53 Park Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached two-bay two-storey with attic brick and rendered house with pair of two-storey redbrick bays, built 1915, with two-storey gabled-ended return and modern redbrick extensions added c.2000. Square on plan, facing north and located on the south side of Park Road within its own small plot. Elaborate panelling designed for the Britannic Liner inserted c.1922.

Pitched natural slate roof with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles and terracotta finials, central redbrick chimneystack with terracotta pots and original ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering to decorative moulded redbrick eaves and plastic downpipes. Decorative moulded brick eaves continues as a raking cornice to either gable end. Pebbledash rendered walling with redbrick quoins, redbrick plinth course and continuous moulded redbrick string course between floors. Original timber sash and replacement timber casement windows.

Symmetrical two-bay two-storey front elevation dominated by pair of two-storey three-sided canted bay windows having segmental-headed openings at ground floor level with 6/1 original timber sash windows having ogee horns and continuous sandstone sills. First floor timber casement windows set in timber frames with 6-pane overlights and surmounted by decorative timber cornice to moulded metal guttering.

East gable is abutted by a modern hardwood entrance porch with hipped natural slate roof and replacement timber panelled door. Single square-headed window opening to attic level with 6/1 timber sash window and further off-centre square-headed window opening to first floor with paired timber sash windows as above.

Rear elevation abutted by gable-ended two-storey rendered return with redbrick quoins and chimneystack.

West gable has several square-headed window openings with 6/1 timber sash windows and two segmental-headed window openings at ground level with replacement timber casement windows.

Setting:
Situated on the south side of Park Road on its own modest plot forming part of a variety of turn of the century dwellings and surrounded by mature trees.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Orginal cast-iron guttering. Plastic downpipes
Walling Pebbledash render
Windows Original timber sash. Replacement timber casement

Historical information

The present house dates from 1915 and is first shown on a town plan of 1919. This area bordering the southern edge of the Ormeau Park was slowly developed over the closing decades of the nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth. Park Road was the last of three residential roads, including North Parade and South Parade, to be developed connecting the Ormeau and Ravenhill Roads and was laid out subsequent to the construction of the Cooke Centenary Church in the early 1890s.

The house first enters valuation records in 1915 as a newly-built vacant house and grounds valued at £39. The builder was Thomas Thornbury, of Thomas Thornbury and Co, contractors and he moved into the house himself, being listed as the occupier in the 1916 street directory. The house was christened ‘Rusinurbe’ or ‘country in the city’ and at the time it was built, this area was relatively undisturbed and the Ormeau and Ravenhill roads were yet to become main arterial routes for motorised traffic. (Street Directories)

Thomas Thornbury and Co were building contractors with premises at Donnybrook Street off the Lisburn Road. They are known to have been the contractors on at least two projects in addition to this house, Fulton Memorial Presbyterian Church in Randalstown and Hilden National School (HB19/17/30). The house is fitted with what is said to be original panelling from the Britannic liner built by Harland and Wolff. Britannic was a sister ship to the Titanic and the third and last of the Olympic-class liners. Still under construction when the Titanic met its end, the Britannic was launched in early 1914 and was intended to begin the run from Southampton to New York in the spring of 1915. However, the outbreak of the First World War meant that the outfitting of the ship was delayed, and, still incomplete, she was requisitioned as a hospital ship and hurriedly altered internally. Most of her short life was spent ferrying casualties from Italy to Southampton. On her return from Naples in November 1916 she was struck by a mine or torpedo and sank. It is likely that the panelling at 53 Park Road was removed or never fitted after the requisition of the ship in 1915 and architect’s drawings retained by the family suggest that the panelling was fitted at the house in 1922. (Owner information; www.titanic-titanic.com/britannic)

The Thornbury family occupied the house until at least 1931. (Street Directories)

Subsequent occupiers were Joseph Lowry McGowan, director of Concrete Piling Ltd (1943) and F Allen, incorporated accountant (1945) who remained resident until at least 1950. (Street Directories)

References:

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/3/4/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1902
2. PRONI OS/6/3/4/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1920-21
3. PRONI OS/6/3/4/5 – Fifth Edition OS Map 1931
4. PRONI OS/10/3/4/15/4 – 25” Plan 1919
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/K/1-8 – Annual Revisions (1897-1930)
6. Street Directories 1915-1950

Secondary Sources

1. Owner information

2. www.titanic-titanic.com/britannic

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

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Detached two-bay two-storey with attic brick and rendered house with pair of two-storey redbrick bays, built 1915, with two-storey gabled-ended return. This early twentieth-century house is of considerable architectural and historic interest due to its unique interior, containing original highly decorative polished oak panelling from the Britannic liner, sister ship to the Titanic.