6 Malone Hill Park, Belfast

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey Arts & Crafts style, painted roughcast, detached villa with hipped Westmoreland slate roof, built 1927-28, to designs by TW Henry Architect and Civil Engineer, located on the SW side of Malone Hill Park in South Belfast.
The dwelling faces NE and has a small front garden raised up from the footpath behind a boundary wall (built 2016), and a large rear garden to the SW. Flanked by detached villas of similar era.

Westmoreland slate roof with red clay ridge tiles; overhanging eaves with exposed rafter ends.
Four red brick chimney stacks with brick corbelling and red clay pots; two exposed on SE gable, one on front roof slope to right and one on main rear slope.
Painted roughcast walls with three-course red brick plinth.

Most windows are historic metal frames with replacement slimline double-glazed panes with lead strips applied to the outside, within a painted timber surround, putty-fronted; painted stone window cills.

Refer to survey photographs alongside descriptions:

Front elevation (NE)
Asymmetrical façade with left side advanced and right side set back. Window openings of varied sizes.
Double height bay to left side with pitched roof, stained glass window to half-landing on left side of entrance.
Deep projecting open-columned porch to the front entrance with tapering sandstone columns and corbelled heads supporting hipped roof. Sandstone surround to entrance with historic solid timber panelled front door and historic ironmongery.
Attached garage set back on right side with hipped roof and sectional painted sheeted timber doors which slide open on an internal track.

Side elevation (NW)
Single bay wide with one window opening on left side of ground floor level. Yard door to right which connects to garage block. NW side of garage block is single storey with two window openings, both with historic putty-fronted multipane leaded windows with patterned glass within painted timber frames.

Rear elevation (SW)
Asymmetric façade with single-storey garage block to left side abutting main block. Modern patio doors to right with deep lead fascia. Twin pitched bays on right side, both with deep canted bays with full-height multipane metal-framed doors and windows beneath hipped roofs.

Side elevation (SE)
Regular façade with two exposed red brick chimney breasts built in English Garden Wall Bond, which step in towards top and meet to form a brick voussoir arch, which frames two small window openings on each level.

Rear Yard
Located between kitchen and garage, retains original coal store (now storage) with timber panelled door and WC with timber sheeted door and original high-level cistern ‘THE ULSTER’.

Setting
Mature boundary landscaping to SW rear boundary with house on Rosemary Park to S.
Front boundary walling, piers and steps built 2016 replacing former hedge boundary.

Materials
Walls – Painted roughcast walls with three-course red brick plinth
Roof – Westmoreland slate roof with red clay ridge tiles.
Windows - Most windows are historic metal frames with replacement slimline double-glazed panes with lead strips applied to the outside, within a painted timber surround, putty-fronted. Historic multipane metal doors to rear bays (note - glass panes are not original). Original glazing to garage and coal shed only, glazing panes elsewhere are replacement.
Rainwater goods – painted metal, original cast iron hoppers

Historical information

The current house was built to the designs of architect Thomas William Henry in 1927-8 as his own residence. The Irish Builder of August 1927 notes that plans for the house by T W Henry were among those that had recently been approved by the Belfast City Surveyor. Original plans survive and are dated 28th April 1927 (copies supplied by Owner). The house first appears in valuation records in 1929 as ‘2 Malone Hill Park’ (the house was later renumbered), and in Street Directories in 1930 and was one of eight dwellings to be built in the new road between 1928 and 1931. The ‘house, motor house and grounds’ were built on land owned by J McMaster and were valued at £60.

The house was designed and built in an ‘Arts and Crafts’ style by T W Henry, Architect and Civil Engineer (died 14th January 1964) who was based in offices in Ocean Buildings and subsequently from 1922 in Scottish Temperance Buildings in Donegall Square Belfast. Henry’s practice was largely commercial including several Ulster Bank premises, but he is known for a small number of public buildings, in particular the Shankill Road Public Library. His domestic work includes two other houses in the Malone area, (24 Cadogan Park and 65 Myrtlefield Park) and a large estate of workers’ housing in West Belfast (Ainsworth). Henry was a traditionalist in architectural terms and during WW2 was moved to comment on some of the designs for rebuilding Belfast that they showed a ‘lack of architectural good manners’ and that any new designs should harmonise with the ‘traditions, environment and…beautiful natural background’ of Belfast. Thomas William Henry was the brother of the painter Paul Henry, most celebrated for his depictions of the landscapes and people of the West of Ireland.

