14 Carolan Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey, red brick, pitched roof dwelling with three sets of tall diagonal brick chimneys and rear return, built 1876 to designs by the partnership of Thomas Jackson & Son in an eclectic Early Arts & Crafts mid-Victorian style. Originally detached, it is now abutted on the E side by a later terrace of dwellings (Nos 4-12 Carolan Road, 1904) and is located on the S side of Carolan Road, overlooking the Good Shepherd Convent complex (HB26/01/062A-C) to the N. It is situated behind a (later) matching red brick boundary wall with brick piers and a small front garden.

Pitched Bangor Blue slate roof with fishscale banding; gabled wall-head dormer to front (N); bracketed eaves; decorative terracotta crested ridge; red clay ridge tiles to rear return; tall red brick chimney stacks built on the diagonal, one at each gable and a smaller one at the rear of the rear return; all chimney stacks have decorative terracotta tiles.
English garden wall bond walling.
All windows appear to be original timber sliding sash with single glazing and painted stone cills; most retain original glazing panes.
All rainwater goods appear to be painted metal.

Front elevation (N)
Entrance door opening on extreme left side of ground floor level with
original diagonally-panelled timber door with original brass handle and letterbox; triple-paned overlight beneath simple painted stone head flanked by brick corbelling, and trefoil brick relieving arch over.
Paired window openings on right arched heads beneath brick voussoirs.
Triple set of windows to middle of first floor level beneath a plain painted head, blunt-arched brick voussoirs beneath dormer pitched roof.
Wall-head dormer has exposed timber cross member with timber knopp and finial; corbelled brick eaves to each gable end.

Gable elevation (W)
Blind gable with timber slatted apex and four tall decorative chimney stacks at ridge with four clay pots; single tall chimney stack with single clay pot at extreme right side of rear return.

Rear elevation (S)
Main rear façade is abutted by a pitched roof return on left side; right side has an asymmetrical arrangement of window openings – large 1/1 window on left side of ground floor level with diminutive 1/1 window to right; door opening on extreme right side with timber glazed door; large margin-paned window to half landing level with original coloured glass beneath blunt-arched voussoirs; margin-paned window on left side of first floor beneath gablet with timber cross-members.

East façade of return has an asymmetrical arrangement of openings - ground floor level has a timber sheeted door with trefoil ventilation holes on extreme left side leading to passageway; two small 1/1 windows to approximate centre, and a timber and glazed back door on extreme right which is skewed inwards forming an angled rear step. First floor level has a single margin-paned window with shallow-arched head on left side and a diminutive 1/1 window on extreme right.

Rear façade of return has a 1/1 single window opening at first floor level with blunt-arched brick voussoirs, and a stepped brick parapet rising towards the tall chimney stack on left side.

Gable elevation (E)
Abutted by No.12 Carolan Road; timber slatted apex and three tall chimney stacks at ridge with a single clay pot.

Materials
Walls – red brick in English garden wall bond
Roof – Bangor blue slates with fishscale banding
Windows – original timber sliding sash with single glazing
Rainwater goods – painted metal

Setting
No. 14 Carolan Road faces N onto Carolan Road, off the Ormeau Road in South Belfast. It is abutted on the E side by a later terrace of dwellings at Nos 4-12 Carolan Road, 1904 (H- for this development) and overlooks the Good Shepherd Convent complex (HB26/01/062A-C) to the N.
To Carolan Road it sits behind a red brick boundary wall and piers which were built after 1980 and a small front garden; driveway formed on W side since 1980 with timber shed to rear.
Small enclosed rear yard to rear; original red brick walling with narrow opes and brick coping to rear yard, bounding the rear of the former garden of No.1 Rosetta Avenue (HB26/01/003), now 1A Rosetta Avenue.

