Inchmarlo Prep School, Cranmore Park, Belfast BT9 6JR

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Substantial two storey with attic, symmetrical stone former house constructed in 1881 in Scottish Baronial style with distinctive crow stepped detailing to gables for James Anderson Bulloch of the firm Messrs Bulloch Bros manufacturer of linen shirts in Donegall Square South and Linenhall Street. The building is now in use as Inchmarlo RBAI Preparatory Department. Located in the centre of a large site on the SE side of Cranmore Park, to NW of RBAI playing fields. The site is entered via a gateway flanked by two stone piers with rounded stone coping stones on the northern end of the site. The principal entrance is located to the SE with a brick entrance screen. The original building is constructed of rock-faced coursed stone with sandstone surrounds. Original building faces NE with natural slate roofs, central section now flat-roofed with central rooflight. Modern extensions to SE added in 1935 & 1967.

Front elevation (NE):
Front elevation is symmetrical with a canted, central bay and flanking, advanced, flat gabled bays either side. All bays have crow-stepped sandstone eaves detailing. Flanking bays have a shallow bay window at ground floor level with triple window openings and castellated parapet detailing. Paired window openings on first floor level and a single window opening at attic level. Toothed sandstone quoins at each of the flanking bay corners. Canted entrance bay has a centrally located entrance door within a carved sandstone surround and leaded, coloured glazing to window openings on canted sections. Paired windows aligned above entrance on first floor level, and a single window opening to attic level. Stone corbels above windows on first floor level on side cant. Between the flanking bays and the central canted bay there is a narrow section of wall with single window openings on both ground and first levels.Original 1/1 double hung timber sliding sash windows with double and single glazing to openings; sandstone lintels and surrounds to all openings. Front door is approached via three stone steps and is an original bolection moulded, painted, panelled door with original ironmongery and plain, arched overlight. Original doorbell located on sandstone surround. Original cast iron lantern located centrally above the main door below an individual carved stone plaque. Sandstone string course above ground floor window head height.

Side Elevation (SE):
Three bay façade with two stepped gables as per NE elevation. Bay on right side is of same design and detailing as the flanking bays on NE; narrow middle bay with large window opening on ground floor level and smaller window opening aligned above; two-storey canted bay on left side with castellated parapet and stepped gable above with singe window opening. Left side of original building is abutted by a two-storey 1935 extension with hipped roof which is aligned NE-SW. Constructed in red rustic brick in stretcher bond with a painted rendered concrete frame expressed on the façade at ground floor level. Wide opening forms semi-open covered area to centre of ground floor level leading into courtyard on NW side of extension. Concrete construction to ceiling exposed; brown brick to side walls, access doors to extension and to courtyard. Overhanging eaves with windows are aluminium on this extension, all cills are concrete. Two window openings on either side of wide opening on ground floor level. Nine window openings along first floor level. Single storey, single bay flat-roofed section on extreme left side with single window opening. Left side of extension is abutted by a brown brick gymnasium block/assembly hall with flat roof, added in 1967.The SE façade has a row of three short uPVC/ aluminium windows at low level, and three aligned above. Tall expanse of brick above with carved/moulded concrete school crest/coat of arms centred on façade stating QUAERERE VERUM at bottom.
Rear elevation (SW):
Flat façade with strip of floor-to-ceiling aluminium windows full length of facade, including integral doors. Six window openings aligned above, all uPVC/ aluminium windows.
Canteen extension constructed c1960 accessed via a stepping link from the main building following the terraced lawn. The canteen outbuilding comprises of a brick and concrete construction with original crittall windows framing the views to overlook the playing fields.
Side Elevation (NW):
Original windows remain in situ excepting one uPVC replacement at upper level. Single storey brick building with chimney flue over cloakroom constructed in 1935. Replacement of some windows with uPVC windows. 1935 extension adjoins the 2 storey 1967 building [rear elevation].
The complex comprises 4 main phases:
01 | The 1881 initial construction as a middle-class villa in a Scottish idiom – Refer to Front Elevation (NE) for description
02 | The 1935 extension and remodelling works by William David Redmond - Refer to Side Elevation (SE) for description
03 | 1956-57 new dining hall and kitchen block towards the NW - Refer to Rear Elevation (SW) for description
04 | 1967-1968 new hall/gymnasium – Refer to Rear Elevation (SW) for description

