Longhurst

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Substantial, detached, L shaped on plan, two-storey-with-attic multi-bay house built c. 1893 to designs by Frank Loughborough Pearson in the Arts and Crafts style in an attractive blend of styles rooted in the English vernacular. Asymmetry, sweeping roofs and eclectic detailing are typical of the genre. The house survives largely unaltered and is a fine example of a substantial villa commanding extensive views over the Lagan Valley below, set on an expansive, elevated site originally within the wider demesne of Lismoyne House (now demolished) and accessed via a private lane from the Upper Malone Road via the original gatelodge to Lismoyne also listed (HB26 16 010). The house is replete with Arts and Crafts detailing and materials, with handmade bricks, expanses of decorative geometric tile hung walling with bell-cast detail, leaded windows in stone, metal and timber framing generally set forward in the window reveals.

The roofscape is expansive with swept overhanging eaves interspersed by clipped eaves over framed window openings. Hipped roofs of handmade Rosemary clay red tiles are interspersed with dormered gables expressing the primacy of plan form over symmetry and affording some light to the attic rooms. Judicious massing of elements including the yard walling joining servant’s wing to house is employed to form a composite and picturesque silhouette upon the approach to the dwelling. Expressive and expansive brick detailing with moulded three stage ‘star’ shaped chimney stack and inglenook placement of windows complementing other moulded brick chimneys which enliven the roofscape and modulate the facades. Carved stone is used to good effect with entrance via stone step to modelled stone porch in Queen Anne style with original oak panelled door insert and a handsome garden bay in ashlar stonework which helps to frame the views across the landscaped garden from this elevated. Date marked hoppers and cast metal downpipes together with dated cast metal weathervane add interest to the roofscape.

Entrance elevation (NW):

The site is accessed through a timber gate flanked by two brick piers. The principal two storey forecourt façade is framed with geometric tile hanging to upper storey over red brick to ground level, with the exception of the stairwell which is expressed in brick to full height. The main entrance porch to the house is asymmetrically arranged on the NW elevation in Queen Anne style in crisp sandstone detailing. The porch is detailed with fluting to sandstone pilasters and moulded egg and dart detailing over with framing of the curved archway also in muted gibbsian style of rustication. The original door in oak has incised carving of intricate fan patterning with panelling below all set in an oak door frame. Original door handles, bells and historic windows to either side of the porch. Windows on the NW elevation are historic and are set at various heights with fenestration arranged to suit the functions of each room. The original single storey curved brick wall enclosing the courtyard forms an attractive screen contrasting with the main elevation of two storeys in height with gablet roof over single storey servant’s quarter set back from the main massing of the dwelling. The covered loggia in the courtyard is accessed via a 12 panel timber door.

Side elevation 01 (SW):

Elevation continues with tile hung upper storey above red brick ground floor with historic windows set flush within the reveals and sandstone surrounds. String course to window sill detail continues along this elevation. Large, three stage, ‘star’ shaped brick chimney capped with clay chimney pots and stepping chimney shoulders dominate the façade with pair of small windows framing the inglenook. A notable alteration from the original design of this elevation is the removal of the sunroom. This has been replaced by a timber structure.

Rear elevation (SE):

Rear elevation has attic gable half-timbered with two small windows to the centre in a simple quadrant pattern affording light to the attic. Many original details remain such as the corner window to the upper storey of the right block, cast iron rainwater goods and a dated weathervane with 1893 incised in metal. Curved single storey bay with fenestration set in stone mullions with lead cladding to roof. String course detail forms the sill and marries the materials and composition. Patterned stained glass windows over in fixed lights with uPVC replacements below..
Further uPVC replacement windows designed in similar proportions to the original on original stone sills. New sunroom now replacing the previous porch in the centre of the composition. All set on a height with garden terrace affording views over the landscape
setting with brick walling and steps permitting access to lower terrace and lawns.

