24 Ashley Ave

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey with attic terraced house, built c1871 and possibly to designs by Luke Livingstone Macassey, although this cannot be confirmed with certainty. Rendered façade with canted bay, paired entrance aedicule, two-over-two paned sliding sash windows and natural slate roof. Two-storey gabled return built at half-landing level to rear, abutted by lean-to glazed conservatory (of little historic interest). Site slopes N-S so that rear yard level sits half-storey lower than front entrance. Facing north on Ashley Avenue, one of a series of densely populated streets comprised of similarly scaled terraced and semi-detached properties off Lisburn Road, south Belfast. Group value with adjoining No22 & 26 Ashley Avenue (HB26 28 054A & C), three of original five surviving with No 28 & 30 demolished between 1959-70. Slightly wider than its neighbours, No.24 incorporates a shared passage running front-back with an additional first floor window. Set within Lisburn Road Area of Townscape Character; in vicinity of an early Christian occupation site (ANT 061:014).

Natural slate roof (Bangor Blue) with black clay ridge tiles, including rear return. Two gabled dormers to front, with glazed cheeks and uPVC side-hung casement windows; and two modern skylights to rear slope. Three rendered chimneys; two centred on ridge to main roof with corbelled caps: one shared with No22 having six octagonal yellow clay pots and the other shared with No26 having five; and a third to rear return, more modest with render repairs and modern flues. Projecting eaves course on paired block modillions to front. Simpler projecting eaves course to rear, with UPVC half-round gutter on rise-and-fall brackets.

Materials:
ROOF: Natural slate, including return.
RWG: uPVC gutter and downpipes.
WALLS: Render with stone dressings, all painted.
WINDOWS: Single glazed double hung single glazed sliding sash with 2/2 panes (N); uPVC top-hung casements (S, E & W) in original openings.

Front Elevation (N):
Asymmetrical: single storey canted bay with parapet roof to left; entrance to right at ground floor paired with door to communal access passage; and three equal-sized windows at first floor. All openings are square headed. Walls rendered smooth, and painted, with lines indented up to first floor cill height to resemble rusticated stone; dressings highlighted in contrasting colour: continuous cill, moulded string, head and cornice to bay; entrance aedicule; first floor moulded window surrounds and cill course; and projecting eaves. Moulded string course at attic level painted to match main walling. Entrance with multi-paned over-light and timber framed door, multi-paned above mid-rail and with bolection moulding to raised and fielded panels below, brass letterbox, likely to be original. Adjoining entrance to access passage with rippled glass over-light and timber framed four-panelled door. Each door has an aedicule comprised of panelled sides and lintel, decorative scrolled console brackets; continuous projecting hood with moulded cornice over both doors and twin pediments above.

Rear Elevation (S):
Three bays wide, with bay to left above access passage having single window at first floor, two-storey gabled return abutted by single-storey extension to centre; flush painted timber hatch at basement and one window each at ground and first floor to right side. Main building has single window above return at half-landing level to attic. Smooth rendered walls, painted with projecting stone cills and eaves course.
South elevation of return: blank with clipped eaves; ground floor abutted by lean-to conservatory, behind which modern timber door and uPVC casement window remain within rear wall of return.

East Elevation:
No.22 (HB26.28.054A) abuts east elevation of main building. East face of return has informally arranged openings. Ground floor: uPVC door flanked large uPVC casement windows. First floor: three windows, two equal-sized and a third smaller.

West elevation:
No.26 (HB26.28.054C) abuts west elevation of main building.
West face of return: blank save for single window at first floor, offset to left (N); and single window centred at ground floor, with no cill.

Set back from pavement by rendered wall, painted with precast concrete coping; front garden surfaced in precast concrete paving slabs. From historic maps, terrace built with rear yard for each property, communal passage and then individual gardens beyond; gates between gardens remain (that to No22 appears to be cast iron and according to previous owner of No22, it was salvaged from a horse paddock c.1980); passage now gone. To right of return, yard surfaced in square quarry tiles, probably original; lawn and planted borders beyond; and rendered boundary wall.

