22-24 Windsor Park

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Nos 22 & 24 Windsor Park comprises the western half of a terrace originally made up of four dwellings, built 1889 to designs by Robert Watt. Facing south onto Windsor Park, a tree-lined street running E-W between Lisburn and Malone Roads, two main arterial routes due south of Belfast city centre. Group value with its immediate terraced neighbour, nos 26 & 28 (HB26/28/073B), nos 30 & 32 (HB26/28/074A & B) and 34 Windsor Park (HB26/28/075). Whilst not sharing the same architect – nos 30-34 were designed by William Batt – this terrace, the semi-detached pair at nos 30 & 32 and the detached house at no 34 were all built in the late 1880s and when seen together, form a substantial late Victorian red brick group displaying similar stylistic devices, including bold pedimented gabled attics, bay windows and decorative brick and terracotta detailing. Each of individual merit, they make a striking and confident contribution to the Derryvolgie and Windsor Conservation Area.
Red brick, three storey with full attic, originally two houses each of three bays with conjoined rear returns, now converted to a single use (currently, 2017, a nursing home). Nos 22 & 24 (the left hand side of the terrace) is a mirror image of nos 26 & 28, both on an inverted T plan. Natural slate roof, terracotta ridge tiles. Main block to front (S) with ridge running E-W, two dormers, with lower three storey rear return. Single storey hipped roof block to end of the return. Modern hipped roof extension to north-west, aligned with gable end of main block. Large chimney with multiple pots to west gable end, ditto on centre ridge of terrace. Third chimney on north gable end of return. Single-storey square bays to front. Modern extensions to rear at eaves level, including lift shaft. Partially enclosed fire escape rising to full height abutting north-east rear of the main block and east side of the return.

Materials
ROOF: Natural slate to all original roofs
RWG: Generally cast-iron to front, plastic to rear (where seen)
WALLS: Red brick, with decorative brick and terracotta detailing
WINDOWS: Single glazed double hung sliding sash, 1/1 to front, 2/2 to rear and return unless otherwise described.

Front Elevation(S)
Symmetrical to eaves level. Built off brick plinth with underfloor ventilators. All windows are segmental headed with brick arches, moulded reveals and sandstone cills. At ground floor, two rectangular single storey bays either side of paired doorways reached by three steps (concrete) – the original entrance opening to the west (left-hand side) now a window and the steps replaced by a modern ramp – with round arched timber screened porch between, springing from a central carved timber column, all painted. The porch is supported at either end by carved sandstone corbels. Between the two entrance openings, two tall thin rectangular 1/1 sliding sash ‘sidelights’. Six panelled entrance door, with raised panels and plain fanlight over. Each bay has two windows, with moulded parapet, sandstone coping and flat roof behind. The coping returns onto the face of the building to form a moulded string course and cill to the two central windows. The bay is further defined by a continuous ‘string course’ gutter which runs across the face of the parapet and the eaves of the lean to porch. At first and second floors, six windows in two groups of three. Above the first floor windows, a decorative moulded string course, and to the underside of the second floor window cills, raised apron detailing. Above the second floor windows, a further continuous moulded string course.
Eaves is broken at east end (right hand side) by a pedimented attic dormer, the full width of the original house. Exposed rafter ends with plain bargeboard supported on three timber posts and moulded corbel. Pair of smaller sash windows, with a continuous cill and decorative raised apron, centred on the dormer gable. Decorative egg and dart and dentilled terracotta cornice runs under the eaves at the west end (left hand side). Small timber framed box dormer with a pair of sash windows, wide overhanging eaves supported to the front by timber brackets (all painted), and hipped roof is centred on the roof above the middle of the three windows below. Cheeks (possibly originally lead) appear to be replacement.
Carved white marble plaque with ‘Victoria Gardens’ in ?lead lettering, set in wall at first floor between nos 24 & 26.