Side elevation 02 (NE):

Original corner window with timber surrounds to upper storey. Sandstone archway to centre of the elevation with stepped entrance to a setback hardwood door in 2x3 symmetrical frosted windows. Painted red cast iron rainwater foods and hopper dated 1893.
Located towards the right block is the brick utilitarian storage units that confine a courtyard space. This elevation has historic windows, cast iron rainwater goods and tiled roof.

Historical information

‘Longhurst’ was designed in an Arts and Crafts style by Frank Loughborough Pearson of London and built in 1893 for John Brown, pioneer in electrical science, domestic technology and motoring (weathervane and hoppers bear the date 1893). Longhurst is among the earliest known private houses in Ireland to be designed and constructed with its own non-mains electricity supply.

The house was constructed within the former demesne of Lismoyne House (built by banker Robert Caldwell in the late 18th century and demolished in the 1970s). Scientist John Brown, who is said to have spent some time searching for a suitable site both in Ireland and in England, settled on a site close to his family home and purchased a substantial portion of Lismoyne demesne (over 36 acres) from the Caldwell family together with an existing mid-19th century gate lodge to Lismoyne House. Brown built his new villa, Longhurst, adopting the former gate lodge to Lismoyne as the gate lodge to the new house. The former gate lodge survives and is now listed (HB26/16/010) but was sold off in the 1950s. Longhurst entered valuation records in 1894 as a house, offices, gate lodge and land, leased from the landowner Lady Harriet Ashley, daughter of the Marquis of Donegall, with buildings valued at £54.

FRANK LOUGHBOROUGH PEARSON (1864-1947) - ARCHITECT

Designs for the house by Frank L Pearson were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1893 (no. 1494). The water colour view of the garden elevation together with sketch plan of the ground floor layout was then reproduced in ‘The Architect’ of September 1893 as a ‘House at Lismoyne near Belfast’, both accolades that likely reflect the quality of the design.

Frank Loughborough Pearson was a London architect active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was articled with his father, highly distinguished ecclesiastical architect John Loughborough Pearson, who is interred in Westminster Abbey, from 1882. Frank became a partner in 1890 and worked on such projects as the Astor Estate Office, until his father’s death in 1897. Frank subsequently completed projects begun by or with his father, notably Truro and Wakefield Cathedrals and St Bartholomew’s Church, Nottingham. Frank Pearson is known for a number of ecclesiastical structures in his own right including the chancel and aisle of St. Alban the Martyr in Middlesborough, Yorkshire (1902); chancel and chapel, Wakefield Cathedral (1904); St. Matthew, Auckland, New Zealand (1904); the Convent School of St. Nicholas and St. Helen's church in Abingdon, Berkshire (1904); and the chancel of St. Augustine's church in Rugeley, Staffordshire (1905); but also designed commercial premises, such as those for the music publishers Novello in Wardour Street, London (1908); estate buildings for Hever Castle in Kent (1908); a memorial gateway for Winchester College, Hampshire, showing a high level of attention to historicist detail (1909); and a memorial fountain at the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, London (1910). His designs for interior details such as decorative woodwork, panelling and mosaics at for example, Cliveden estate; St Peter’s Home, Woking and Fitzrovia Chapel are also notable.

The design for Longhurst came relatively early in Pearson’s career and is his only known work in Ireland (although Brown may have commissioned Pearson before settling on a site). It is not clear how Pearson came to design John Brown’s house but Brown travelled frequently throughout the UK and further afield and sailed the waters around Ireland from the family holiday home at Annalong (this was most likely Benavon, now listed HB16/01/021), while Pearson is known to have had Isle of Man connections.

‘Longhurst’ is first shown, captioned, on the 1901 OS map. The house is recorded in Young’s ‘Belfast and the Province of Ulster’ of 1909 which carries a short description; ‘designed in the style of the smaller manor houses of the 16th century which are to be found in the Home Counties.’ The house is built in what we now term Arts and Crafts style featuring an eclectic mix of tall Tudor-style chimneys, wall-hung tiles, timber-framed details, custom-sized bricks and stone detailing. The 1909 photograph of the house differs slightly from Pearson’s watercolour design which suggests that the original intention was for all or most of the windows to be stone mullioned. This was never enacted and only the bow window to the former drawing room features stone mullions. The original design also shows straight walls to the rear yard, but the yard is in fact enclosed by a curved wall, perhaps to create a more aesthetically pleasing approach to the main entrance.