Historical information

14 Carolan Road is one of a pair of dwelling houses, comprising a larger single storey plus attic ‘cottage’-style villa and the current two-storey house, built in 1876, to designs by the partnership of Thomas Jackson & Son. The larger house to the SE, 1 Rosetta Avenue (HB26/01/003) shares similar design features, including prominent chimneys, decorative brickwork, window treatments and banded roof tiling.

The pair of dwellings were sufficiently striking in design to merit an article and an image of each house in the contemporary architectural journal, the Irish Builder, which describes the dwellings as ‘just erected’ in its issue of 15th December 1876. The journal notes that the two ‘cottage villas’ were built for John Coyle Esq, of red brick, with Scrabo and Drumfries stone ‘sparingly introduced in cills and keystones &c’. Purple and green roof slates were used with ‘Ashton and Green’s fancy ridge tiles’ and ‘Peake’s ferro-metallic’ terracotta bands in the chimney stacks. The total cost of the two houses was about £2,500. They were constructed from the designs and under the supervision of Thomas Jackson & Son, and Messrs Dixon and Co were the contractors.

Lithographs of the two cottages reproduced in the journal show the front elevation of the larger, (now 1 Rosetta Avenue), and the rear of what is now 14 Carolan Road, captioned as the ‘garden front’ with Good Shepherd convent in the background. No significant changes have been made to the rear of the house in the intervening years (although a door and archway which formerly connected the two houses has been blocked up, and a wall internal to the back yard has been removed), and field inspection suggests that the front elevation also remains substantially unchanged.

Architecturally the two dwellings are outstanding local examples, on an unusually modest scale, of the ‘great flowering’ in domestic architecture which took place in Europe between 1860 and WW1 and which demonstrated a nostalgia for rural traditions and the prioritising of ‘utility, materials and other purely practical considerations over formality’. This movement, which encompassed Arts and Crafts and Queen Anne revival styles was a reaction against industrialisation, mass production and pattern book housing and was rooted in the Romantic movement and the Picturesque. Inspiration came from the English medieval, Tudor and Jacobean periods and the vernacular tradition and houses in this eclectic style often feature exaggerated chimneys, and the decorative use of brick, timber and tiles.

The larger and smaller houses both enter valuation records together in 1876, the larger house being entered as ‘Roseville’ and the smaller as ‘Convent Cottage’. The adjacent road was known by various names in this period, most often Convent Avenue or Convent Lane (following construction of the nearby convent in the late 1860s). The road was also known as Carolan’s Street or Lane and then became more officially designated Carolan Road from 1901, the name ‘Carolan’ being the family name of the residents of Annadale Cottage at the end of the lane. The two dwelling houses were built on an empty plot (large-scale maps of 1853 and 1873) adjacent to a row of early 19th century vernacular shops/dwellings (HB26/01/006) which lined the former turnpike road, then as now, one of the main routes into Belfast. By around 1900 Rosetta was also the location of a ‘toll box’ where those bringing goods into Belfast for sale had to pay a tax on their goods or risk a fine. The surrounding area had been largely rural, dotted with farms and the mansions of wealthy merchants, with the village of Ballynafeigh lying to the North, but began to be developed in the closing decades of the 19th century, ultimately becoming a suburb of the rapidly expanding city. By 1879 (Northern Whig) the larger house was known as ‘Rosetta Cottage’, a name it retained until at least 1890.

The two dwelling houses were built by John Coyle on land he purchased from James Kennedy Esq JP who lived at nearby ‘Rosetta’ to the E of the site. Rosetta Cottage was initially valued at £42 and the current dwelling house was valued at £21. John Coyle was a grocer and wine and spirit merchant with premises at 25 Ormeau Road (the location of the present-day NI Fire & Rescue Service). Coyle lived in Rosetta Cottage himself and the Belfast Newsletter records John Coyle’s request for the two houses to be supplied with water by Belfast Water Commissioners in December 1876. The house was initially rented to John Jackson - most probably the John Jackson who was proprietor of the Red Lion Inn in Ballynafeigh (Ormeau Road – at the junction with Sunnyside Street, N Side) from at least 1870 to 1877 according to Street Directories. The name ‘John Jackson’ is scratched into an upper windowpane of the bathroom (a former bedroom), indicating that at least some of the glass to the front of the house is original to its construction in 1876.

