'Glenalmond' 60 Quarry Road, Belfast, Co Antrim BT4 2NQ

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached two-storey with attic brown rustic brick house, built 1931, with later alterations in 1938 and the 1990s. Set back from Quarry Road, east of Belfast city and north of Stormont Estate on the outskirts of Belfast metropolitan area in semi-rural surroundings.

Rosemary clay tile roof of varying pitches with four angled Tudor-esque brick chimneystacks and roof dormers. Plastic rainwater goods with decorative holderbats on painted fascia with deep soffit containing circular vents. Brown rustic brick walling laid in Flemish stretcher bond. Painted timber casement windows flush with walling with clay tile and brick lintels and sills throughout.

Asymmetrical principal elevation faces north; rectangular-plan gable-ended projecting wing to east; shallow projecting bay with hipped roof and shingled apex gablet to west. Gable end to east wing has carved masonry panel depicting stag’s head framed by projecting brickwork diapering; first-floor stained-glass corner window with timber brackets supporting roof soffit above straddles chamfered junction. Pitched and tiled projecting timber front porch with decorative bargeboard and brackets with Tudor-arched timber panelled door and wrought-iron pull bell.

East elevation has modern roof skylight, two gabled dormers with shingled apices and single-storey pitched return to north end containing two timber doors.

Rear (south) elevation has centrally-placed double leaf doors and curved bay window under hipped roof on timber brackets to west.
L-plan one-storey pitched extension to east end of house with brown brick walling laid in stretcher bond. Concrete and corrugated outbuilding abuts extension to east. Curved bay window under deep soffit with two flanking columns to rear elevation.

Rectangular-plan one-storey hipped extension to west end of house. Tudor-arch door opening with plain brick reveals and timber sheeted door over flight of red sandstone steps with metal handrail to north elevation, window to west elevation and door to rear.

Roof: Rosemary clay tile
Walling: Brown rustic brick
Windows: Timber
RWG: Plastic

Setting
Accessed via a long driveway approach with Number 62 beside entrance along Quarry Road. Green space surrounds house on all sides, with mature trees to west and north site boundaries. Horse paddock to east of house along with stables and outbuildings; tennis court to west. Tarmacked driveway to front with tiled approach to main entrance porch. Former quarry now gated and delineated by trees on west side of driveway approach.

Historical information

The original section of ‘Glenalmond’ was built in 1932-33 for estate agent Robert M.T McConnell (of the noted Belfast firm R.J. McConnell) to designs by Belfast Architect John MacGeagh. It stands on what had previously been open a largely open field to the north end of which (immediately north of the present house itself) was one of several disused quarries from which the road received its name. The easternmost stretch of this road originally tracked further north, but was redirected along its present course c.1870s.

In its earliest form the house was considerably smaller than at present, consisting of the 2½-storey wing set on the north-south axis, the entrance wing to the west of similar height, but at that point only one bay wide, and a 1½-storey section to the east that contained a garage. The building appears in this guise - and un-captioned - on the OS map of 1938, although in this same year the name ‘Glenalmond’ itself (the name is that of a Glen west of Perth in Scotland) appears in the documentary sources. According to the present owner it was in 1938 that the western wing was enlarged to its present size. The gate lodge was added at the head of the drive at this point also, with both it and the house extension also thought to be the work of MacGeagh [see HB26/12/063A].

Glenalmond was acquired in c.1959 by Captain Oscar William James (Bill) Henderson (1924-2010), and his wife, Primrose (1928-2020). Captain Henderson was a member of the family that were for proprietors of the ‘Belfast News-Letter’ for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, and he managed the paper himself from 1964 until 1991. Prior to this he had served in the NI Parliament from 1953-58 as MP for the Belfast Victoria Constituency. The Hendersons were still living at Glenalmond into the 1980s.

The present owner states that further modifications were made to the house in 1992-93 which saw the removal of most of the original internal features in favour of a mock Tudor scheme, the replacement of the window frames and the rebuilding of the lower wing to the east that formerly contained the garage

References - Primary sources:
1 Ordnance Survey maps- 1834, 1901-2, 1919, 1931, 1938, 1959
2 HERoNI MacGeagh Collection, Plans of Glenalmond - 1932
3 ‘Belfast News-Letter’ - 19 August 1942, p1 (reference to gate lodge)
4 ‘Belfast Telegraph’ - 9 October 1973, p.10 (article about the firm of R.J. McConnell, estate agents)

Secondary sources
5 Dean, J.A.K., ‘The gate lodges of Ulster - a gazetteer’, (UAHS, Belfast, 1994), p.77
6 Information supplied by owner - February 2020

Online sources
7 https://www.dia.ie/works/view/46227/building/CO.+ANTRIM%2C+BELFAST%2C+QUARRY+ROAD%2C+HOUSE [accessed 07/10/21]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

‘Glenalmond’ at 60 Quarry Road is an example of 20th-century Neo-Tudor architectural design built in the inter-war period. Although now quite imposing in scale, the original property was about half the size of the present house. Significant modifications and alterations have been made over time, most notably in 1938 by John MacGeagh and in the early 1990s which saw the removal of most of the original internal features, the replacement of the original window frames and the rebuilding of the lower wing to the east that formerly contained the garage. As a result, the original footprint has changed significantly and the house therefore does not have sufficient original historic fabric for it to be considered of special interest.