JOHN BROWN –DOMESTIC TECHNOLOGY PIONEER

John Brown was a scientist, most notable for his experimental work at the forefront of battery science. At the time of building Longhurst, Brown was a widower with two young boys (Brown later married for a second time in 1899 - Alice Marion Davies of Lisburn, with whom he had two further children in 1901 and 1903, although sadly his two elder children predeceased him) and his financial resources enabled him to have his new home designed in line with his own interests. He constructed Longhurst with a laboratory and workshop contained within it, rather than in a separate building (although the census suggests he also had an external workshop by 1901). There could have been many reasons for this, but this arrangement allowed Brown to use the domestic electricity supply for his experiments and inventions as well as for heating and lighting.

Before the introduction of power stations, electric lighting was generally the preserve of companies and individuals who could afford their own generating equipment and was initially usually applied to commercial or industrial premises and street lighting. The first private houses in the north of Ireland to be retrofitted with electricity were Milford House, Armagh (1870 is claimed, although it is not clear whether this was used for lighting) and Crawfordsburn, where hydroelectric machinery was installed in 1886. By the mid-1890s, retrofitting of this technology in country houses with a suitable water supply or the ability to purchase a generator was no doubt becoming more common, but the exact extent is unknown. For most private individuals the installation of electricity remained prohibitively costly and elaborate at this time. Mains electricity was not available to private houses in the Belfast area until the opening of the first electric light station in Belfast in Chapel Lane in 1895 – and then only to certain streets in and around the city centre.

Longhurst was likely among the first houses in Ireland to be constructed (rather than retrofitted) with electric lighting (Standen in West Sussex is thought to be among the first country houses in Britain to be built with electric light and was completed in 1894). The building of his new dwelling provided Brown with a unique opportunity to integrate an electricity supply into the construction of the house, in line with his scientific interests. Brown’s electrical system would have required a generator and this may have consisted of either a heavy oil engine (these had become commercially available in 1892), or a (coke-fired) producer gas generator and gas engine, driving a dynamo, some of which machinery was probably located in his cellar. The dynamo would have charged lead-acid accumulators (batteries) which were located in ‘a small room’ near the kitchen (probably the room adjacent to the back stairs). The cellar bears some of the marks of a former purpose as an engine room with numerous ducts and openings, some now closed off, and a coal chute which can be accessed from the front of the house.

Although none of the original fittings remain, the principal rooms at Longhurst are notable for the lack of ceiling roses. Although it is possible that these existed and have been removed, ceiling roses were effectively a means of disguising the smuts from oil and gas lighting and may have been intentionally omitted here because electricity was a ‘clean’ source of lighting. The current owner states that electricity wires laid in pitch (an early form of insulation) were found while renovating the wiring.

The generating equipment could also have powered the house’s unusual ventilating system (possibly also used for heating), the remains of which is still readable in the house today, in the form of ducts at ceiling level in some main rooms. From comments in the Proceedings of the Natural History and Philosophical Society, we know that in 1891 Brown was considering ways of assisting ventilation in domestic houses by ‘pressing air into the house’, rather than relying on fireplaces and chimneys to draw air out.
One of the most unusual features of the house is a double wall that separates the former laboratory and former dining room. The distance between the two walls is variable but amounts to several feet at its maximum and the area between the walls is at least partially open with an access hatch within the former verandah. This open area is thought to have been used as another coal bunker, and the double wall likely also enclosed generous flues for the cellar engine and the ventilation system (generous spaces beneath the floorboards may also have been designed as part of the ventilation system). The double wall also incidentally provided a buffer between Brown’s experiments and the main living rooms. The additional coal bunker may offer support for the idea that Brown operated a small-scale furnace within his laboratory – there are two apparent hearth openings within the laboratory shown on Pearson’s plan of the building.

