2 Station Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

General: This is a long rectangular gable ended building, with a slated roof, two brick chimneys and a single storey modern extension on south-east end. There is a gable in the centre of the south side, while the main door, with modest-lean-to canopy, is placed in the centre of the north side.

Timber Framing: The building, like most other pseudo-half framed buildings of this era, is of not course a genuine timber-framed house. A dominant feature, supposedly representing a jetty, is a band of black-painted over-sailing bricks, running around the building about 1½-feet below the eaves. Above, the wall is broken around the building by evenly spaced parallel studs, set about 30cm apart. Below this brick band the side walls are without studs save on the front or south-east side where the wall is broken by a series of widely spaced vertical, horizontal and angular studs. All three of the house gables boast a horizontal collar beam, while the end gables also have a tie beam. The west end gable attractively curved wooden braces, pierced by windows, here timber pegs as in genuine timber framing can be seen though the tie beam has been broken by the enlargement of a window while the east end gable has a grid of wooden studs, also pierced by windows.

Windows: The west end gable has a single storey canted bay comprising a front window of 30 panes and side windows of 12 panes each, the top level of panes being top hung casements. Like the rest of the windows in the building, some of the panes are of blue, red or yellow coloured glass. This glass (and the wndows) date from the late twentieth century. The window in the gable above takes the form of a T with a central window of 18 panes flanked by 9 pane windows. The windows along the long southern elevation have rendered narrow surrounds (painted black) and cambered heads. They vary in size, two having 18 panes, another 8 and another 24 panes, but all have top hung casements one pane deep. All also incorporate coloured glass. The front or north elevation has no window west of the door. Immediately on the east side of the door there is a cambered headed high window of four panes, while further to the east is another cambered headed window of 18 panes, the top 3 being part of a top hung casement.

The window lighting the kitchen, which is later, has 36 panes, with top hung casements and mullion. Both this window and the adjacent camber headed house window have wooden shutters with card symbols cut through then – the diamond, club, heart and spade. The ‘nogging’ of the house is modern, white painted render.

Doors: The entrance to the house is placed in the centre of the north front. It is access through a four panel doorway, which has a high placed four pane flanking window with camber head. Both window and door are covered by a small lean-to roof with carved wooden supports.

Historical information

Late Victorian house, built around 1883-5 in the Arts and Crafts style. It is similar to some of the work of the Belfast architect, James A. Hanna but this is unlikely because this was veryearly in his carreer. Vincent Craig also designed similar buildings. This building together with the adjacent No. 4 Station Road, formed outbuildings of a villa known as 'The Den', at Stradtown, which lay to the west and is now demolished. Both No 2 and No 4 were linked in the one yard and the evidence suggests that both were built at the same time as 'The Den'. Both 'The Den' and the present No. 2 and 4 Station Road are shown on the OS town map of 1894. The valuers record the rateable value of 'The Den' as £115 in 1884 and as this amount did not alter at any time prior to 1894, we can assume that no additions were made to the property and, consequently, that No 2 and No 4 are contemporary.

The 'The Den' was built in 1883-4 for the businessman Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, MP in 1883-4 (1843-1913), one of the founders (in 1862) of the Belfast shopbuilding and engineering company, Harland and Wolff, had been born in Hamberg and having come to England aged 14 to study engineering, eventually found himself in Belfast, where in addition to Harland and Wolff, he founded the Belfast Ropework Co in the mid 1870s. He never married and after his retirement in 1908, he spent most of his remaining years in his London residence at Park Street. He became the Conservative MP for east Belfast in 1892 and on his death was buried at Brompton cemetery.

The 'Den' stood on the site of a pre-1858 residence known as Mary's Cottage. Later it was called Chester Cottage. It was bought from the Rev. Jas Speers by Wolff in 1873. His house, which he called 'The Den' (one assumes from the name Sydenham), may have incorporated parts of the older Mary's or Chester Cottage. From the map evidence 'The Den' was a rectangular house with a long servant's/stable range to the rere and another wing on the south side with a conservatory attached. There was a covered pend leading though the rere range into a yard south of the house. South of this yard lay a walled garden with glasshouses.

The building (No. 2 Station Road) was apparently the Housekeeper's house for 'The Den'.

References:
1. 1858 OS six-inch map
2. OS town plan for 1894
3. 1902-3 OS six-inch map
4. VAL (1884)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed
Not listed
Not listed

Evaluation

An example of a half-timber Arts and Crafts house of some architectural character but extended and altered since construction and with an interior which was significantly changed in the late Twentieth Century . It was built together with the adjacent house, No. 4, as part of the mansion known as 'The Den' - at one time the residence of Gustav Willelm Wolff MP, one of the founders (in 1862) of Harland and Wolff shipbuilding and engineering company. Though this association is of some interest, it is not of sufficient interest to regard the buildings as having special historical interest. This is because the building has been altered since Wolff’s time and it does not directly reveal its historical associations. These associations, with regard to the importance of Wolff as a historical figure in Northern Ireland, are relatively minor.

General comments

A good surviving example of an Arts and Crafts half-timber house with rather idiosyncratic internal detailing especially in the chamfering of the timbers. May be the work of James A. Hanna, the Belfast architect - suggested in particular by the use of T-plan of window on first floor of north gable and in the use of angluar 'Tudor' shaped arches over a door and a press.