Materials:
Walls – Stone to main building with stepped stone quoin edges and sandstone features around window surrounds and main entrance
Roof – Natural slate, hipped and pitched
rainwater goods cast metal and uPVC
Windows – double hung sliding sash, aluminium and uPVC

Setting
Substantial mature site on the confluence of Cranmore Park, Osborne Gardens and the rear gardens of residential dwellings on Bawnmore Road. The principal building, formerly 'Cranmore', subsequently 'Mount Randal', occupies a prominent site with terraced lawns, mature belts of trees and sweeping avenue leading from Cranmore Park. A secondary entrance via Osborne Gardens. Remnants of walled garden remains and the complex enjoys a mature secluded
setting within an extensive parkland in the Malone Conservation Area.

Historical information

The present building was constructed in 1881 as a substantial middle-class villa in a Scottish idiom, on the proceeds of Belfast’s burgeoning linen industry. The house was the residence, successively, of three prominent businessmen involved in the linen trade, before being taken over by Royal Belfast Academical Institution in 1935 and remodelled as the school’s preparatory department.
The lands which include the townland of Lower Malone, were originally part of the grant of the town of Belfast, from the sovereign to Sir Arthur Chichester in the early 17th century. The Malone area was subsequently divided into large estates and planted with English tenants, the earliest known tenant in the vicinity of the current dwelling being John Eccles. Eccles was resident from at least 1669, and the remains of his dwelling house (later known as Cranmore) survive as a scheduled monument to the SE of the present dwelling (ANT064:093) (Carleton).

Initially populated by farmers who lived on their land, by the mid-18th century leases in the Malone area were being taken up by prosperous Belfast merchants, who lived within the town and whose land was farmed by their undertenants. Early dwellings were therefore very modest for the most part, one storey, thatched and often mud walled due to the lack of building stone in the area. The original road out of Belfast to the S, the Malone Road, follows the crest of a sandy ridge, and is believed to have ancient origins (a significant find of prehistoric hand axes, the Malone Hoard, was found near the Malone Road, at Danesfort). What is now known as the Lisburn Road, was laid out between 1817 and 1819.

At the end of the 18th century, the Marquess of Donegall (a title acquired by the Chichesters in 1790) began to extend longer 61-year leases to all his tenants in Malone and this greater security of tenure encouraged tenants to make improvements. The 1831 map shows modest country lodges for town merchants, such as Eglantine Hill and Maryville. As Belfast became more successful, and increasingly noisy, crowded and dirty, prosperous merchants began to build more substantial villas in Malone, occupying the more desirable elevated sites near the Malone Road and typically situated within a small demesne. The current dwelling formed part of this wave of development which reached its peak towards the end of the 19th century. As the Malone area continued to be an accessible and popular development prospect after 1900, smaller, more closely packed houses filled the western slopes of the ridge towards the Lisburn Road.

James Anderson Bulloch (also spelled Bullock in some sources), leased the plot between the Malone and Lisburn Roads from William Coates of Glentoran in County Down, and added the current house to the site, valued at £100 for valuation purposes, in 1881. The substantial villa was constructed on the higher ground of the Malone ridge within a five-acre demesne, and beside a lane connecting the Malone and Lisburn Roads. The lane, which was laid out between the 1st and 2nd editions (i.e. between 1832-3 and 1858), was initially called ‘Musgrave’s Avenue’ referring to the Musgraves of Drumglass House, but the road was renamed ‘Cranmore Park’ c1892 after the current dwelling was built. A gate lodge (now gone) on the corner of the Malone Road and Cranmore Park, adjacent to the Cranmore demesne and, unusually, at some distance from the current dwelling house, also appears to have been constructed by James Bulloch, and was occupied by William Adams, coachman c.1900. The lodge eventually became part of the Cranmore demesne and was removed in 1923 during road widening works after Cranmore was acquired by RBAI, having briefly served as the groundsman’s cottage.