The Shankill Road Library (opened in 1928), designed by TW Henry in 1925 following a competition win, features a prominent stained-glass staircase window which strongly resembles the staircase window at 6 Malone Hill Park. Both windows are dated 1928, take the same general form of central circular medallion, surrounded by swags/foliage adorned with ribbons and repeat some of the same foliage details. It is a reasonable supposition that the two windows were produced by the same studio and contemporary newspaper reports of the opening of the Shankill Road Library identify the window as the work of Campbell Bros.

Campbell Brothers was a firm of stained-glass manufacturers founded by Tyrone brothers Francis and Samuel Campbell who opened premises in Franklin Street in 1897. The works soon expanded and moved to Millfield in the mid 1920s, in 1950 to Bath Place and subsequently to the Springfield Road, expanding and diversifying as it went, the firm trading until at least the mid 1980s. Few works are attributed to them by the Dictionary of Irish Architects, but they were, in fact, quite prolific in the first few decades of the 20th century, building up a reputation for high quality work at a time when it was not necessarily the norm to commission stained glass from Irish producers. The firm was responsible for the stained glass at several libraries, including Shankill Road, Ballymacarrett and the Lurgan and Bangor Carnegie Libraries as well as perhaps the two most significant municipal buildings in the North of Ireland, the Derry Guildhall and Belfast City Hall, the latter commission being shared with Ward & Partners (the third firm commissioned, Clokey, withdrew at an early stage). The firm also designed the stained glass for numerous churches throughout the North of Ireland and as far away as Sligo (Church of the Holy Cross) including the Sacristy of Newry workhouse.

Original plans for the house show a drawing room and dining room with wood block floors at the back of the house both with French doors leading out to the garden. At the front of the house was a library with a wood floor, a porch and hall and a cloakroom with separate WC. Wood flooring survives to some of these rooms (G02 and G05). The service wing of the house is to the side (NW) rather than the rear of the house, allowing the principal rooms at the rear to open onto the garden. The service wing originally contained kitchen and store (with terrazzo floor – some terrazzo survives in the former service wing), pantry, store, larder and housemaid’s closet, with a further scullery, pantry and larder off the kitchen. These rooms have now been knocked through into an open-plan kitchen with utility off. A coal shed, WC and garage are shown on the plans as attached outbuildings and these remain today, the WC having a historic cistern bearing the name ‘The Ulster’. Upstairs were five bedrooms, a box room, bathroom with separate WC and linen cupboard (these latter rooms have been altered to give a larger bathroom), all main rooms upstairs and downstairs are depicted as having fireplaces on the plan – fireplaces in downstairs rooms have survived (G04 has a replacement insert).

The garage or motor house features a sliding door system featuring Henderson’s ‘Tangent’ door gear. P C Henderson, a company established in 1921, based in Barking, Essex and still in existence today, was a popular supplier of fittings for sliding garage doors at this period when ‘motor houses’ were becoming a more common addition to domestic dwellings. The dwelling house was assessed at the time of the First General Revaluation in 1934. The house is noted to have electric light (some original light fittings survive) and accommodation is much as denoted in the original plans. The valuer notes that one of the reception rooms is panelled (the panelling has survived) and that the bathroom had at that time, three quarter tiled walls and a terrazzo floor.

TW Henry appears to have been resident in the house until the 1940s, but was living in England at the time of his death in 1964. The next occupant was James Arthur Stitt, a director of the Greenmount and Boyne Linen Company (Belfast) Ltd. Mr Stitt had been born in Belfast and educated at Inst, had served his apprenticeship in Drogheda, his father being an ‘outstanding figure’ in the linen trade. He had served in WW1 as a Captain the Royal Field Artillery, being awarded a Military Cross and served again in WW2 as a Major in the Royal Artillery. He was a member of the Ulster Reform Club, the Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club and the Royal Belfast Golf Club. Following Stitt’s death in 1952, his widow Edna continued to live in the house for some years, until the house was taken over by William Roger Boyd, possibly the W R Boyd who was an Employment Manager for the Goodyear tyre company, in the 1980s.

The house largely retains its original footprint and plan form, other than the central ground floor section which has been reconfigured to provide an open-plan kitchen. Many of the original features have also been retained including some flooring, panelling, stained glass, light fittings and switches, electric servant bells and the bell indicator box made by Bell & Crowe of 23 Church St, Belfast in its original position (bells and bell box non functional). Notable changes include the replacement of glass, within the retained original window frames, using sealed double-glazed units.

