Gardeners Cottage and Walled Garden, Malone Golf Club, 240 Upper Malone Road, Belfast, Co Antrim BT17 9LB

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Roofless, symmetrical three-bay single-storey Tudor-Revival style gardener’s cottage with attic, built c.1835, abutting NE corner of former walled garden of Ballydrain House (now Malone Golf Club House: HB/26/16/002A) to south of the main house. Square on plan with enclosed yard located to west.

Roof missing; first survey slide dated May 1984 showed a hipped natural slate roof with gabled dormer off-centred on E side. No rainwater goods, although projecting ashlar sandstone eaves course remains. Quarry-faced basalt rubble walling, laid to regular courses, ashlar sandstone quoins and plinth course. Square-headed bipartite window openings, ashlar sandstone block-and-start surrounds, flush chamfered sandstone sills, moulded sandstone mullions and label moulds. Remains of 4/4 timber sliding sash windows.

Principal elevation faces E, symmetrically arranged, windows regularly spaced to either side of square-headed entrance, having ashlared sandstone block-and-start surround and label mould; door missing.

S Elevation is blank save toothed quions to E side.

N Elevation has single window, centred on wall, which although largely overgrown, appears to have same surround as windows on E elevation.

W Elevation enclosed by small walled yard (not accessed). Segmental-headed entrance to yard wall, having red brick toothed surround and replacement timber boarded door. Yard wall projects from N face of walled garden, near main entrance to the latter.

Walled garden has external rubble-stone basalt walling, lined internally with red brick laid to English garden wall bond with tooled sandstone coping. To SE, portion of external face also redbrick, with curved stepped coping. Square-headed door opening to NE; painted metal lintel and replacement sliding timber framed and planked door. Remains of abutment to external face of N wall including partially demolished wall and infilled door opening having timber lintel and segmental red brick relieving arch over.

Setting:
Set to the south portion of former demesne, now surrounded by Malone Golf Club, substantially screened by mature trees. Car park to N and late C20 groundskeepers’ sheds located hard to W side. Internally, garden features replaced by bowling green. Further information on the landscaping features of the former Ballydrain demesne can be found on the NI Historic Gardens Inventory, ref: AN: 116

Materials:
Roof: Missing (originally natural slate as recorded on first survey slide)
RWG: Missing
Walls: Basalt and sandstone
Windows: Vestigial timber framed sliding sash, single glazed with multi-paned sashes to E elevation

Historical information

Replacing an earlier house, the current Ballydrain House was built c.1835 to the designs of Edward Blore, antiquarian and architect best known for his work on Buckingham Palace, following the dismissal of John Nash, and Lambeth Palace. He completed a limited amount of work in Ulster in the 1830s, including Crom Castle and Boathouse, in County Fermanagh. The first edition OS map shows that the original house was located south west of the current building. The house and lands, owned by the farmers and linen merchants, the Stewart family, were purchased c.1835 by Hugh Montgomery, director of the Northern Bank and son of one of the bank's founders. Montgomery demolished the old house and employed Edward Blore to design and build a new one, which was completed around 1843, in a modern Tudor Revival style, consistent with the style of the gardener's cottage, suggesting that it also may have been designed by Blore. Historic photographs show that the roof, now missing, was originally hipped and pitched with a tall centrally located chimneystack.

The second edition OS map (1859) shows that a walled garden was established SW of the house, used to cultivate fruit and vegetables, with some flower beds dedicated to the growing of flowers for the house. The garden walls were abutted to NE by a single-storey gardener's cottage. A plan of the demesne dated 1843 shows a formally laid-out garden with entrances centrally located to the east, south and west walls with a large structure loacted to the north wall with two entrances located to the east and west. Hugh Crawford's 'History of Ballydrain House' describes three glass houses located along one side of the garden; the central one with a dome, used for cultivating exotic plants. This is possibly the extensive structure visible on the 1843 map, of which only traces remain. The structure is still visible on the fifth edition OS map, so it can be assumed that this was demolished soon after Malone Golf Club bought the estate in the early 1960s. The other entrances have also been removed with the exception of that to the east of the north wall, which appears to have been widened. Crawford also describes a range of small 'houses' or sheds within the garden for growing grapes and peaches (traces of several structures abutting the internal face of the walls, particularly to the west), while orange and apple trees were arranged around the gardens perimeter.

Isabella Montgomery, the last of the Montgomery family to live in the house, died in 1917 passing the house to Hugh Montgomery, the nephew of her late husband Thomas. Hugh sold the house for £18,000 and it remained in private ownership (albeit briefly occupied by the army from 1943 to 1945) until 1961 when it was bought by Malone Golf Club for the price of £90,000. Established in 1895, Malone Golf Club was originally located in Stranmillis. The club then moved to the Harberton estate c.1915, possibly the current location of Balmoral Golf Club. After a fire in the clubhouse in the late 1950s the decision was made to move to the Ballydrain estate. C.1961 the interior of the walled garden was converted into a set of tennis courts and later converted for use as a bowling green. A photograph c.1975 provided by the Golf Club shows that the cottage had a pitched and hipped roof, with a single tall Tudor chimneystack similar to those found on the main house (these were removed by the Golf Club c.1961). Photographs taken at the time of the first survey c.1986 show that the chimneystack had been removed and, while the roof remained in place, the cottage was already in an advanced state of dereliction.

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/64/1 First Edition OS map (1832)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/64/2 Second Edition OS map (1859)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/64/5 Fifth Edition OS map (1963)
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/15E General Valuation of Ireland - General Revisions (1892-1897)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/15F General Valuation of Ireland - General Revisions (1898-1908)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/15H General Valuation of Ireland - General Revisions (1917-1928)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/15J General Valuation of Ireland - General Revisions (1928-1930)
8. PRONI D2460/19 History of Ballydrain by Hugh Crawford, 1976
9. PRONI D1954/6/52 Map of Ballydrain, c.1843

Online sources

1. DIA (http://www.dia.ie/architects/view/516/BLORE-EDWARD%23)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

The remains of a Tudor-Revival style gardener's cottage, now roofless and substantially overgrown, attached to the NE corner of the former walled garden of Ballydrain House (HB26/16/002A), which now forms the Club House of Malone Golf Club. Symmetrically arranged, despite its derelict state, the cottage shows evidence of an assured designer's hand, and is consistent with the design of the main house, which is a relatively rare Ulster work by Edward Blore, the architect responsible for completion of Buckingham Palace following the dismissal of John Nash. The quality is somewhat diminished by the loss of internal features, hipped roof and the central chimneystack. Similarly, the once-prolific walled garden described by former owner Hugh Montgomery in his history of the house, has been altered for use as a bowling green, with loss of associated garden structures such as the glass houses. Nonetheless, the likely authorship of the cottage, and its overall contribution to the functional context and historic setting of the wider demesne (HGI ref AN-116), together with the remains of the walled garden provide an important reminder of this building type.

General comments

This record has been re-numbered and was previously HB26/16/009