Side Elevation(W)
Monumental gable of main block is blank, articulated only by the expression of the two chimney flues which rise in raised brick from ground to second floor at which point they taper in to the chimney on the ridge. Terracotta cornice returns, turning the corner and stopping against the chimney breast.
West elevation of return is abutted for its whole length at ground floor by a single storey modern brick extension, with hipped slated roof, timber windows and double doors, fully glazed above brick plinth. At first floor, return has three modern timber windows in existing openings. At second floor, three 2/2 sash windows. Openings are grouped towards the rear wall of the main block.
West elevation of single storey block abutting the end of the return comprises three large 2/2 sash windows and modern flush timber door.
All openings are plain, with square heads, brick arches and sandstone cills

Rear Elevation(N)
The gable of the broad return (originally two returns facing back to back serving the two houses to the front) sits in the centre of the rear wall of the main block. The west side of the main block (right hand side) has one 2/2 sash window to the first and second floors. The wallhead has been extended in modern brick at eaves level to form a wide, flat roofed dormer. Window openings to the east side of the main block (left hand side) match – the ground floor window is modern. Eaves wallhead also extended on this side to form a second flat roofed dormer giving access to the external fire escape from the attic floor. Original eaves runs between. Immediately below the eaves, two plain timber tripartite 2/2 sash windows, one either side of the ridge of the rear return - these windows originally lit the half landings on the stairs up to the attic. One to the west (right hand side) whilst intact externally, is now blocked internally by the lift shaft. The lift shaft has been extended through the roof, and is visible as a corrugated metal, flat roofed ‘box’, abutting the modern brick dormer. The tripartite window to the east (left hand side) intact externally, is also partially blocked inside (to accommodate the modern glazed screen subdividing the stair at attic level).
Rear gable wall of return is symmetrical, surmounted by wide brick chimney (eight pots, plain brick, no corbel), sandstone coping at verge. Four window openings, two each to first and second floors, all set towards the outer edge of the wall beyond the chimney flues (not expressed externally). To west (right hand side), two 2/2 sashes one above the other. To east (left-hand side), opening bricked up at first floor, above one 1/1 sash.
Rear elevation of single storey block abutting the end of the return comprises new opening with modern flush doors (to boiler), one step up to painted timber sheeted door and modern plain glazed window, both in original openings.

Side Elevation(E)
Main block is completely abutted by adjacent building. Rear return - five irregularly spaced 1/1 sash windows and modern glazed door to rear exit to ground floor. Original openings to first floor have been altered, including a new door opening to accommodate access onto fire escape. To second floor, two 2/2 sash windows, and new door opening. East elevation of single storey block, abutting end of return, has three 1/1 sash windows.
All (original) openings are plain, with square heads, brick arches and sandstone cills.
External fire escape comprises series of metal open tread stairs and landings, partially enclosed by corrugated sheeting.

Setting
Set back from tree-lined street by front garden, hedge boundary with cast iron pedestrian gate and piers from pavement. Large rear garden (now gravelled and used as car-park), accessed by driveway running alongside west gable through painted timber double gates. Entrance to driveway flanked by Victorian-style lamp standards with that to left side enclosed by decorative cast iron railing; all of which appear to be contemporary. Intact, substantial 8ft brick boundary wall with stone saddleback coping to west and north. Remnant only of original boundary wall with neighbour on east side (no 26) survives – otherwise modern concrete block.

Historical information

Windsor Park (originally ‘Windsor Park Avenue’) was laid out in c.1873, its line following that of previously taken by a path that ran through a large nursery belonging to ‘Laurel Bank’ (later renamed ‘Bellevue’), a house that stood to the east close to Malone Road. Laurel Bank was built c.1835 within one of the long-established strip farms that originally stretched from the high ground of the Malone Ridge westwards to the Bog Meadows, many of which were converted into small semi-rural demesnes in the mid 19th century, and in turn broken up by the more intensive suburban expansion which gradually spread southwards along the Malone Ridge in the late Victorian era. A large number of these later 1800s streets were created along the boundaries of these former farms / demesnes, but in the case of Windsor Park it is northern and southern boundaries of the building plots either side of the street that mark the respective limits of the older property.

The earliest of the houses to be developed along the new thoroughfare was No.33 in 1873, with nos.42-44 following in 1874, and 11-13 a year later (all since demolished). Much of the southern side of the street was developed within the next two decades, but the land to the north was retained as a nursery into the mid-1890s when it too began to be populated with a mixture of large detached, semi-detached and terraced dwellings.

