Little Lea

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large two and a half storey Domestic Revival suburban residence of 1905, with all the hallmarks of the genre including brick and roughcast and rosemary tile-clad façade, gabled bays, overhanging tiled roof, multi-paned windows, dormers and tall chimneystacks; to the W end is a large, relatively recent and relatively sympathetic, two storey extension. The house was the childhood home of writer CS Lewis, having been built by his father, Albert, and remained in the Lewis family until 1930. It is situated to W side of Circular Road with a spacious garden to N and S.

[The front elevation faces roughly NW, but for the purposes of this description NW will read as N.]
The front elevation faces N and is asymmetrical. To the left of centre is a large (but shallow) two storey gabled bay. To the centre of the ground floor of this bay is a projecting gabled porch in brick with stone dressings. To the (N facing) gable of the porch is a broad timber door with panelling to lower two thirds and Art Noveau style leaded glass to upper third panes. The door is approached via two stone steps and an encaustic tiled threshold, all flanked by low brick sides with stone coping and stone ball ‘finials’. The doorway has in-out sandstone dressings with a bevelled reveal.

To both the short E and W faces of porch there is a small sandstone dressed window with quarter-circle reveals and bevelled (flush) cills. Both windows are filled with Art Noveau style leaded glazing. The porch has stone coped diagonal buttresses, with stone quoins above buttress level. The gable of the porch stone coped with stone ball ‘finials’ to the ‘kneelers’ and apex. The porch roof is tiled and has an overhang with shaped rafter ends and plain fascias.

Either side of the porch (still within the bay) is a relatively small two light mullioned window with in-out sandstone dressings and mullion, bevelled reveals and small leaded panes, some filled with ‘bullseye’ glass. The ‘inner’ light of each window is a casement opening. To the first floor of the bay there are three windows. That to the centre (which probably lights the half landing) is twice as long as the indentical outer two, and has a four light mullioned and transomed timber frame with Georgian-like (but typically Edwardian) multi panes to each light. The outer two windows are much squatter but with similar style frames (as do most of the rest of the windows). The bay is in brick but with the gable itself clad in rosemary tiles with the lower rows of tiles shaped.

To the left side of the bay the lower half of the façade is in brick, with painted roughcast to first floor level. To the right hand side of the ground floor is a tall narrow window (with frame much as before), with a much smaller window to the left on the first floor. To the right hand side of the bay the façade is finished in similar fashion as the left hand side. To the left and centre on the ground floor there are two windows of differing size (but both mainly tall and narrow), with another squatter window to left on the first floor (close to the verge).

To the right (W) side of the elevation is the large, relatively recently added, gabled extension [?c.1985]. This is one and a half storey, but with a ground floor level façade and a vast expanse of roof only visible from the N. The ground floor façade itself consists wholly of a large area of modern style glazing incorporating glazed doors.

To the right again of the one and a half storey extension is a much lower single storey garage extension with a large modern ‘up and over’ garage door and panelled and glazed door to left, with large multi-paned sidelight / fanlight.

The shorter E elevation has a complex appearance. To the right is a large two storey gabled bay which projects -off centre- from a larger one and a half storey gable. To left of the larger gable the roof level drops to two storey once again and to the ground floor of this section is single storey hipped roof projection.

The single storey hipped roof projection is in brick and has two small widely spaced windows. Out of the roof of this section there rises a broad brick chimney breast which extends into a tall brick stack. The recessed façade the chimneybreast rises against is in brick and has no openings. The two storey projecting bay to right of the single storey hipped roof section is brick to ground floor and painted roughcast above. To the ground floor there is a large three-sided flat roofed bay with window frames as before. To the first floor there is a wide (ish) centrally positioned window. The larger two and a half storey gable from which the previously described gable projects is only exposed at first floor and atiic level. At first floor it is roughcasted and has a single narrow window to left. At attic level it is tile clad (as gable to front) and has a small square window to left.

The W elevation of the property consists of the gable of the single storey garage (which could not be seen) the exposed section of the gable of the one and a half storey extension, and, beyond this, the exposed section of the gable of the original house. The gable of the one and a half storey extension is in brick to the ground floor and roughcast to first. To left on the ground floor is a large modern style window whilst to the centre of the first floor is a single window (with top hung opener). The large (original) gable beyond this is roughcasted to first floor and tile clad to attic. To left at attic level is a squat window.