This medium-sized villa is a high-quality example of architect-designed dwellings for the professional classes in this period and in this area of Malone. The dwelling is enhanced by the retention of the greater part of its original fabric and detailing, and by its setting surrounded by gardens and fronting onto a leafy suburban avenue. The house owes its special character to the unique Arts and Crafts inspired design of architect and former resident T W Henry.

References:

Primary Sources:

1. PRONI OS/6/1/64/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1832-3)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/64/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1858)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/64/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1901)
4. PRONI OS/6/1/64/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1920-21)
5. PRONI OS/6/1/64/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1920 and 1931)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/6 – Annual Revisions (1916-1930)
7. PRONI VAL/3/D/1/P/53 – First General Revaluation 1934-1957
8. Dublin Leader, 20th June 1903
9. Northen Whig, 31st August 1903
10. Belfast Newsletter, 3rd November 1904
11. Lurgan Mail, 13th January 1906
12. Belfast Newsletter, 10th January 1910
13. Larne Times, 7th June 1913
14. Northern Whig, 4th December 1922
15. Irish Builder, Vol 69, 6th August 1927, p.578
16. Belfast Newsletter, 10th November 1928
17. Hull Daily Mail, 13th May 1929
18. Belfast Newsletter, 5th December 1931
19. Frontier Sentinel, 29th June 1935
20. Belfast Newsletter, 26th January 1943
21. Belfast Telegraph, 7th February 1944
22. Belfast Telegraph, 31st March 1952
23. Drogheda Independent, 5th April 1952
24. PRONI Wills, James Arthur Stitt, died 30th March 1952
25. Belfast Telegraph, 15th December 1965
26. Belfast Telegraph, 27th August 1982
27. Belfast Newsletter, 10th May 1984
28. Copies of original plans supplied by Owner (dated 28th April 1927)
29. Street Directories (1930-1995)
30. Large-scale OS maps (https://shop.centremapslive.co.uk/) 1931, 1938, 1957, 1965, 1982

Secondary Sources:

31. Dictionary of Irish Architects www.dia.ie
32. Larmour, Paul (1991) The Architectural Heritage of Malone and Stranmillis. Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society

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

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

Evaluation

Two-storey, Arts & Crafts style, painted roughcast, detached villa with hipped Westmoreland slate roof, built 1927-28, to designs by the architect Thomas William Henry as his own residence, located on the SW side of Malone Hill Park in South Belfast. The house largely retains its original footprint and plan form, other than the central ground floor section which has been reconfigured to provide an open-plan kitchen. Many of the historic features have also been retained including some flooring, panelling, stained glass, light fittings and switches, electric servant bells and the bell indicator box in its original position.

Of particular note is the stained glass window to the stairwell, likely designed by Campbell Brothers, a firm of stained-glass manufacturers founded by Tyrone brothers Francis and Samuel Campbell who opened premises in Franklin Street in 1897. The firm was quite prolific in the first few decades of the 20th century, building up a reputation for high quality work and designed windows for the Derry Guildhall (HB01/19/038) and Belfast City Hall (HB26/50/001A), the latter commission being shared with Ward & Partners. The window is similar in style to the surviving stained glass in Shankill Road Public Library also of the same date and by the same architect TW Henry. The garage or motor house features a sliding door system featuring Henderson’s ‘Tangent’ door gear. P C Henderson, a company established in 1921, based in Barking, Essex and still in existence today, was a popular supplier of fittings for sliding garage doors at this period when ‘motor houses’ were becoming a more common addition to domestic dwellings. Externally, the front boundary piers and walling were built to match the house in 2016. Notable changes include the replacement of glass within the retained original window frames, using slimline double-glazed units with lead strips applied to the outside.

TW Henry was a traditionalist in architectural terms and during WW2 was moved to comment on some of the designs for rebuilding Belfast that they showed a ‘lack of architectural good manners’ and that any new designs should harmonise with the ‘traditions, environment and…beautiful natural background’ of Belfast.

This high-quality medium-sized villa is a fine example of an architect-designed dwelling for the professional classes in this period and in this area of Malone. The dwelling is enhanced by the retention of the greater part of its historic fabric and detailing, and by its setting surrounded by gardens and fronting onto a leafy suburban avenue. The house owes its special character to the unique Arts and Crafts inspired design of architect and former resident T W Henry.