11 ADELAIDE PARK

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached two-storey with attic red brick suburban villa in a broadly Queen Anne Revivalist / Arts and Crafts style, designed in 1892 by Francis E. Ward, with three-stage dome-capped square turret and billiard room extension of 1901 to west end by Vincent Craig.

Setting - The property is located on the S side of the tree-lined Adelaide Park, approximately 2.5km SW of Belfast City centre. The house is set on a generous plot with detached double-garage to E, a large square garden to S and a tarmac forecourt and much smaller garden to N.

Plan - The building is of asymmetric plan, but roughly rectangular, with a wide but shallow projection to the N-facing front and a more defined C-shaped projection (containing the kitchen and boiler room) to the SE corner.

In terms of form, the original 1892 house was gable-ended square block with a large full-height gabled projection to the right (W) at the front (N) and a recessed entrance bay to the left with balcony over. The new block of 1901 to the W increased the volume of the building by approximately half and is more complex, consisting of the turret and a lower two-storey partly gabled, partly hipped roof portion that reduces to single-storey with attic to the rear. To the SE is the single-storey hipped roof kitchen projection.

Front (N) elevation – Recessed bay to left with entrance to ground floor under balcony, the latter no longer in use having had its timber balustrade removed. Large full-height gabled bay to centre with canted bay window to ground floor. Turret next to this with lower recessed two-storey bay to far right; distinctive quarter-circle curved bay window at ground floor between latter two sections. To far left the kitchen projection is fronted by a relatively tall wall with recessed arches and a parapet that obscures the roof; this wall looks as if it may have been modified at some point.

E elevation – Gable end of main block with the kitchen projection to the left, with latter set within an enclosed yard.

S (rear) elevation – Single-storey with loft section of 1901 to left (altered c.1950 and now rendered to this side). Main original two-storey block to centre with projecting conservatory-like bay to left and main wall rising into two gables. Kitchen projection to far right. Raised terrace to left.

W elevation – Portion of tower to far left, slightly lower two storey section to left and centre and single-storey plus loft section to right with uppermost section of main block rising above this.

Wall finishes – Walls largely in Flemish bond red brick except for rendered section of rear and the upper portions of the front and side gables, which are in painted roughcast with diagonal mock timber-framing to the larger gable to front. Moulded first floor Moulded brick dripstones and aprons some window openings with ‘stepped’ courses under rendered portions of the gables. Front wall of kitchen projection has two large arched recesses. The tower has an unusual ‘undulating’ parapet with stone coping, the whole rising above a moulded stone course with corner projections.

Roof – Original section has relatively steep pitch with marginally lower pitch to the gables at front and rear, and an overhang with plain bargeboards to the original section and clipped eves with moulded brick eaves course to gable of extension. All sections are slated apart from the dome on the tower which appears to be covered in lead. (The dome is believed to have once had a ‘mushroom’-shaped final.) Ridge tiles appear to be terracotta and have small decorative finials. Flat-roofed dormer to NE on original block and to SW on extension. Two large brick chimneystacks to either end of rear side of roof of main block, with a slimmer stack between the main front gable and the tower.

Windows and doors– The majority of the openings appear to be original and are of various sizes, as one would expect in a property of this type; some of the larger windows to the front and rear have segmental heads, but most are flat. Almost all have timber sash (or double sash) frames with Georgian Style panes to the upper sashes, with the canted and curved bays to the front entirely filled with such panes. The conservatory-like bay to the rear and the window frames to the single-storey section to the left of this are replacements of c.2000 in Edwardian Style; the dormer to the latter section has a replacement frame also (of probable mid-20th century date.) The doorways and doors are largely original also – Georgian glazing over panelling, although the door to the left at the rear is modern (c.2000). The open, flat-roofed timber entrance porch has slim square section ‘column’ supports rising from low brick walling and some lattice glazing (with an armorial) to the side. The balustrades that enclosed the balcony over are missing.

The double garage to the immediate E of the house is of c.1950 but is much the same style as the main building, having a (double) gabled overhanging slate roof, brick (stretcher bond) walls, diagonal mock timber-framing to the gables, partly glazed timber folding doors and plain timber bargeboards. There is an arched gate screen (with decorative wrought-iron gate) spanning from the kitchen section of the house to the garages.

Historical information

Adelaide Park was one of three ‘new streets off Lisburn Road’ approved for development by Belfast Corporation’s Town Improvement Committee in November 1888.[Ref 2] In common with many of the new suburban thoroughfares created to accommodate the expansion of the city southwards in the mid to later Victorian period, it was laid out along one of the semi-rural lanes that had separated the long-established strip farms that ran from the high ground of the present Malone Road westwards to the Bog Meadows.[27, 28] Named after ‘Adelaide Lodge’, the gentrified pre-1830s farmhouse that once stood at the Malone Road end, the site was divided into 30 ‘valuable villa lots and terrace sites’ which were auctioned by owner John Ritchie in September 1890.[3] Most of these were acquired by developer Robert John McConnell and built on in the course of the following decade, with the street is we now know it largely in place by 1900.[1, 5, 8]

The original section of the present no.11 was built in 1892 to designs by Belfast architect Francis Edward Ward for McConnell, and sold c.1893 to Charles C. Playfair (b.c.1865), a native of Birmingham.[11, 28] He named house ‘Bon Accord’, most likely in reference to the area of Aberdeen where the Playfair family originated, Charles himself probably a grandson of the noted early 19th century Aberdeen gunmaker of the same name, whose son (also named Charles Playfair) had moved to Birmingham to carry on the family business in the 1840s.[6]