The current dwelling house was originally known as Cranmore or Cranmore House, appearing to compete for the name for a time, with the earlier 17th century dwelling built by the Eccles family. By the late 18th century, the earlier house had been taken over by the family of a noted botanist, John Templeton, who renamed the property ‘Cranmore’ (Great Tree, after a large oak tree under which William III is believed to have sheltered). However, John Bulloch may have felt entitled to make use of the name Cranmore as the earlier dwelling was more popularly referred to as ‘Orange Grove’ in the early 1880s due to its traditional connection with William of Orange. In 1690, the Eccles family offered hospitality to William III on his way to the Boyne, during a rainstorm, and the earlier house continued to be known as ‘The Grove’ into the early 20th century.

James Anderson Bulloch (1837-1914) was a Scotsman, born in Airdrie. He moved to Belfast at the age of 15 and in 1864 established, with his brothers, the firm of Messrs Bulloch Bros, manufacturers of linen shirts and woollens with premises in Donegall Square South and Linenhall Street. The firm was established during a boom time for the linen industry in Belfast, due to the impact on cotton supplies of the American Civil War (1861-65). In 1869, Bulloch married Agnes Knox, daughter of James Knox, a noted linen thread manufacturer of Kilbirnie, Ayrshire (W & J Knox est.1778). Bulloch was a staunch Unionist and an original member of the Ulster Reform Club, as well as an active member of Fisherwick Presbyterian church. He was also a founder member of the ‘Belfast Benevolent Society of St Andrew’, a social society launched in 1867 for Scotsmen resident in Belfast that carried out charitable works, supporting destitute people of Scottish origin in the town. Bulloch was president of the Society in 1877 and 1907. Features of the house built by Bulloch at Cranmore Park, show the influence of Scottish revival styles, such as the crow-stepped gables and castellated bays (Larmour calls this style ‘muted Scottish baronial’). A carved panel depicting thistles, shamrocks and roses above the front door of the house alludes to Bulloch’s Scottish origins as well as connections with Ireland and England. The architect of the house is unknown, but Young & Mackenzie later made additions to the house that were required to blend seamlessly with the existing dwelling and it is possible that the firm were the original designers.

In 1887, Bulloch formally left the partnership with his brothers, sold ‘Cranmore’ and retired to Fairlie in Ayrshire. The house was advertised for sale for several weeks in the local Belfast press, being described as the residence ‘known as Cranmore…of recent construction, substantially built of stone’ and possessing ‘all modern requirements and improvements’. The advertisement also drew attention to the garden and grounds which were said to be ‘beautifully laid out, and well stocked with fruit and other trees’. Having been appointed a JP in Scotland and serving as one of the original members of Ayrshire County Council, Bulloch returned to Belfast and bought a house in Osborne Park c1903, not far from the current building, where he lived until his death. Around the time that Theodore Roosevelt became president of the US, it was noted in the local Belfast press that James Anderson Bulloch was related to the president through Roosevelt’s mother, Martha Bulloch.

The next resident in the house was William Crawford, J.P. and a director of the York Street Flax Spinning Co Ltd, who purchased the house for £3,000 in 1888 and named the house ‘Mount Randal’. The first map depiction of the house is on the large-scale map of 1896, where it is shown as a roughly square on plan structure with two small rear extensions and a glass conservatory to the SE elevation. A driveway, the course of which has been preserved, sweeps up from the entrance and the house is surrounded by trees, some of which appear to survive to this day. An amateur painting reproduced in the biography of Mary Crawford Brown shows the house as it appeared at that time and further detail of the building is given in a plan drawn for the Belfast Revaluation in 1900, which shows a glasshouse within the walled garden, a summer house on the lawn to the SW of the main house (gone) and a ‘fowl house’ on the W edge of the demesne.