In a paper given to the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society on his inauguration as president in 1900, Brown discusses the electric appliances at his home, stating that, ‘we employ, besides electric lighting, eight electric motors and five pieces of apparatus in which electric heating is used’. Among the machines Brown powered with his domestic motors were a mangle, an ice making machine, and a meat chopper, in very early experimental versions of modern kitchen appliances. Brown also adapted an ‘electrical reciprocating apparatus’ that he patented in 1900 to beat eggs while oil was added in order to produce ‘an excellent mayonnaise’. The nature of the electric heating devices at Longhurst is not clear, but it seems probable that these were also of Brown’s design.

The 1901 census records that despite the labour-saving devices in the home, and in line with contemporary mores, the Browns employed two servants, a cook and a housemaid. The 1901 map shows an outbuilding to the N of the house, which may possibly have been built or used as a motor house for Brown’s series of vehicles and which was demolished by 1931. The 1901 census had no dedicated category for motor houses, and the outbuildings at Longhurst are identified as comprising a stable, coach house, harness room, fowl house, workshop, shed and coal house.

In September 1902 the local newspapers describe a garden party at Longhurst at the time of the prestigious annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science being held in Belfast. Guests included Professor G H Darwin, son of Charles Darwin; Lord Rayleigh who later won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1904 and Colonel Crompton, a major figure in early electric lighting. The group visited the St Ellen works at Edenderry and were able to cross the Lagan to Longhurst by means of an ‘ingeniously constructed ferry’ of Brown’s invention, worked by pulleys and weights (a photograph of some of the British Association party crossing the Lagan on Brown’s ferry survives). On arrival at Longhurst, the party examined with considerable interest his ‘electrical laboratory’ in which ‘there seemed a place for everything and everything in its own place’ and were shown Viagraphs (see below) in his workshop. The party also saw some ‘strange and new applications of electric motive-power to domestic appliances’ in his kitchen. They noted ‘an automatic arrangement’ for testing the height of the water in the cisterns and an outdoor fountain was ‘in full play’ (the fountain is shown in the 1909 image of Longhurst). An ‘object of great curiosity’ was the lawnmower which was also worked by electricity (an image survives).

JOHN BROWN - SCIENTIST AND INVENTOR

John Brown (1850-1911) was the eldest son of John Shaw Brown (1822-1887), linen manufacturer, who had built the successful linen works, named ‘St Ellen’, at Edenderry, just across the Lagan from Longhurst and also developed Edenderry village as a planned community with amenities for the workers. The Brown family lived at Edenderry House from 1866 (now gone, although some garden structures remain – the Brown residence was N of the factory and is not to be confused with a second Edenderry House to the S of the factory site, which survives). John Brown was educated at RBAI ostensibly for a career in commerce, but from an early age showed ‘tastes of a scientific character’. The Belfast Newsletter reports that from boyhood he was ‘never without a laboratory of some sort’ and he went on to study at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn, Germany before becoming a partner in the family firm. It is not known what Brown studied in Bonn, but at the time, Germany was at the forefront in natural sciences, and Brown learned enough of the language to later be able to understand and translate scientific papers written in German. Brown married Mary Kertland of Queenstown (probably his cousin) in 1880, but his wife died of puerperal fever in 1882, after having her second child. The same year (some sources say 1885) Brown retired from the linen business in order to concentrate on scientific research full-time.

As a scientist, John Brown’s principal field of interest was experimental electrochemistry and issues that were central to developing a theoretical understanding of how batteries worked. Brown’s first papers on the theory of ‘Voltaic Action’ (i.e. battery science) were published in the highly respected and influential Philosophical Magazine in 1878 and 1879 and these papers and also some of his later work, attracted the critical engagement of some of the foremost scientists of the day. His 1878 experiment in particular was cited by celebrated physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) in his authoritative ‘Elementary Treatise on Electricity’ (and elsewhere). However, Brown’s scientific instincts were not always reliable, and he rejected some theories (such as electrolytic dissociation) that are now accepted as foundational, with the result that his understanding of electrochemical processes remained incomplete.

