20 Knockdene Park 'Astolat'

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Astolat, a large Arts and Crafts style, one-and-a-half storey, three-bay, red-brick house with rendered detailing and hipped and pitched slated roof , built in the 1890s, sits at the junction of Knockdene Park and Knockdene Park South within the Knockdene Conservation Area. It is orientated east/west with the main elevation facing west. The house is located on a slightly elevated site with the entrance drive sweeping up from the corner of the junction. The house is surrounded on all sides by garden.

Natural slate pitched roof, with hips and half-hips and with flat roofed dormers to front and shallow-pitched dormer to rear; decorative double-looped terracotta ridges, foliated finials and tall red-brick chimneystacks with vertical bands of projecting brick headers and short vented terracotta pots.

The main west elevation has red-brick walls in English Garden Wall bond up to decorative terracotta coping brick special with cyma moulding set half way up ground floor walls. Above this, panels of roughcast render with brick quoining to openings and specials to eaves. Cast-iron rainwater goods with ogee gutters resting on brick eaves detail. Canted bay to north with hipped natural slate roof and lead flashing. Timber sliding sash windows with smaller upper sashes and segmental arched heads to bay; 9/1 window to each canted side and 15/1 window to main front. Obscure glass to upper sash, plain glass to lower; sandstone cills resting on brick scrolled specials throughout. Tall narrow timber sliding sash window with smaller upper sash, 6/1, to central bay with brick quoining to opening. Half-hipped gable wall above has brick string course and detailing to window opening and at eaves. Arched opening has painted side hung casement windows with upper section divided into four and all having clear glass. South bay of main elevation stepped back with painted timber five-panelled front door located in exposed gable facing south with glazed fanlight above. Brass ironmongery. Two steps to entrance from drive. Recessed bay to south has painted timber glazed paired doors opening outwards with divided overlight having twelve panes of obscure glass and brick quoining detail to opening. Terracotta panel inscribed with 'Astolat' set in wall over doors to south bay. Two flat-topped dormers with painted side hung casements to central and south bays, with upper section divided into two and all having clear glass.

North elevation has brickwork to window heads with roughcast render above. Rusticated stone plinth visible to base of wall with stepped brick plinth above. Projecting brick string course to cill level, brick detailing to eaves and edges of gable. Timber sliding sash window, 12/1, to west at ground floor level with smaller upper sash and segmental arched head. Large circular single-storey bow window in red-brick with projecting brick detailing having dentils and cyma mouldings above window openings to centre of gable wall with lead covered parapet and painted timber sliding sash windows, 12/1, with smaller upper sashes, curved glass and segmental arched heads. Paired timber sash window to first floor centred on bay. Wall at ground floor level to east of circular bay sits forward of main wall with single sliding sash window and pitched roof above. Yard wall extends out beyond rear elevation with painted, timber sheeted door in arched headed opening. Brick to lower section of wall with roughcast render above and wall topped with brick coping.

East elevation only partially visible over yard wall. Upper floor has roughcast render finish with brick detailing to openings and eaves. Various sized windows to return. Dormer window to north side of return with slated cheeks, brick face and slightly pitched roof. End wall of return blank with centrally placed chimneystack detailed as before and various single storey outbuildings projecting from return at ground floor level. Same detailing as main house.

South elevation has modern timber conservatory to east; attached to return at ground floor level. Return walls are brick up to cill height with roughcast render to remainder having brick detailing as before. Windows to first floor are painted timber, 1/1 and 6/1 with segmental arched heads. Double-storey canted bay to east bay of main elevation, all brick, with 6/1 sashes to first floor level. Blank wall to front face at ground floor level. Segmental arched opening to central bay at first floor level with paired double sash window above. Single-storey red-brick canted bay window with pitched slated roof to west with timber sliding sash windows, 12/1 sashes as before. Single storey hipped roof outbuildings attached to return at east.

Materials:

Roof: Natural slate
RWGs: Cast iron
Walls: Red brick and roughcast render
Windows: Timber sliding sash

Setting:

The house is surrounded by mature gardens with hedges and trees to boundaries, situated on a slightly elevated site at the north-east junction of Knockdene Park and Knockdene Park South and within the Knockdene Conservation Area.

Historical information

Astolat, Knockdene Park, was built in the 1890s by John Milliken. It appears as a new entry in 1897 in the Valuation Revision Book of 1891-97. Notes in the Valuation Revision Book indicate that the house cost £1,100 to build. In addition it was observed that ‘this House would be difficult to let’ and that it had been ‘built to suit the present owner, worth about £65+’. It was still vacant at this time suggesting that it was not quite finished internally. Its initial valuation of £48 10s. was reduced to £43 10s. on appeal on 9 September 1897.

The house is marked on the 1:2,500 scale Ordnance Survey map of 1902, but is not named. However, the ‘Summer House’ in its garden is both marked and named. In the House and Building Return of the 1901 census the house is recorded as having ten windows in front and eight rooms in occupation.

John Milliken was a prominent local figure. He was Secretary to the Belfast and County Down Railway. He was also a churchwarden and member of the vestry of St Columba’s Church of Ireland on King’s Road which was completed the year before Astolat; he seems to have been the driving force behind the building of this church.

When Milliken moved to Helen’s Bay in 1905 he was given a presentation case containing a montage of paintings by the artist J. W. Carey, one of which depicted Knockdene Park and Astolat (Griffiths). There is also a memorial window to him in St Columba’s (Haines). His wife Wilhelmina died at Astolat in 1904.

After John Milliken left Astolat, it came into the possession of James P. Brewer, a bank inspector from Liverpool. Brewer’s own wife died here in 1915. By 1919 Astolat was the residence of John Turner, a businessman. He died in 1940, but his widow Alice continued to live here until her own death in 1951. The house seems to have been vacant for a number of years, but by the early 1960s it was possessed by a Harold Browne who continued in residence through to the 1970s.

The name itself, Astolat, is that of a mythical British city that appears in Arthurian legends. It was taken up by a number of house owners in the United Kingdom, but this is the only instance of its use identified in Belfast.

References

Primary sources
1. Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory, 1897 onwards
2. PRONI, VAL/12B/17/2G, 1891-97
3. PRONI, VAL/12B/43/L/2, 1897-1905
4. PRONI, VAL/12B/43/L/6, 1906-14
5. PRONI, VAL/12B/43/L/11, 1915-30
6. PRONI, Will Calendars
7. Railway News, vol. 82 (1904)
8. Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 scale map, County Down sheet 5.09, 1902 – reproduced by Alan Godfrey Maps (Gateshead, 1999)

Secondary sources
1. Timothy Campbell and Stephen Royle, ‘East Belfast and the suburbanization of north-east County Down in the nineteenth century’, in Lindsay Proudfoot (ed.), Down: History and Society (Dublin, 1997)
2. Keith Haines, East Belfast: Paintings and Stories from Harbour to Hills (2001)
3. John Griffiths, text on Knockdene Park to accompany the Alan Godfrey Maps reproduction of County Down sheet 5.09, 1902 (see above)

Online sources
1. 1901 and 1911 census returns (www.census.nationalarchives.ie)

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

X. Local Interest
R. Age
S. Authenticity

Evaluation

This well proportioned and detailed 'Arts and Crafts' style house, dating from the 1890s, retains many original external and internal features of interest. The brick and rendered villa with its natural slate roof, asymmetrical detailing, proliferation of bays and variety of window styles, is reminiscent of the works of Edward Schroeder Prior and Charles Voysey. Set within its original mature gardens, on an elevated site at the junction of Knockdene Park and Knockdene Park South, its setting adds considerable interest.