William Crawford was born in 1840, the son of Rev Alexander Crawford, a Scottish missionary to India, and minister of 1st Randalstown Presbyterian Church. William Crawford was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (Inst) and was then apprenticed to the York Street Flax Spinning Company in 1857, at the age of 17. In 1862, Crawford was asked to manage the reorganisation of the company’s Paris branch and subsequently became the company’s representative in Paris. Crawford was resident in Paris with his family during the siege of 1870-1 and remained until 1887, when he was elected a managing director of the company and returned to Belfast, taking up residence in Mount Randal, where he lived for 35 years until his death. The house was named Mount Randal in memory of Crawford’s happy childhood at ‘Maine Mount’, the house built by his father, N of Randalstown. Crawford remained a Director of the York St company until 1913 and the death of the Chairman R H S Reade, whereupon he was appointed Chairman, giving up the position in 1918 due to failing health. Crawford was a member of the Royal Commission of the Paris Exhibition in 1900 and also served as president of the Paris British Chamber of Commerce. More locally, he served as president of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce and of the Linen Merchants’ Association. He was a ruling elder of Windsor Presbyterian Church and was a prominent figure in the Presbyterian church more widely with a particular interest in home and foreign missions. He also had an interest in education and was one of the first members of the Queen’s University Senate on its elevation to university status. Crawford was a staunch Unionist and addressed numerous political demonstrations in that capacity. He was also closely involved in the building of the Royal Victoria Hospital as the Chairman of the Committee of Management and it is said to be as a result of his advice and urging that the hospital was built with full regard to the future of the growing city. As a result of his services to the hospital, Sir William received a knighthood in 1906 and the hospital featured a portrait bust of Crawford, unveiled in 1921. He died on 12th May 1922 at the age of 82 and is buried in the City cemetery.

Sir William had strong connections with India and China, as well as Paris. His wife, born in Gujarat, was a daughter of one of the first missionaries sent to India by the Presbyterian Church and three of his four sons lived overseas, Rev Alexander Robert Crawford was a missionary to Manchuria (NE China) and W M Crawford was a member of the Indian Civil Service, the other two sons being managers for the York Street Flax Spinning Company in Belfast and Paris. Sir William’s only daughter, Mary, was a talented artist and musician and also a committed supporter of missionary work, as the editor of the missionary magazine ‘Woman’s Work’. A biography of Mary Crawford Brown was published after her early death from pneumonia in 1918, in which she was extolled as ‘the St Brigid of the twentieth century’. Mount Randal was also the birthplace of Sir William’s granddaughter, Agatha Randal Crawford (1913-1999), a graduate in medicine from QUB, who was a medical missionary to Manchuria in the 1940s, teaching at Moukden Medical College. Her rich correspondence (PRONI) records her life in China and her recollections about the arrival of the communist army.

The 1901 census records William Crawford as resident in the house with his Indian-born wife, his Paris-born son Rev Alexander R Crawford and his young grandsons (the children of his daughter Mary) Laurence Crawford Brown, who was later to be killed at Ypres (16th August 1917) and Oliver N Brown who was to be Head of Ahmedabad mission school in India for 32 years, a finalist in BBC ‘Brain of Britain’, and to see active service in two world wars, serving in the Army Medical Corps rather than as a combatant due to his convictions. The family had four servants at this time, a cook, a parlour maid, a house maid and a nurse.

In 1905 a new road was laid out to the E of the site of Mount Randal, and an additional acre of land was acquired for the grounds of the house. A second entrance way to the house was formed, opening off the new road. Improvement Committee minutes of Belfast Corporation record that it was at William Crawford’s instigation that the new road was named ‘Osborne Gardens’.
Around 1900 a row of glass houses was built to the S of the house (now gone), within the walled garden. Building control records show that the rear NW wing of the house, originally single storey, was remodelled, to designs by Young & Mackenzie, in 1908. The rear wing originally contained, a billiard room, ‘power house’, WC and wash-house. This wing was raised by another storey to give three more bedrooms and a bathroom, on the first floor, and the external elevation of the building was altered to blend seamlessly with the existing house.

The archives of Young & Mackenzie held at PRONI contain correspondence, specifications and plans dated September 1912 for the erection of a ‘peach house’ for Sir William at Mount Randal (later sold by RBAI in 1940). The former fowl house was replaced with a motor house/garage for two cars built to designs by William John Waterman Roome in 1913 (original plans held by Building Control). The first motor car had arrived in Ireland 15 years previously and there were only 1,040 licensed cars in Ulster by 1915, Crawford being a relatively early member of the driving fraternity. The garage survives but has been extended to the NE in recent years.

Mount Randal was advertised for sale after Crawford’s death in 1922 as a two storey with attic, gentleman’s residence, stone built of rock-faced sandstone. The accommodation comprised a dining room, drawing room, morning room, billiard room, cloakroom, kitchen, servants’ hall, pantries, scullery, cellar, strong room and ‘sun parlour’ on the ground floor with six bedrooms, three dressing rooms, bathrooms and lavatories on the first floor and five bedrooms and a bathroom in the attic. The advert also boasted the modern facilities such as the garage for two cars, and electric light and central heating.