Among Brown’s scientific publications, the work that has attracted the most enduring interest is his 1888 paper on ‘Figures Produced by Electric Action on Photographic Dry Plates’, which was accompanied by images that fall at the intersection of art and science and are among the earliest photographic representations of electricity. The paper was widely discussed in the contemporary photographic and scientific press and was cited in later literature on lightning. Most recently, the images were displayed at Queen’s University Belfast in 2024, as part of an exhibition on electrification.

Brown’s experiments were sometimes hazardous - it was while conducting experiments on voltaic potential at a lab in Trinity College Dublin, that the chemicals Brown was using exploded and he lost an eye. Nonetheless, it is probable that some of Brown’s published experiments were carried out in the laboratory at Longhurst. Although Brown was not among the most prominent figures in the field, he was undoubtedly a contributor to the experimental work that underlies modern electrochemistry, his obituary in ‘Nature’ (in itself a considerable accolade) describing him as a ‘scientific amateur in the best sense of the word’. His scientific endeavours were recognised during his lifetime in 1902 when he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, a major scientific honour and an endorsement of the quality and originality of his work by his peers.

Brown was granted at least nine patents between 1885 and 1905; the majority of his inventions being related to his interests in automotive transport and railways. Most were developed once Brown had moved to Longhurst, most likely in one of his workshops at the house and included a design for a motor car chassis that was said to be safer, easier to clean and more aesthetically pleasing than the cars then available (GB 12157,1896) and a vehicle wheel with spring spokes (GB 7692, 1902). Brown’s invention of a continuously moving electric train from which carriages would disconnect to collect passengers before reconnecting to a following train, for which Brown had a working model made, attracted significant attention in the scientific and engineering press and was also patented by him in the US (GB 20887, 1900; US 694129, 1902).

Another invention related directly to his interest in electricity, was for an ‘electrical reciprocating apparatus’ (GB 7861, 1900; US 684906 1901), an electrically powered device that could produce a back and forth or rotary motion, for purposes, depending on the scale of the device, ranging from beating eggs to drilling rocks. The most notable of Brown’s inventions, however, was the ‘Viagraph’ (GB 9123, 1898), which was the first known device for evaluating the roughness of road surfaces and gave its name and perhaps some of its mechanical principles to devices that were used, particularly in the US and France, into at least the 1970s. The Viagraph appears to be the only one of Brown’s inventions that went into production (the makers were Glenfield & Kennedy, Kilmarnock).

JOHN BROWN – IRELAND’S FIRST MOTORIST

John Brown was deeply interested in the development of automotive power and had a car shipped over from France, which arrived at Longhurst on 6th March 1896 (the first motor car had been imported to England in June 1895, also from France). It was believed at the time, and no contradictory evidence has come to light to date, that this was the first motor car to be brought into Ireland (Blaney), making John Brown Ireland’s first motorist. Brown gave a lecture in the Ulster Hall Annexe a few weeks later entitled ‘Automobiles or Horseless Carriages’ at which the car itself was exhibited, with its engine working. The car was a Serpollet steam motor car, with driving gear similar to that of a tricycle, an engine under the seat, and a steam generator at the back of the carriage, consisting of steel tubes heated by a coke fire that converted water to steam instantaneously. A photograph has survived of John Brown in the car with his son William, taken in the grounds of Longhurst.

Following his purchase of the Serpollet, Brown designed his own car (for the chassis and wheels of which he submitted patents), that ran on electric batteries and addressed some of the shortcomings he found in the Serpollet. The electric car, which he likened to a ‘sleigh’, or an ‘electric street boat’ and which had a range of 20 miles and a top speed of around six miles per hour, was built between 1897 and 1900 and is depicted outside Longhurst in a surviving image. The first electric car had been built in Germany in 1888 and although electric cars were generating increasing interest by 1900, this type of vehicle would still have been a considerable novelty in Ireland at the time, with Brown’s version having the additional distinction of its very unusual (and patented) appearance.

Brown’s interest in roads and motoring endured all his life, and he was the founding President of the Irish Roads Improvement Association, using his invention, the Viagraph, to press, with some success, for roads which better met the needs of the motor car. John Brown lived at Longhurst until his death at the age of 61 in 1911.