Nos.22-24 This property, originally two separate dwellings, belongs to a terrace of four – ‘Victoria Gardens’ - built in 1889-90 to designs by Robert Watt for James Hetherington, a linen manufacturer of the ‘Broadway Damask Company’, who himself lived in ‘Canmore’ (since demolished) on the opposite side of the Windsor Park. Early letting advertisements for the group describe each house as possessing ‘three reception rooms and seven bed rooms, cloakroom, lavatory etc; all fittings first quality; garden in front; also garden and conservatory in rear’.

The first occupant of no.22 (originally 1 Victorian Gardens) appears to have been J.G. Leathem (of the Northern Banking Co. Ltd.), followed by John Hunter and Miss Mary Lindsay in 1897; however, in the 1901 and 1911 census Miss Lindsay is recorded as occupying the house with two domestic servants, with no mention of Mr. Hunter, the house itself noted as a 1st class dwelling with 12 rooms in use. Hunter and Lindsay continue to be noted as the occupants up until at least 1924, with H.H. Mussen, ‘Crown Solicitor’, living there in 1932 and remaining until c.1956. J.C. Davison was resident between c.1956 and c.1991.

No.24’s first occupant was Clyde Kirkwood, followed in 1897 by Thomas Hall (‘chief accountant of the Belfast Banking Co. Ltd.’), Mrs. Frederick Little by 1899, and Moses Wilson (‘secretary of Belfast Bank’) in 1901. In the census of that year, the household is noted as consisting of Mr Wilson and his wife, Elizabeth, their seven children and two domestic servants, with the building itself, like no.22, a 1st class dwelling, but with 10 rooms in use rather than twelve. By 1911 Mr. and Mrs. Wilson plus four of their children were still there, along with two new domestic servants, and the family continued to occupy the property until c.1920 when the they were succeeded by J.P. McCoy, an auctioneer, whose family remained there until the mid-1950s when the property was divided into three flats. It remained as such until the early 1980s when the building was converted to a nursing home (‘Victoria Residential Home’) which, early in the following decade was amalgamated with no.22

References – Primary sources
1 ‘Northern Whig’, 3 June 1889, 9 December 1890, 15 January 1894, 13 January 1896
2 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1890 to 1996
3 PRONI VAL12B/43D/14, 1882-96
4 PRONI OS8/30/4/53 OS town plan of Belfast, 1896 [Oddly, although the terrace was completed by late 1890, it is not shown on the 1896 OS town plan. It does appear on that of 1903, however.]
5 PRONI VAL12B/43DA/36, 1897-1905
6 PRONI VAL7B/14/15 valuation of Belfast, 1900
7 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [online]
8 PRONI OS8/30/5/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1903
9 PRONI VAL12B/43P/3, 1906-15
10 PRONI VAL12B/43P/7, 1916-30
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.186

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

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

Evaluation

Substantial red brick end & mid terrace, formerly two dwellings now amalgamated into one property, three-storeys high with full attic, built 1889 to designs by Robert Watt as part of a terrace of four originally known as ‘Victoria Gardens’. Facing south onto Windsor Park, a tree-lined street running E-W between Lisburn and Malone Roads in south Belfast. Special interest is enhanced by group value with its immediate neighbours: nos 26 & 28 (HB26/28/073B); the semi-detached pair nos 30 & 32 (HB26/28/074A & B); and the detached no 34 Windsor Park (HB26/28/075). Whilst not sharing the same architect – nos 30-34 were designed by William Batt – these buildings form an impressive late Victorian red brick group displaying similar stylistic devices, including bold pedimented gabled attics, bay windows, decorative brick and terracotta detailing. Each of individual merit, with well tended, treed front gardens, they make a striking and confident contribution to the Derryvolgie and Windsor Conservation Area. No 22 & 24 retains its plan form and significant original fabric, particularly to the main front block. Whilst the changes necessary for its conversion to a nursing home have been fundamental, including the replacement of the second stair with a lift and extension at eaves level to the rear, the building is sufficiently robust to accommodate these without loss of special character. Entrance gate, gate posts, lamp standards and railings add further quality and style.