John Coyle was a prosperous townsman and well-known figure in Belfast, both as a successful merchant and an owner of property. John Coyle (or possibly his son, also John Coyle) donated a group of marble statuary by the Italian artist Giovanni Maria Benzoni and an altar to St Malachy’s Church, in memory of his daughter Margaret who died in 1869. The plans and details for the installation and placement of the statues and altar were by Thomas Jackson & Son (Thomas Jackson having been the original architect for the church) and it is possible that the Coyle family first became familiar with the partnership and its architects during the works in 1871. However, prior to building the pair of houses at Rosetta, John Coyle is known to have lived at a house known as ‘Rose Cottage’ (HB26/30/099) now located at Walnut Court, Donegall Pass but formerly facing onto Coyle’s Place (likely named after John Coyle). Rose Cottage was constructed c1862 and is strikingly similar in form and some detailing to 1 Rosetta Avenue (although notably lacks the prominent chimneys and steep pitched roof). The architect for this earlier house is unknown, but the similarity to 1 Rosetta Avenue suggests that either Thomas Jackson’s practice was involved in the design of Rose Cottage or that John Coyle instructed Thomas Jackson & Son to base their new design on his former residence.

The firm of Thomas Jackson & Son was a partnership of celebrated Belfast architect Thomas Jackson and his younger son, William Ridgeway Jackson (his older son Anthony Thomas was also briefly involved in the firm). The practice was active between c1865 and c1884 and designed a number of notable commercial premises in Belfast, several Ulster Bank premises, the hospital for sick children in Queen Street and the Throne convalescent home, although the attributions in journals and newspapers to Thomas Jackson alone, Thomas Jackson & Son and Thomas Jackson & Sons, do not follow a clear chronology and may not always be accurate. Although very few domestic designs have been attributed to the partnership with his son, Thomas Jackson himself is considered to be primarily a domestic architect (Dictionary of Irish Architects), who was the celebrated designer of several elegant Belfast terraces (Royal Terrace, University Square, Queen’s Elms) and individual villas in Belfast and beyond.

The lithographs of Rosetta Cottage and Convent Cottage in the Irish Builder bear the subtitle, Thomas Jackson & Son, Architects. However, also perceptible on the image of Rosetta Cottage are the initials, F W L. These have been identified as the initials of Frederick William Lockwood, Suffolk-born architect and engineer who was active in Belfast during the 1860s to 1900s. Lockwood was a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), as was Thomas Jackson and it was likely this connection that led to Lockwood coming to Belfast, after an apprenticeship at Darlington, to work firstly as Thomas Jackson’s assistant, and then subsequently with Jackson’s older son, Anthony Thomas Jackson before going into partnership with John Russell in the 1890s. The extent of Lockwood’s contribution to the design of the pair of dwellings is unclear, however.

Lockwood arrived in Belfast c1863, in his twenties, and by the 1870s was presenting papers for the Belfast Architectural Association. In January 1876, around the time the current dwelling was designed, Lockwood lectured to the Association on ‘The arrangement of materials in construction to produce satisfactory colour effects’ and it may be that the houses at Rosetta, which amply demonstrate the use of colour in brick, woodwork and slates are an illustration of Lockwood’s architectural philosophy and/or that of the Jackson practice.
The brickworks that formerly lay at the end of Carolan Road play a significant part in the story of the two dwelling houses as the bricks used to build them were likely produced in the brickfield on this site. The brick field is thought to have been originally established by James Carolan Senior by 1860 when bricks were being produced on a two-acre site in this area. The Carolan family lived in Annadale Cottage (Anna’s Dale, named after Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington’s mother).