The next resident (from c1925) was James Heron Stirling (1867-1928), chairman of directors of the York Street Flax Spinning Co Ltd, who purchased the freehold of the site before his death in 1928. Building Control records, including a partial plan of the ground floor dating from 1908 and an ‘existing’ plan of the building prior to conversion into a school in 1934, suggest that the hall of Mount Randal was subject to some remodelling around the time that J H Stirling became resident, with removal of at least one wall to give a more open plan entrance. It is possible that the distinctive hall fireplace also dates from this remodel and is therefore 1920s in date.
On his death, Stirling left the house to the discretion of his trustees, suggesting that it should be donated to Inst as a preparatory school. Stirling had been a pupil at Inst and later became a governor, retaining a keen interest in the school all his life. The house was said to be a valuable acquisition for RBAI, the 6 acres of ‘pleasant grounds’ being seen as ‘a great asset for recreation purposes’.

The migration of schools and other institutions to the suburbs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is a phenomenon noted in Carleton’s history of South Belfast. As Malone developed, and the centre of Belfast became less residential, the new Inst preparatory department was set up in the area many of its pupils were drawn from, rather than near RBAI itself. RBAI had first set up a preparatory department in 1864, but this was closed down in 1898 due to falling numbers, partly a consequence of the relocation of wealthier families to the suburbs.

In 1904, after Belfast Corporation had acquired a large portion of their grounds for the new Technical Institute, RBAI had purchased about five acres of land at Osborne Park, with an option on the adjacent lands of Cranmore demesne and Maryville, initially with the idea that they might move the entire school out to the suburbs, where space was more plentiful. The lands at Osborne Park became the RBAI playing fields and, in 1916, when RBAI formally acquired the additional grounds at Cranmore and Maryville, having dropped the idea of relocating the entire school, it was suggested that a prep school should be built nearby, or housed in a converted building. Wartime building restrictions scuppered the intention to convert Maryville House into the new prep and instead, a villa residence called ‘Inchmarlo’ at 106 Marlborough Park North was chosen because it could be adapted without significant alterations. The residence at Marlborough Park, built c1897 to the designs of Robert Young of the distinguished architectural firm Young & Mackenzie that had designed the peach house at Mount Randal, was named Inchmarlo after a village in Aberdeenshire that was well known to Young, the Dee area being a frequent subject of his watercolours. Young suggested the name to his client, John Killen Wilson, woollen merchant, who adopted it for the new dwelling house.

The name was then embraced by Inst in 1917 when the dwelling house was taken over for the new preparatory school, the name being retained when the school, was transferred to ‘Mount Randal’. The building formerly known as ‘Cranmore’ and then ‘Mount Randal’ is now sometimes known as ‘Stirling House’ in memory of the school’s benefactor, James Heron Stirling.
The former villa was subject to extension and remodelling in the change to a school, and valuation and building control records give details of the work that was carried out. The SE wing (including the maids’ sitting room, and the old kitchen, scullery, larder and coal store) and conservatory were removed entirely and replaced with a covered playground/drill yard with classrooms over and toilet and cloakroom facilities. The new wing was constructed using trademarked ‘Truscon Hy-rib’, combined centring and reinforcement made by the Trussed Concrete Steel Co, a construction company established in London by Moritz Kahn in 1907 to bring the Kahn method of reinforced concrete construction to the UK. The technique was initially used mainly in industrial buildings and allowed for large wall openings, usually enabling factories to have bigger windows, but in this case permitted a wide open playground, the roof of which was strong enough to support another storey above.

The ground floor of the NW wing (formerly a second study, store and boiler house) was partially rebuilt and became the kitchen, dining room, scullery and larder of the school, two additional windows being inserted into the main elevation of the former study to form the new school dining room. The upper floor of this wing was repurposed as domestic accommodation for the headmaster (initially two bedrooms (35, 38), a scullery (37) and a bathroom (36)). A new single storey extension to the NW wing contained the boiler house for the extended central heating system (radiators bear the maker’s mark of Musgrave & Co).