To the left hand end of the rear (S) elevation is the single storey garage extension. This projects forward but is blank. To its short E face there is a single window. To the right of this is the on and a half storey extension which is brick to ground floor and roughcast to the upper level. To the ground floor there is a modern bowed window, whilst to the upper level there is a very small window, close to the verge. To the right again is the original section of the house. This is also in brick to the ground floor with rough cast above. To the ground floor there is a large modern sliding patio door (this was originally a window), with a small narrow window to its right. To the first floor there are two windows of differing size, that to the right quite small.

The right hand half of the rear elevation is taken up with a joined pair of large two storey gabled bays. These bays are identical with a brick façade and large three sided bay (like that to E elevation) to ground floor and tile cladding and a single broad window to the first. To the very right hand edge of the rear elevation are the short S faces of the small single storey hipped roof section and two storey bay (see description of E elevation), both of which have no openings. An ‘Ulster History Circle blue plaque’ (telling of Little Lea’s CS Lewis connection) has been placed on the upper level of the S face of the two storey bay.

The entire roof is covered in rosemary tiles and has an overhang with exposed rafter ends. The barge boards are plain but for dentilled moulding near their upper edge. To the N side of the roof there is a small flat roofed dormer to the right (W) of centre. To the S there are two larger dormers, one just to the left of the gabled bays (and abutting a chimneystack), the other set at a slightly higher level between the bays. The dormers have timber windows in similar style to those on the lower floors. There are two tall brick chimneystacks, with stone coping, to N (centrally located on the original portion of the house), and two to the S (to either side of the bays). The chimney pots are something of a mixture. There used to be another stack to the W gable, but this was removed with the building of the extension. The rw goods are a mixture of cast iron and PVC.

To the W of the house is another large recent single storey garage (set at an angle to the main building). To E of the house is the driveway with recent looking brick gate pillars and curving walls (but no actual gates). There is a large garden to N and a smaller (but still large) garden to S. To the N end of the N garden there is a belt of tall ‘Castlewellan Golds’ which screen off the grounds of two properties beyond. These properties appear to have been built on ground originally belonging to Little Lea and are approached by a drive to W.