SUBSEQUENT RESIDENTS

The next known resident at Longhurst was Robert P Corry, the son of Robert William Corry who had founded with his brother the firm of James P Corry & Co Ltd, timber, slate, tile and cement importers. Robert’s uncle was John Corry, amateur architect and designer of Elmwood Church. Robert P Corry chose a different line of business, however, and became a partner in the firm of Fiddes, Todd & Corry Ltd, linen merchants. Robert P Corry and George Todd took over the business of Fiddes Woods & Co on the death of George Fiddes in 1901, but the pair sold the business and retired in 1921.

An outdoor rifle range was constructed on the property in 1914, a few months after the start of WW1, initially used by the Malone and Balmoral miniature rifle club who were concerned that every able-bodied man should know how to shoot straight ‘as no man knows the hour when he might be needed to keep the flag flying or protect his hearth and home’. The range was still being used for shooting competitions up until at least 1929.

The next owners, Mr and Mrs Roland M Byers were resident from at least 1934, but occasionally let out the house to others. Roland M Byers, chairman of Corran Works Ltd of Larne, a subsidiary of the Pye Radio Co, was involved in the building of television stations in Northern Ireland. He reached the rank of Lt-Col in WW2 and was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for Belfast in 1951. Mrs Byers was the daughter of Sir Milne Barbour Bt MP (coincidentally another motoring pioneer and driver of a steam-powered Locomobile, whose driving licence dated 1st January 1904, the first day on which driving licenses were required by law, was donated to the Ulster Automobile Club).

The house was inspected for the Third General Revaluation of the 1930s and was said to be ‘in excellent order’ with modernised bathrooms. The valuer’s report for 1935 shows that the main rooms at the front of the house had already been opened out by this time, with the removal of the walls between dining room and drawing room and between the former laboratory and workshop. The upstairs accommodation comprised four bedrooms, a bathroom and an en suite and a further three bedrooms and bathroom for the maids. Longhurst stables (Brown’s motor house had been demolished by this time) were used for the Byers’ horses and ponies, which included racehorses.

The house appears for sale (with photo) in the newspapers in 1952 (by which time it had been connected to mains electricity) and was sold for £13,000 in 1953 to Ernest Reid, a consultant engineer. Ernest Reid was engineer in charge of the construction of the Langford Lodge aerodrome near Aldergrove which was occupied by USAF during WW2. He also supervised the construction of many other war-time airfields in Britain. Reid began a process of parcelling up the land to the W of Longhurst for development. At that time Longhurst was situated in 36 acres of land, a sizeable area extending from the house to the Upper Malone Road. Since the 1950s this area has been fully developed, with around two dozen substantial dwellings constructed.

After Ernest Reid’s death Longhurst was sold for £8550 to Mrs and Mrs John Graham in 1958. John Graham was a racehorse owner, and the Graham’s son, who also lived at Longhurst, was a racing driver. The Grahams ran a business at Longhurst, breeding chinchillas for their fur.

By 1965 Mr A Eric Martin and Mrs Jean Martin had moved into Longhurst. Mr A Eric Martin, was chairman of H & J Martin Ltd and Martin Estates Co Ltd and also chairman of the Construction Industry Training Board NI. He was at various times President and chairman of Belfast Savings Bank, President of Belfast Builders’ Association and a governor of RBAI. He was awarded the OBE in 1969. The Martins remained in the house until at least the mid-1980s.

The adjacent stables were jointly owned by Messrs Jordan and Martin and were run from the late 1960s by a series of managers as a riding school, known initially as Longhurst Riding Establishment. In 1984 the name was changed to Lagan Valley Equestrian Centre. The Centre has been demolished in recent years and the site redeveloped as domestic dwellings.