No trace of this early brickfield is shown on the 2nd edition map, however, so it is likely that this operation was small-scale and involved the clamp firing of bricks. James Carolan Senior died in 1867 and his son James Carolan Junior was the owner of the brickfield (structures are shown on the site on the 1873 map, but are not captioned) during the period the two houses were built. It is more than likely that these bricks were used given the proximity of the field. The brickfield passed to Nicholas Carolan after James Carolan Junior’s death (1878) and was four acres in size in 1881, when it passed to the next owner, William Fitzpatrick.

By 1881 the lands, including the leases of the current house and Annadale Cottage had been taken over by William Fitzpatrick who began to expand brickmaking operations. It is unclear whether Fitzpatrick then sold the company or continued to build it up himself but the 1884 map captions the ‘Annadale brickworks’. By 1888 the concern was trading as a Limited Company (mem and arts dated 1887) covering over 14 acres and valued in valuation records at £360. By 1892 a huge circular Hoffman kiln had been built at the site costing £6,500, a considerable sum at that date. Annadale Brick Works was, by 1900, just one of a number of brick and terracotta works along the Lagan between the Ormeau Bridge and Belvoir Park (see Laganvale Brick and Terra Cotta works and, Prospect, Marquis and Hay Park brick works) but in terms of the size of its kiln and sheds, Annadale was the largest, although it is thought that Prospect produced many more bricks. The Annadale works produced 6.6. million bricks in 1897, 6.21m in 1898 and 4.75m in 1899. However, by 1917 the brickworks was ‘at rest’, as noted in valuation records and the kiln had been partially demolished by 1919.

The builder of the two dwelling houses, John Coyle, died in April 1879. Coyle was a devout Catholic and had originally named Patrick Dorrian the RC Bishop of Down and Connor as one of his executors and made bequests to the church in his will. The contents of Rosetta Cottage were auctioned after Coyle’s death, a very extensive list of the furniture and ornaments being given in the Northern Whig, including oil paintings of coastal scenes, a black marble clock, brussels carpets and furniture of oak, mahogany and walnut. By 1887, eight years after Coyle’s death, the lands formerly owned by Coyle, including the lands at Rosetta were ordered to be sold by the Court of Chancery. The two dwelling houses were purchased at auction by Robert Lynas, the proprietor of the Ulster China Warehouse, in 1890 for a total of £1,025. Lynas renamed the larger house, which became his home, ‘The Bungalow’ although it is not a conventional bungalow as we would understand it today, having a substantial attic storey, and let the smaller house out, advertising it for rent in 1896 for £22, as a ‘beautifully situated cottage, close to tram line, two receptions, three bedrooms, bath, garden &c’.

The current dwelling became connected once again with the nearby brickworks, when, following John Jackson’s demise, the next known resident of Convent Cottage was HR Vaughan (1895-6), the manager of Annadale Brickworks. Subsequently, a purpose-built manager’s house for the brickworks was constructed at number 16, Carolan Road, known as Carleton House, which entered valuation records in 1897 and Convent Cottage fell vacant for some time, being empty at the time of the 1901 census. From c1900 to at least the 1970s, the current dwelling was named ‘Eden Lodge’.

A succession of short-term residents occupied the house in the early 20th century, including Adam Reid, a painter, with his wife Jane (1902). In 1904, valuation records show that a terrace of five houses was built in Carolan Road abutting the E elevation of the current dwelling. Mrs Kertland was resident from 1906 to c1910, a possible relative of Edwin Happer Kertland, manager of the Edenderry works of John Shaw Brown & Sons, damask, linen and handkerchief manufacturers.

The 1911 census records Annie Kerr as resident - a 43-year-old Presbyterian living with her six children ranging in age from 8 to 17. The house at that time had 9 rooms. These short-term residents were followed by two longer-term residents, firstly, Joseph Eagleson, a retired former sergeant in the RIC who lived at the house from 1914 with his wife Helen. Eagleson was based at Mountpottinger Barracks and a frequent police representative at inquests. The 1934 revaluation state that the porch of the house was at that time ‘open’ (as was the porch of 1 Rosetta Avenue), and that the kitchen was originally in what is now the dining room, with a scullery and pantry to the rear. There were three bedrooms and a bathroom with hot and cold water and a WC, but the bathroom was at that time entered through a bedroom, presumably at the back of the house and this may explain the presence of the second staircase. The house was lit by gas.