Historical information

Background - Ashley Avenue was laid out sometime between 1858 and 1860, its course, unlike most others in this area, falling within the plot of one the long-established strip farms which stretched from the what is now University / Malone Road to the Bog Meadows, rather than following one of the boundaries. The earliest property to be built along its length appears to have been that referred to in a Belfast News-Letter notice of August 1860, as a ‘new detached house, now being finished in Ashley Avenue...with front and back parlour, drawing-room, and five bed-rooms...having gas and water and a large garden’. This was ‘Ashley House’, no.30 (now demolished), which was originally freestanding, but which became an end of terrace property when nos.22-28 were built to the eastern side of it in 1870-71. Prior to this, Alexandra Terrace (nos.41-47) had been added at a right angle to the northern side of the street in 1863, no.49 (now demolished) in 1864, nos.4-14 (several demolished) and no.57 in 1868, and nos.53-55 in 1871. Nos.33-39 followed in 1873, 15-27 in 1890, 3-11 in 1892, 16 in 1893, 13 in 1894, but much of the street to the west of this consists largely of c.1920s / 1930s semis, but with a long terrace of rough similar date to the far western end, and Fane Street School, a R.S. Wilshire-designed complex of 1927. In more recent years there has been significant redevelopment within the longer-established eastern section of the street.

The street was probably named in tribute to Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 8th Earl of Shaftesbury (1831-86), who in 1857 married the Marquis of Donegall's heiress, Lady Harriet Chichester.

No.24 – This house and its similar, but non-identical neighbour (no.22) were both built in 1871. The developer was Samuel Clotworthy who had plans for ‘two houses in Ashley Avenue’ approved by Belfast Corporations’ Town Improvement Committee in June 1870. The identity of the architect is uncertain. Luke Livingston Macassey, the Carrickfergus-born ‘architect and engineer’ then of 71 High Street, Belfast, s noted as having worked on plans for a pair of dwellings somewhere in this street in 1871, but it is uncertain which houses these were, or if indeed they were ever built.

The earliest occupant of the property appears to have been Edward Robinson, with the sequence of residents afterwards as follows, W.F. Boyd (‘clerk of union’) c.1873-79, Mrs. Ross c.1882-93, William M. Johnston (‘commercial traveller’) c.1893-95, and James Ripley (‘clerk’) c.1895-99. Charles Kerr Gibson, another ‘commercial traveller’ who became resident c.1900, is recorded in the 1901 census as occupying the property his wife, Nessie, baby daughter and a domestic servant, whilst the 1911 census notes that by that stage the Gibsons’ household had increased to five chidren and two domestic servants, with the building itself noted as a 'first class' dwelling with 7 rooms occupied. The family vacated no.24 sometime around 1920, and the building is noted as vacant in 1924. By 1932 Misses E and I Fellows were in residence, remaining until at least 1951. Miss Edith M. Atkinson was occupant from before 1960 to the later 1970s. J.A. Martin appears to have been the next resident, there from c.1978, until at least 1996.

References – Primary sources
1 ‘Belfast News-Letter’, 16 August 1860
2 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1860 to 1996
3 PRONI VAL12B/43D/6 annual valuation revision book, 1862-82
4 ‘Northern Whig’, 2 June 1870
5 ‘Belfast Morning News’, 17 May 1871
6 PRONI OS8/30/2/48 OS town plan of Belfast, 1871-73
7 PRONI OS8/30/3/48 OS town plan of Belfast, 1883-84
8 PRONI OS8/30/4/48 OS town plan of Belfast, 1896
9 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [online] (House details page unavailable for 1901.)
10 PRONI OS8/30/5/48 OS town plan of Belfast, 1903
11 OS maps various sheets at 1:1250/2500 scale, 1920-85 [online]

Secondary sources
1 Carleton, S.T., ‘The growth of South Belfast’, (unpublished QUB MA thesis), 1967
2 Larmour, Paul, ‘The Architectural Heritage of Malone & Stranmillis’, (UAHS, 1991), p.28
3 Dictionary of Irish Architects [online]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest
R. Age

Evaluation

Two-storey with attic terraced dwelling, built 1870, possibly to designs by Luke Livingstone Macassey, although this cannot be confirmed with certainty. Facing north on Ashley Avenue, it has group value with No.22 & 26 (HB26.28.054A & C); the three properties are rendered in different colours, embellished with stucco detailing. They stand apart within the Lisburn Road Area of Townscape Character as good examples of late Victorian architecture. Well proportioned with canted bay, entrance aedicule and two-over-two paned sliding sash windows, the additional bay at No24 incorporating a shared rear access passage adds to its interest. Replacement rear windows detract from its authenticity to some degree, although original openings remain. Inside, the plan form is largely unaltered with a wealth of historic features intact. Archaeological remains, reputedly from an early Christian occupation site (ANT 061:014) were discovered in 1975 in an excavation of the cellar of No22. Ashley Ave.