SUMMARY

Longhurst is a fine example of a late Victorian, architect-designed, suburban villa designed for an independently wealthy Belfast gentleman. Externally, Longhurst retains its original appearance with eclectic Arts & Crafts detailing intact. Some changes have been made to windows, with limited replacement of glass and frames and a chimney has been removed at the E end of the house. The house also retains its original footprint, with the notable exceptions of the loss of the conservatory to the W elevation and the construction in recent years of a sunroom around the former verandah on the S elevation. The original outbuilding block to the N of the house was demolished between 1920 and 1931. Internally, the house also largely retains its original plan form, with the exception of the removal of internal partition walls dividing the main living rooms. Much of the internal detailing (woodwork, some door furniture, floors and fireplaces) remains intact. The setting, although much reduced from the original generous parkland that enclosed Longhurst, is mature and well screened and continues to provide the critical views to the SE that the house was originally orientated to enjoy.

However, the special historic interest of Longhurst lies in its unique association with John Brown, pioneer in battery science, motoring and domestic technology. Although it is not uncommon for fine domestic dwellings to be associated with prominent people, it is much more unusual for a house to reflect in its design and construction the innovatory mind of its owner. Although the fabric and machinery relating to Longhurst’s original electric supply is now largely gone, there remain several notable traces of its pioneering technology, which distinguish the house from its late Victorian peers. It was John Brown’s unique scientific interests and skills that led to Longhurst being built as one of the earliest known domestic houses in Ireland to have an independent electricity supply for lighting and household appliances integrated into its design. Longhurst is therefore not only a high-quality, distinctive late Victorian villa and the home of the first motor car to be imported to Ireland but also represents a significant staging post in the history of domestic technology in Ireland.

References:
Primary Sources:
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78. Deane, A (ed) (1924) Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, Centenary Volume 1821-1921. Belfast: BNHPS
79. Large scale Ordnance Survey maps 1901, 1920, 1931, 1937, 1963, 1988 (www.centremapslive.co.uk)
80. Information supplied by current owner

Secondary Sources:

81. Bartlett, Douglas (2010) An illustrated history of Limavady and the Roe Valley: from prehistoric to modern times. Newtownards: April Sky Design
82. Blaney, Leanne (2019) The Motor Car in Ireland. Dublin: Liffey Press
83. Bloomfield, G T (undated) Electricity in Ireland. University of Guelph.
84. Crossland, Professor Sir Bernard and Moore, John S ‘The Lives of Great Engineers of Ulster, Volume 1’ Belfast: NE Consultancy for Belfast Industrial Heritage Ltd.
85. Dean, J. A. K., ‘The gate lodges of Ulster: A gazetteer’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1994
86. Dictionary of Irish Biography (www.dib.ie)
87. Felstead, A, Franklin, J and Pinfield, L (compilers) (1993) Directory of British Architects, 1834-1914, Volume 2. London: Mansell Publishing Ltd
88. Gray, A Stuart (1995) Edwardian Architecture, A Biographical Dictionary. London: Duckworth
89. Harrison Moore, A (2018) Designing Energy Use in a Rural Setting: A Case Study of Philip Webb at Standen. History of Retailing and Consumption, 4 (1). pp. 28-42.
90. Hveen, F N (1960) ‘Devices for Recording and Evaluating Pavement Roughness’, National Research Council (US) Highway Research Board Bulletin, Issue 264
91. Moore, A. H., & Gooday, G. (2013). Decorative Electricity: Standen and the Aesthetics of New Lighting Technologies in the Nineteenth Century Home. Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 35(4), pp.363–383.
92. Queen’s University Belfast, Special Collections blog Wired: Electrification in the Archives – Special Collections Blog at Queen's University Belfast
93. Rankin, K (2002) ‘The Linen Houses of the Lagan Valley’ Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
G. Innovatory Qualities
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
T. Historic Importance
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

An accomplished two-storey-plus-attic Arts and Crafts style house, built c. 1893 to designs by Frank Loughborough Pearson set in extensive grounds overlooking the Lagan Valley. Asymmetry, sweeping roofs and eclectic detailing are typical of the genre with characteristic formal freedom and attention to detail and materials much in evidence. The house survives largely unaltered and is a particularly fine example of this type of substantial Arts and Crafts style which together with the history of the pioneering installation of electricity in this domestic setting further adds to the significance.