Charles is noted in the late 1890s street directories as a ‘sporting goods manufacturer’, but had become a Captain in the Royal Irish Rifles by early 1901 and was fighting in South Africa.[5, 12] Thus in the census of the same year Bon Accord is recorded as occupied with his wife, Rosa, their two young daughters, and two domestic servants.[11] Prior to leaving, Playfair had commissioned architect Vincent Craig to extend the house by adding the section to the west of the main front gable, work which was carried out in 1901.[9, 10, 28] This addition, built by contractor Hutcheson Keith of Glenravel Street, originally contained a large billiard room to the ground floor with two rooms over.[14, 28]

In 1903, possibly due to the peripatetic nature of his army life, Charles Playfair sold the property (a ‘magnificently situated detached residence’) to John Shirley Finnigan (b.c.1872), a solicitor with offices in Lombard Street who was elected a town councillor in 1908.[15, 16] In the 1911 census John and his wife, Adeline, are recorded as living here with their four children and a single domestic servant, with the building itself noted as a ‘1st class’ dwelling with 16 rooms in use by the family.[11]

The Finnigans sold Bon Accord in c.1915 to William Thomas Doran (c.1847-1931), of Messrs Doran & Co., distillers, Donegall Quay, who changed the name of the property to ‘Roselawn’.[5, 18] Around c.1934 Roselawn was acquired by H. Moore Brand, the son of Thomas Brand, the founder of Brand’s Stores (later Brands and Normans), then of Donegall Place (who also lived in Adelaide Park at this time.)[20] In late 1946 or early 1947, the house was sold – or passed to - Mrs Ellen Frances Jury and her husband Arthur Edward Jury.[21, 22] Mr Jury was an architect, the son of Percy Morgan Jury of the firm of Blackwood & Jury).[24] He died in c.1976 and his wife in c.1995 and the property passed to their son, Charles Jury.[25] It was sold to the present owners in 2020.

Aside from the addition of the extension to the western end in 1901, there have several other alterations to the house. In December 1894, not long after its completion, the building suffered ‘serious damage’ when a particularly violent storm blew down the chimneys; an occurrence which helps to explain the presence of the bracing rods on each of the main stacks.[4] Other changes are more difficult to date. The valuers’ notebook of 1901 shows that the extension originally projected further to the rear, covering the area now making up the terrace, with this additional portion fronted with a canted bay (presumably a conservatory or sunroom.)[10] Map evidence shows that this was removed at some point between 1938 and 1957, with the garages added during the same period (replacing a smaller structure).[19, 23] There have been changes to the internal layout also, the most notable being the subdivision of the former billiard room. Writing on the re-plastered section of walling in one of the rooms created by this division indicate that this took place before 1968, and appears to have been the work of Mr. Jury. Further alterations were made to the layout of the kitchen rooms in 2000, with the conservatory-like bay to this side and some of the window frames next to it replaced at the same time.[26, 29]

References – Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL12B/43D/14 Valuation revision book, 1882-96
2 ‘Northern Whig’, 2 November 1888
3 PRONI D1442/6/29 ‘Particulars and map of valuable villa lots and terrace sites, Adelaide Park…’, 1890
4 ‘Belfast News-Letter’, 24 December 1894
5 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1895 to 1996
6 ‘Belfast News-Letter’, 26 September 1896
7 PRONI OS8/30/4/53 OS town plan of Belfast, 1896
8 PRONI VAL12B/43A/36 Valuation revision book, 1897-1905
9 PRONI VAL12A/7/R/3 Valuers’ notebook, 1900
10 PRONI VAL7B/14/24 Belfast revaluation books, 1900-01
11 Census of Ireland 1901 and 1911 – online at http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ [accessed 21 January 2020]
12 ‘Northern Whig’, 16 February 1901
13 OS town plans of Belfast, 1901-03
14 ‘Belfast News-Letter’, 1 January 1902
15 ‘Belfast News-Letter’, 8 January 1903
16 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 10 September 1908
17 OS town plans of Belfast, 1920
18 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 1 August 1931
19 OS town plans of Belfast, 1937-38
20 ‘Northern Whig’, 11 June 1938
21 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 26 September 1946
22 ‘Belfast News-Letter’, 21 July 1947
23 OS town plans of Belfast, 1957
24 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 28 August 1958
25 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 17 Dec 1976
26 HED HB26/18/004 File on 11 Adelaide Park, 1985-2010

Secondary sources
27 Carleton, S.T., ‘The growth of South Belfast’, (unpublished QUB MA thesis), 1967
28 Larmour, Paul, ‘The Architectural Heritage of Malone & Stranmillis’, (UAHS, 1991), p.186
29 Information from relative of owner, December 2019

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

11 Adelaide Park is a large, impressive, detached two-storey with attic red brick suburban villa in a broadly Queen Anne Revivalist / Arts and Crafts style, designed in 1892 by Francis E. Ward, with distinctive three-stage dome-capped square turret and billiard room extension of 1900 by Vincent Craig. Externally the building is largely intact, retaining almost all of its typically Edwardian eclectic features including a well-executed curved bay to the west side of the turret, a first floor doorway that leads on to a ‘balcony’ over the entrance and a mixture of flat and segmental-arched windows of various sizes, most with their original sash frames and doors. The building is the work of two of Belfast’s most prominent architects of the era, Craig in particular arguably the most accomplished house designer in Ulster at this time. The property is enhanced by its tree-lined setting and the the survival of its garden, and although the accompanying double garage is of mid-20th century date, is much in keeping with the style of the house. Apart from the loss of the balcony railst, the only notable alteration to the exterior has been the removal of a small rear conservatory projection. Similarly, whilst the interior has had some intervention, the original layout remains legible.