masonry sills and 6/6 timber sash windows having replacement plate glass.

Symmetrical front north elevation is four windows wide with central elliptical-headed door opening containing a tripartite timber doorcase. Original six-panelled timber door with pronounced raised and fielded panels to the upper four panels, flush beaded panels below and brass door furniture. Door flanked by pair of geometric side-lights and timber sills, in turn flanked by engaged reeded Ionic columns on plinth blocks rising to a reeded lintel cornice, with spoked fanlight above. Doorcase set within a scalloped alcove surround defined by a triple bull-nose surround and opening onto flagstones.

East gable is two windows wide with a pair of round-headed window openings to the attic level having 3/3 timber sash windows. This elevation extends by a further three windows to the east return with three 6/3 timber sash windows and three blind panels indicating former door openings.

The rear elevation comprises a pair of blank end elevations to both returns with a screen wall spanning the space between having a Gothic-arched door opening into the (now glazed) internal courtyard. Within the courtyard, the rear elevation to the main body of the house has a tall round-headed window opening with 6/6 timber sash window.

West gable is two windows wide, as per east gable, and extends by a further three windows as the west return. The return has a central 6/6 timber sash window flanked by a pair of Wyatt timber sash windows.

Setting:
Set on an elevated landscaped site to the west of Churchill Road accessed via long gravel lane shared with modern detached dwellings. Single-and-half-storey rendered garage structure located to the east of the site, dated 2002. The front gravel area opens onto the lane via pair of modern rendered piers surmounted by cast concrete eagles and supporting a pair of goodquality wrought-iron gates.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Rough-cast render
Windows Timber sash

Historical information

Newton Lodge is said to date from c1740 and may have been built as a dower house, being sited on land which formed part of the Belvoir Park estates, acquired by Arthur Hill, later Viscount Dungannon and grandfather of the Duke of Wellington, in the early eighteenth century. (Brett) Field inspection would appear to bear out a date of mid-eighteenth century. The house, which was later to be known as ‘Newtown’ and then ‘Newton’ Lodge, is captioned ‘Fair View’ on the first edition OS map of 1834 (Brett suggests that ‘Fair View’ is a translation of ‘Belvoir’). The building is rectangular on plan and situated in a wooded plot surrounded with farmland, the area remaining relatively undeveloped until the 1950s and 60s when housing developement began to approach from all sides. Brett finds the house to be 'an astonishing survival...secretly tucked away in a two-acre wooded garden in the midst of the outer suburbs of South Belfast'. (Brett)

It appears likely that the house was built by the Hill family and later passed to subsequent owners of the estate who let it out to tenants. The internal detailing of the house suggests that some work may have taken place at the accession of the Batesons to the Belvoir Park estate c1810. (Simon) Additionally, the house may once have had a lower eaves level, as suggested by a visible line on the gables. Brett felt the house to be one of the ‘most delightful small Irish Georgian houses known to [him], by reason of the quite exceptional elegance of its interior...all the details are of the utmost delicacy and excellence.’ (Brett)

‘Newtown Lodge’ is listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828-40 as a house and offices occupied by Mr Gar and valued at £19.18s. Dimensions are given for a one-and-a-half-storey house with return and a dairy/kitchen. Also listed are a potato house, stable and cowsheds, all single storey. The house was subsequently the residence of Alexander Martin but by 1861 (Griffiths Valuation) the occupier is listed as the landlord, Sir Thomas Bateson, the Batesons having taken over Belvoir Park c1810. (Simon) The buildings were now valued at £23 and 35 acres of land were attached to the property. The valuer notes that the house and land are to be let and it was expected that the land would fetch £5 per acre including the buildings, the house having been lately repaired although the outbuildings were old and very bad. Dimensions are again given for the house, one-storey with attic, and a single-storey return.

At intervals, from the 1860s and onwards, the house was advertised to let in the pages of the Belfast Newsletter. In January 1862 it was described as a ‘desirable residence and farm...’Newtown Lodge’ together with about 40 Statute Acres of Land...Newtown Lodge would be a desirable residence for a respectable family, being only three miles from Belfast. The Land is of excellent quality”. (Belfast Newsletter) In subsequent decades the house was no longer described as a farm, although an option on an additional field for grazing was offered. By 1898 the house was offered to let furnished or unfurnished and a selling point was its proximity to the Ormeau Road tram. The house had three receptions and six bedrooms, a bathroom with hot and cold water and a large well-stocked garden. (Belfast Newsletter)

Tenants occupied the house in swift succession; Henry Joy (1864) John Ferguson (1869) James Meneely (1877) Robert Ritchie Best (1879), Samuel Moore (1881), William McComb (1883) and Henry C Montgomery (1890). In 1890 a field of 5 acres was added to the plot( but split off again in 1897) and the rent was said to be £36 plus taxes. Subsequent tenants were Dr Kohler (1897), and James Houston who was living in the house at the time of the 1901 census. Houston was a building contractor who lived with his wife and nine children, ranging in age from 12 to 26. The adult sons were a clerk, a carpenter and a medical student, while one of the daughters was a teacher at a National School. By 1911 the inhabitants were the West sisters, Elma, Zelda, Sylvia and Ethel, three of whom had been born in India. They lived with their Dublin-born uncle and kept a servant, Rose, from County Down. In the 1970s the occupants were the Westhead family and then Dr Oliver Hunter. The house was damaged when a bomb devastated the nearby Forensic Science Laboratory in 1992. (Brett) It remains in use as a domestic dwelling.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/9/1 First Edition OS Map 1834
2. PRONI OS/6/3/9/2 Second Edition OS map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/3/9/3 Third Edition OS Map 1901-2
4. PRONI OS/6/3/9/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1920-21
5. PRONI OS/6/3/9/5 Fifth Edition OS Map 1920-31
6. PRONI OS/6/3/9/7 Seventh Edition OS Map 1938
7. PRONI VAL/1/B/332 Townland Valuation (1828-40)
8. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/29 Griffiths Valuation (1861)
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/7A-F Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
10. PRONI VAL/12/F/4/9/3 – Annual Revisions (1930-35)
11. Belfast Newsletter, 3rd January 1862
12. Belfast Newsletter, 8th January 1868
13. Belfast Newsletter, 6th April, 1880
14. Belfast Newsletter, 14th May 1898
15. 1901 census online
16. 1911 census online

Secondary Sources

1. Brett, C.E.B. “Buildings of North County Down” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2002
2. Simon, B (ed) “A Treasured Landscape – the heritage of Belvoir Park” The Forest of Belfast, 2005

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
Z. Rarity
R. Age
S. Authenticity

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical three-bay single-storey with attic rendered house, built c.1750 with pair of single-storey returns. U-shaped on plan facing north, located at the end of a gravel lane to the west of Beechill Road. A very rare example of a mid-eighteenth-century villa which retains a wealth of original fabric embellished during the nineteenth-century and retaining its overall Georgian appearance. Although the context of this house has been increasingly compromised by nearby residential and industrial developments, the landscaped and secluded site make this a surprising historic survivor in suburban Belfast.