Eagleson died in 1947 and his wife shortly afterwards in 1948. The next inhabitant was E T Sullivan of the RUC (Sullivan became a security officer in the 1960s) who lived in the house until 1987. The house was taken over by Dara O’Malley architect in the early 1990s.
A photograph of 1980 shows that there was at that time no boundary wall in front of the house, and it was Dara O’Malley who built or reinstated a boundary wall, replicating the design of the boundary wall to the rear (and to the front of 1 Rosetta Avenue).

The dwelling house incorporates details varying from the neo-Tudor extravagance of the chimneys to the Scottish influenced crow-stepped gable, to the whimsical trefoil relieving arch above the front doorway (echoed in trefoils elsewhere in the woodwork). The elaboration of the design at times exceeds even the larger house at 1 Rosetta Avenue, with triple and quadruple chimney stacks (the chimneys at 1 Rosetta Avenue are mostly double stacks with a grouped quadruple stack to the rear). The dwelling is nonetheless modest in size with a conventional Victorian plan form of two adjacent main rooms and scullery to the rear. The juxtaposition of highly elaborated architectural style with middle-sized dwelling house is an unusual one, the building constituting a significant presence within the Rosetta area.

References:
Primary Sources:
1. PRONI OS/6/3/4/1 OS County Series 6 inch maps, First Edition 1834
2. PRONI OS/6/3/4/1 OS County Series 6 inch maps, Second Edition 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/3/4/1 OS County Series 6 inch maps, Third Edition 1902
4. PRONI OS/6/3/4/1 OS County Series 6 inch maps, Fourth Edition 1920-21
5. PRONI OS/6/3/4/1 OS County Series 6 inch maps, Fifth Edition 1931
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/8 – Valuation Revision Book 1874-1882
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/18 – Valuation Revision Book 1882-1896
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/8 – Valuation Revision Book 1897-1905
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/8 – Valuation Revision Book 1906-1915
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/8 – Valuation Revision Book 1915-1930
11. PRONI VAL/7/B/7/18 Belfast Revaluation Field Books 1900
12. PRONI VAL/7/C/7/2 Belfast Revaluation Lists 1901-03
13. PRONI VAL/3/D/3/1/G/114 First General Revaluation Valuers Binder (1933-57)
14. Belfast Weekly News, 21st March 1863
15. Belfast Newsletter, 13th December 1865
16. Weekly Examiner, 25th November 1871
17. Belfast Newsletter, 23rd June 1874
18. Belfast Newsletter, 9th November 1874
19. Belfast Newsletter, 11th November 1874
20. Northern Whig, 3rd January 1876
21. Belfast Telegraph, 30th September 1876
22. Belfast Newsletter, 8th December 1876
23. Irish Builder, Vol 18, 15th December 1876, pp.361, 363
24. PRONI Will of John Coyle, died 20th April, 1879
25. Northern Whig, 18th July 1879
26. Northern Whig, 19th February 1887
27. PRONI D1769/80/23 Memorandum and Articles of Association Annadale Brick Co Ltd 1887
28. 1911 Census of Ireland (www.census.nationalarchives.ie)
29. Belfast Newsletter, 6th July 1917
30. Northern Whig, 6th July 1917
31. Large-scale OS maps, 1858, 1873, 1884, 1903, 1919 (https://shop.centremapslive.co.uk/)
32. Street Directories, 1877-1995
Secondary Sources:
33. Information supplied by Dara O’Malley
34. HB file for 1 Rosetta Avenue HB26/01/003
35. Gilmore, Stephen (undated, post 2010) Archaeological Excavation Report, Annadale Brick Co Ltd AE/02/36. Northern Archaeological Consultancy.
36. Stamp, G and Goulancourt, A (1980) The English House 1860-1914: Catalogue to an exhibition of photographs and drawings sponsored by the Building Centre Trust and Redland Ltd. London: International Architect and the Building Centre Trust.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Two storey, red brick dwelling with tall diagonal brick chimneys and rear return, built 1876 to designs by the partnership of Thomas Jackson & Son in an eclectic mix of Early Arts & Crafts, Tudor elements and mid-Victorian style.
Originally detached, it is now abutted on the E side by a later terrace of dwellings (Nos 4-12 Carolan Road, 1904) and is located on the S side of Carolan Road, overlooking the Good Shepherd Convent complex (HB26/01/062A-C) to the N. It was built as a pair with No.1 Rosetta Avenue (HB26/01/003) located to the SE and together they form a distinctive group, standing out in the locality due to the distinguishing, striking chimney stacks.