The main body of the house was retained largely unchanged in layout with rooms reassigned: the study (01), drawing room (02) and dining room with buffet recess (04) became classrooms, while the store and pantry (05) adjacent to the dining room became the kindergarten cloakroom (with the removal of a stud wall) and the cloakroom (03) was converted to the headmaster’s office (the walls of this area have since been removed and partially replaced with glazing). On the first floor of the main house, former bedrooms (25, 27, 28, 30) and dressing rooms (26, 28/9) became three further classrooms, a staff room and the headmaster’s and house master’s sitting rooms. Former bedrooms and a bathroom on the attic floor appear to have remained untouched, but no roof light is indicated on the drawings from this period, suggesting that this was a later addition. The main entrance gatescreen also appears to have been remodelled around this time.

The remodelling works were carried out to designs by William David Redmond Taggart in 1934-5 at a cost of £5750. The contractor was William Dowling Ltd. A formal opening ceremony was performed at Stirling House on 22nd November 1935 by Lord Charlemont, Minister of Education.

Shortly after the school opened, preparations had to be made for armed conflict with the declaration of war with Germany on 3rd September 1939. A few weeks later the school submitted plans to Building Control for three substantial air raid shelters (of the brick-built, above-ground, public shelter type) constructed with 14-inch-thick brick walls, reinforced concrete roofs and floors, and baffle entry to prevent crushing. The walls were lined with long benches and contained an earth closet. The shelters, which were to be placed on the lawn to the rear of the school, have not survived.

In 1956-7 the school added a new dining hall and kitchen block to the NW with a glazed link to the main building, constructed of Dungannon rustic brick. The designers were Samuel Stevenson & Sons of Royal Avenue. Having moved kitchen and dining facilities out of the main school building, in 1958 the school remodelled the interior of the NW wing, converting the former kitchen into a cloak room with slatted timber seating and coat hooks lining the walls (the seating and hooks survive). The former scullery and larder was converted to urinals and wash hand basins and the former coal shed in the boiler extension was converted to WCs with the creation of three new window openings.

The 50th anniversary of the school was celebrated in the year 1967-8, with the building of a new wing, also to designs by Samuel Stevenson & Son, at the cost of £26,500. This provided a hall/gymnasium on the ground floor with three classrooms above and bears a Clipsham limestone panel with the school crest on the side elevation.

The 75th anniversary of Inchmarlo took place in 1992, and again the school commemorated this event with an extension to the school buildings, a stand-alone classroom block of four rooms costing £300,000 being added to the E of the main building. The building was officially opened in October 1993 by The Lord Lowry, (Sir Robert Lynd Erskine Lowry, commissioned officer and High Court judge, appointed Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and knighted in 1971) a distinguished former pupil.

Other distinguished former pupils of Inchmarlo include: visually impaired rower, distance runner, cross-country skier and motivational speaker Mark Pollock; Sam K McCausland, agricultural seed merchant; John D Laird (Lord Laird of Antigarvan), Professor of Public Relations at University of Ulster and chair of Ulster Scots Agency, appointed a Life Peer in 1999; Air Vice-Marshall Desmond H Hughes, Battle of Britain pilot, Commandant of the RAF College, Cranwell and ADC to Queen Elizabeth II; Sir Peter Froggatt, Professor of Epidemiology and Social and Preventative Medicine at QUB; Brian D Faulkner (Baron Faulkner of Downpatrick), sixth and last Prime Minister of Northern Ireland; Tom Carr, artist awarded OBE in 1993 for his services to art in Ulster and Sir David Robert Bates, physicist, knighted in 1978 for his contributions to planetary and space science.

Some changes have taken place to the main building in recent years. Chimneys visible from the front elevation, and shown on a historic image of c1955, have since been removed. Work was carried out in 2011 by Alastair Coey architects which included correcting two outward leaning gable walls and re-slating part of the roof. A 3G playing surface was installed within the walled garden in 2019. However, the house retains its internal layout largely intact together with many internal and external features evocative both of its first 50 years as a villa residence, built and occupied by wealthy linen merchants and its adaptation as a successful private school almost a century ago.