Historical information

CS LEWIS AND ‘LITTLE LEA’
Clive Staples (‘Jack’) Lewis, was born in Belfast, on November 29, 1898, the second son of Albert Lewis, a Cork-born solicitor of Welsh descent, and Flora Hamilton Lewis, the daughter of Rev. Thomas Hamilton, also a Cork man and the then rector of St Mark’s (C of I) church, Dundela.
After their marriage in 1894 Albert and Flora lived in Dundela Villas, a relatively modest two storey semi-detached house which stood on the site of the present Dundela Flats, but with growing prosperity Albert was able to build a much large house for his family, ‘Leeborough’ or ‘Little Lea’, in the more affluent Strandtown / Belmont area, a short distance to the north. The family moved there in 1905, and though Albert is said to have complained about the new property’s defects, it remained the family home until after his death in 1929.
CS Lewis’s early childhood at Dundela and Little Lea was relatively happy and carefree, the spacious Little Lea having an attic study for Lewis and elder brother Warren (‘Warnie’), a well stocked library and ample grounds to enjoy. This somewhat idyllic boyhood came to an end for Lewis when his mother became ill and died of cancer in 1908. Barely a month after her death the two boys were sent away from home to go to Wynyard boarding school in England.
Lewis hated the school, with its strict rules and hard, unsympathetic headmaster, and he missed Belfast terribly. Fortunately for him, the school closed in 1910, and he was able to return to Ireland. In September of that year he was enrolled at Campbell College, near the family home, however, illness meant that he was withdrawn from Campbell after only six weeks and after recovery he and Warnie were sent back to England, this time to Malvern College. Lewis remained there until 1914, when he was sent to be tutored by fellow Belfast man and family friend, William Thompson Kirkpatrick at his home in Great Bookham, Surrey. His time with Kirkpatrick the proved to be mostly positive, he learned to love poetry, especially the works of Virgil and Homer and also developed an interest in modern languages, (mastering French, German, and Italian), and, something which was to become important in his later works of fiction, Greek, Irish and Norse mythology.
In 1917 Lewis was accepted at University College Oxford. Soon after he entered the University, however, he chose to volunteer for the army, and by the end of the year was fighting in the trenches of Northern France. Following the end of the war in 1918, Lewis returned to Oxford, where he took up his studies again with great enthusiasm. In 1925, after graduating with first-class honors in Greek and Latin Literature, Philosophy and Ancient History, and English Literature, Lewis was elected to an important teaching post in English at Magdalen College, Oxford. He remained at Oxford for 29 years before becoming a professor of medieval and renaissance literature at Magdalen College, Cambridge, in 1955.
In 1929 Lewis’s father Albert died and the following year, Lewis and Warnie sold the family home of Little Lea. This did not entail the end of Lewis’s link with Belfast and Ireland, however, as he was to remain a frequent visitor to these shores for the rest of his life. In 1932, whilst spending a fortnight at ‘Bernagh’ the home of his friend Arthur Greeves (which still stands just across the road from Little Lea) he wrote his first major work ‘The Pilgrim’s Regress’ about his own spiritual journey to the Christian faith. Critics have noted how his later works of fiction such as the Narnian books drew on the Irish landscape and childhood holidays to Donegal and the Carlingford area, it has also been suggested that the wardrobe in ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ may have been inspired by a small dormer room within Little Lea itself.
‘The Pilgrim’s Regress’ was followed by other works that won Lewis acclaim not only as a writer of books on religious subjects but also as a writer of academic works and popular novels. ‘The Allegory of Love’ (1936), which is still considered a masterpiece today, was a history of love literature from the early Middle Ages to Shakespeare's time; ‘Out of the Silent Planet’ (1938) was the first of a trilogy of science fiction novels, the hero of which is loosely modeled on Lewis's friend J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
Initially when Lewis turned to writing children's books, his publisher and some of his friends tried to dissuade him; they thought it would hurt his reputation as writer of serious works. J.R.R. Tolkien in particular criticized Lewis's first Narnia book, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. He thought that there were too many elements that clashed- a Father Christmas and an evil witch, talking animals and children. Thankfully, Lewis didn't listen to any of them.
Following the publication of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ in 1950, Lewis quickly wrote six more Narnia books, publishing the final one, ‘The Last Battle’, in 1956. Although they were not well received at first by critics and reviewers, the books gained in popularity through word of mouth.

After finishing the Narnia series, Lewis continued to write on autobiographical and religious subjects, but less prolifically. Mainly he was preoccupied with the health crises of his wife, Joy Gresham, whom he married in 1956 and who died of cancer in 1960.

After her death, Lewis's own health deteriorated, and in the summer of 1963 he resigned his post at Cambridge. His death, which occurred on November 22, 1963 -the same day President Kennedy was assassinated and Aldous Huxley died- was only quietly noted. However since then his reputation has grown to worldwide proportions, and he is now remembered, not only as a highly respected Anglican theologian and literary scholar, but as the author of the Chronicles of Narnia which have since sold more than 100 million copies and are among the most beloved books of classic children's literature.

Today Little Lea remains a family home and though extended to the western end, both house and grounds remain much as they did in the young Lewis’s time.

References- Secondary sources
1 Roger Lancelyn-Green and Walter Hooper, ‘C. S. Lewis: A biography’ (Souvenir Press, 1988)
2 Walter Hooper, ‘C. S. Lewis: A companion and guide’ (London, 1996)
3 David Bleakley, ‘C. S. Lewis- at home in Ireland’ (Strandtown Press, Bangor, 1998)
4 Ronald W. Bresland, ‘A backward glance- C. S. Lewis and Ireland’ (QUB Inst of Irish Studies, 1999)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest

Evaluation

Large two and a half storey Domestic Revival suburban residence of 1905, with all the hallmarks of the genre including brick and roughcast and rosemary tile-clad façade, gabled bays, overhanging tiled roof, multi-paned windows, dormers and tall chimneystacks; to the W end is a large, relatively recent and relatively sympathetic, two storey extension and single storey garage. The house was the childhood home of writer CS Lewis, having been built by his father, Albert, and remained in the Lewis family until 1930. To front and rear are large gardens.