The pair of dwellings were sufficiently striking in design to merit an article and an image of each house in the contemporary architectural journal, the Irish Builder, which describes the dwellings as ‘just erected’ in its issue of 15th December 1876.
Architecturally the two dwellings are outstanding local examples, on an unusually modest scale, of the ‘great flowering’ in domestic architecture which took place in Europe between 1860 and WW1 and which demonstrated a nostalgia for rural traditions and the prioritising of ‘utility, materials and other purely practical considerations over formality’. This movement, which encompassed Arts and Crafts and Queen Anne revival styles was a reaction against industrialisation, mass production and pattern book housing and was rooted in the Romantic movement and the Picturesque. Inspiration came from the English medieval, Tudor and Jacobean periods and the vernacular tradition and houses in this eclectic style often feature exaggerated chimneys, and the decorative use of brick, timber and tiles.

No.14 Carolan Road retains much individuality and authenticity through the retention of original historic character both externally and internally. Of particular note is the craftsmanship in the brick detailing to the chimneys, elongating the proportions of an otherwise modestly-scaled dwelling, retention of original timber sliding sash windows, the etching of the first resident’s signature (John Jackson) on a pane of original glass and the secondary staircase in a house of this size. Unusually for a dwelling of this era, the rear return has been designed with as much detail as the front.
The house incorporates details varying from the neo-Tudor extravagance of the chimneys to the Scottish influenced crow-stepped gable, to the whimsical trefoil relieving arch above the front doorway (echoed in trefoils elsewhere in the woodwork). The elaboration of the design at times exceeds even the larger house at 1 Rosetta Avenue, with triple and quadruple chimney stacks. The dwelling is nonetheless modest in size with a conventional Victorian plan form of two adjacent main rooms and scullery to the rear. The front brick boundary wall was built in late 20th C by the then owner, in the same style and design as the original rear boundary wall, adding to the architectural interest.

The firm of Thomas Jackson & Son was a partnership of celebrated Belfast architect Thomas Jackson and his younger son, William Ridgeway Jackson. The practice was active between c1865 and c1884 and designed a number of notable commercial premises in Belfast, several Ulster Bank premises, the hospital for sick children in Queen Street and the Throne convalescent home. Although very few domestic designs have been attributed to the partnership with his son, Thomas Jackson himself is considered to be primarily a domestic architect who was the celebrated designer of several elegant Belfast terraces (Royal Terrace, University Square, Queen’s Elms) and individual villas in Belfast and beyond.

Adding to the local interest of the dwelling , the brickworks that formerly lay at the end of Carolan Road play a significant part in the story of the two dwelling houses as the bricks used to build them were likely produced in the brickfield on this site. The brick field is thought to have been originally established by James Carolan Senior by 1860 when bricks were being produced on a two-acre site in this area.
The juxtaposition of highly elaborated architectural style with middle-sized dwelling house is an unusual one, the building constituting a significant presence within the Rosetta area.