References:
Primary Sources:

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1832-3)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1858)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1901)
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1920-21)
5. PRONI OS/6/1/61/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1920 and 1931)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/5/6C Annual Revisions (1879-1885)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/5/6D Annual Revisions (1885-1893)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/5/6E Annual Revisions (1894-1897)
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/1 Annual Revisions (1897-1905)
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/4 Annual Revisions (1906-1915)
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/7 Annual Revisions (1916-1930)
12. PRONI VAL/7/B/14/28 Belfast Revaluation Field Book 1900
13. PRONI VAL/12/A/7/R/41 Valuers’ Note Book 1914
14. Belfast City Council Building Control Records
15. Newry Reporter, 14th January 1869
16. PRONI Will Calendars William Coates died 29th March 1878
17. Northern Whig, 22nd October 1883
18. Northern Whig, 18th November 1885
19. Northern Whig, 19th August 1887
20. Belfast Newsletter, 6th December 1872
21. Northern Whig, 3rd January 1876
22. Belfast Street Directories 1880-1935
23. Belfast Newsletter, 17th May 1905
24. Northern Whig, 23rd May 1906
25. Northern Whig, 1st December 1913
26. Northern Whig, 26th February 1914
27. Northern Whig, 15th November 1904
28. Irish News, 11th September 1905
29. PRONI D2194/38/16 Young & Mackenzie archive (September 1912)
30. Northern Whig, 16th July 1917
31. Belfast Newsletter, 13th May 1922
32. Belfast Newsletter, 7th July 1922
33. Belfast Newsletter, 8th December 1922
34. The Witness, 15th April 1927
35. Northern Whig, 27th November 1928
36. Belfast Telegraph, 27th September 1933
37. Belfast Telegraph, 21st May 1935
38. Belfast Telegraph, 4th April 1940
39. Ulster Star, 20th November 1971

Secondary Sources:

40. Carleton, Samuel Trevor (1967) The Growth of South Belfast. Unpublished MPhil thesis, Queen’s University Belfast
41. Central Statistics Office www.cso.ie Life in 1916 Ireland: Stories from statistics
42. Dictionary of Irish Architects www.dia.ie
43. Hughes, Kyle ‘We Scotsmen by the banks o’ the Lagan’: The Belfast Benevolent Society of St Andrew 1867-1917. Irish Economic and Social History, Vol 37 (2010), pp.24-52
44. Jamieson, J (1959) The history of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution 1810-1960. Belfast: William Mullan & Sons
45. Larmour, Paul (1991) The Architectural Heritage of Malone and Stranmillis. Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1991
46. Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes of Special Historic Interest in Northern Ireland
47. Strahan, James (1920) Mary Crawford Brown: a memoir. London: J Clarke
48. Todd, Brian J (2012) A Remarkable Belfast Institution: The Royal Belfast Academical Institution, 1810-2010, Volumes 1 and 2, Holywood: Priory Press

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Substantial multi-period complex comprising original two storey with attic, symmetrical stone former linen house constructed in 1881 in Scottish Baronial style with distinctive crow-stepped detailing to gables for James Anderson Bulloch of the firm Messrs Bulloch Bros manufacturer of linen shirts in Donegall Square South and Linenhall Street and successive extensions to rear and side of the principal dwelling.

The complex is located in the centre of a large mature site on the SE side of Cranmore Park, to NW of RBAI playing fields containing former walled garden and sweeping avenue with extensive and attractive belts of planting and mature trees. The original house was built on the proceeds of Belfast’s burgeoning linen industry and was the residence, successively, of three prominent businessmen involved in the linen trade, before being taken over by Royal Belfast Academical Institution in 1935 and remodelled as the school’s preparatory department.

Despite some changes which have taken place to the main building in recent years, the principal building retains its internal layout largely intact together with many internal and external features evocative both of its first 50 years as a villa residence, built and occupied by wealthy linen merchants. It was successfully adaptated to a private school almost a century ago.

The building has undergone extensions to cater to the needs of the school throughout its timeline. The dining hall extension and glazed link are of a later date, 1956-1957, and are also of special architectural and historic interest with its Crittall windows and Dungannon rustic brick construction. Designed by Samuel Stevenson & Sons of Royal Avenue, the canteen and glazed link is intact and in good condition. Window furnishings and light switches are original and have been retained and add to the quality of the space. Crittall windows from the dining hall are also well maintained and frame views over large parts of the mature site of Inchmarlo's setting.