25-25A ANNADALE AVENUE

The Department's description

Historical information

Annadale Avenue takes its name from a dwelling of pre-1833 construction, one of the several small semi-rural gentlemen’s residences that characterised the Ormeau and Ravenhill areas before the spread of suburban growth in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. The house itself was located just south of the present Mornington Place with its extensive grounds stretching from the present Ormeau Road to the Lagan and taking in all of what is now between Annadale Avenue / Annadale embankment in the north and Hampton Park in the south. In the later 1880s the grounds began to be sold off with Annadale Avenue itself, (which follows a course roughly parallel to that of the northern boundary of the grounds), one of the first thoroughfares to be laid out.

The valuation books indicate that the present nos.25-27 were constructed at some point between 1888 and 1894 by John C. Clarke, who around the same time built himself a large detached house - 'Lindisfarne' - further to the west (since demolished). Both appear in the street directories for the first time in 1895 with no.25 - 'Lahore' - listed as the home of David Graham Barkley. Barkley (1836-1903), a native of Maghera, Co. Londonderry, was a barrister who had served as a judge in India during the 1880s - hence the name he gave to the house. He is mentioned as living in Annadale Avenue in a newspaper notice of March 1890, and the 1892 street directory places him at ‘no.2’, suggesting that what is now no.25 had either been built by the former date or he was occupying another house elsewhere in the street. Nos.25-27 do not appear in the valuation books until c.1894, indicating that he must have been living in another property, but against this, the present occupant (in 2017) of no.25A believes the house to be of c.1888.

In the 1901 census, Judge Barkley is recorded as occupying the property with seven of his nieces and nephews, two domestic servants and another nephew residing there as a temporary house guest, whilst the building itself is noted as a first class dwelling with 11 rooms in use. Barkley died in 1903 and by 1907 John Oliver Campbell, a building contractor, is named as resident. The 1911 census records Campbell as living here with his wife, Mary Georgina, their 6yr old daughter, three grown-up step-children, a governess and domestic servant. The Campbells, who renamed the property ‘Moyallon’, remained there until at least 1951. At some point in the following decade the property was split into two flats, with Miss McAlery (one of Mr and Mrs Campbell’s step-daughters) living in that to the ground floor in 1960, and an R.H, Sheppard occupying that to the upper levels.

References – Primary sources
1 OS town plans, 1894-95, 1896, 1901-02, 1931, 1938, 1956, 1967
2 PRONI VAL12B/20/7B (1876-88)
3 PRONI VAL12B/20/7C (1888-95)
4 ‘Northern Whig’, 4 March 1890
5 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1892 to 1996
6 PRONI VAL12B/43/K1 (1897-1906)
7 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [online]