1 Windsor Avenue North

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey semi-detached Italianate villa, built c.1865, located at the junction of Windsor Avenue and Windsor Avenue North; at the time of survey in use as a childcare facility. The former villa faces north onto Windsor Avenue North, while its neighbour to the South (HB26/28/098A - No.50 Windsor Avenue) faces south onto Windsor Avenue.

Shallow hipped natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles; profiled uPVC rainwater goods to deep overhanging eaves on paired corbel brackets; stucco panelled chimneystacks with corniced caps, also on paired brackets. Stucco walling over a projecting plinth with projecting quoins, band-rusticated to ground floor with platband between floors and string course beneath eaves; single-storey projecting bays have dentilled cornice and flat roofs.

Round-headed window openings to ground floor, segmental window openings to first floor, all with moulded stucco architraves with pilasters, impost moulding, keyblocks and painted projecting masonry cills; ground floor windows have panelled aprons.
uPVC replacement windows throughout.

Front elevation (N):
Principal elevation faces north, and is five bays wide, asymmetrically arranged. To centre (third bay) is a full-height projecting bay, fronted by a canted bay; first bay (from left) has a single window opening to both ground and first floor levels; second has a pair of windows to each floor (those to ground floor in shallow box bay); fourth bay has a single window to first floor over a large late C20 uPVC glazed entrance porch to ground floor (which partially wraps around the central projecting bay); fifth bay has a canted bay to ground floor and a pair of windows over.
East side of N elevation has a large late C20 single storey extension with flat roof.

West elevation:
Shallow box bay to ground floor (largely screened, but appears to have a central garden door), and pair of windows aligned above.

East elevation:
Abutted at ground floor level by 20th C single-storey flat-roofed extension. Exposed façade of first floor has one small window opening on right side.

South elevation:
Abutted by N side of No.50 Windsor Avenue (HB26/28/098A).

Setting:
The pair of semi-detached houses occupy a wedge-shaped corner plot in a suburban
setting, divided between the two houses at west by a hedge, which also bounds the properties from the road.
No.1 has a large car park, with a number of ancillary flat-roofed single storey buildings to east side. It is screened to west by mature trees.

Roof: Natural Slate
Walling: Stucco
Windows: uPVC
Rainwater goods: uPVC

Historical information

The current dwelling house is one of a semi-detached pair at 50 Windsor Avenue and 1 Windsor Avenue North built in 1862-3 by David Taylor, future mayor of Belfast. The architect could not be definitively determined but evidence suggests that the dwellings may have been designed by Thomas Jackson.

An area captioned ‘Windsor’ between the Old Lisburn Road (later the Malone Road) and the New Malone and Lisburn Road (now Lisburn Road) is shown on the 2nd edition OS map of 1859 After 1799 the Marquis of Donegall had begun to extend longer leases to his tenants in the townland of Malone Lower which encouraged building and rebuilding and the gradual suburban spread of Belfast southwards. The Windsor area was acquired by Hugh Wardlow, merchant, and began to be parcelled off for the construction of villas for the mercantile classes.

The 2nd edition map shows several dwelling houses on a triangular plot of land bounded by roads, within the ‘Windsor’ area, the most prominent of which is captioned ‘Bertha’ (71 Malone Road –demolished in the 1990s, although the gate lodge remains). The house (1853 – a new house was built adjacent to an earlier dwelling) and the gate lodge (1877) were both designs of Thomas Jackson (the latter is credited to his partnership with his son), although the gate lodge was rebuilt in 1927. Paul Larmour has stated that this house was positioned at the change from terraces to largely detached house development along the Malone Road, establishing ‘the essentially Victorian character of Malone’. Bertha was built for Scots-born David Taylor, a prominent Belfast merchant (a partner in John Arnott & Co, wholesale and retail woollen drapers, silk mercers and general warehousemen (1865 Street Directory)), chairman of the Board of Guardians and three times mayor of Belfast (1867, 1883 and 1884). Taylor was knighted in 1884, at the ceremonial laying of the foundation stone for Belfast City Library, for his services to the town. He was a founding member of the Benevolent Society of St Andrew and was active in numerous charitable societies, notably as president of the YMCA, a committee member of Forster Green Hospital and a board member of the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Ulster Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind and the Ophthalmic Hospital.

The current semi-detached pair was built on lands to the rear of David Taylor’s residence, most probably by Taylor himself, and first enters valuation records as ‘unfinished’ in November 1862 and complete and occupied by November 1863. The houses are valued at £49 each. Dimensions are given for the two dwellings and the accommodation is described as ‘parlour, dining room, kitchen and three small apartments on the ground floor, five bedrooms, WC and bathroom on the second storey and two small attic rooms in return’. The architect is unknown but David Taylor had commissioned Thomas Jackson several times, both before and after this date, firstly to build his own house in 1853 and later on, Arnott’s warehouse in Bridge Street (1866, destroyed in 1941, rebuilt, closed 1974) and the gate lodge at ‘Bertha’ (1877). The style of the semi-detached pair is consistent with the work of Thomas Jackson.

Valuation books record the first occupier of No 1 Windsor Avenue North, as Charles Bowles, linen merchant and partner in the firm of S G Fenton & Co who had premises in the old White Linen Hall. Bowles was also a JP for County Antrim. After Bowles’ death in 1891, the house next became the residence of John Walker Rodgers, a retired Inspector of National Schools. Rodgers was a widower from County Londonderry and is recorded in the 1901 census living in the house with his nephew, who was a 1st year student at Queen’s, and a general domestic servant. Rodgers was active in the Presbyterian church, specifically Fisherwick, where he was an elder for more than 25 years. He died in 1908, in his eightieth year and appears to have named the house ‘Laurelbank’, as it was advertised for sale under this name in 1909 and is recorded as such in Street Directories for some years. The advertisement describes it as a ‘very desirable residence’ with two large receptions, five bedrooms and ‘all conveniences’. The 1900 Belfast Revaluation shows that 1 Windsor Avenue North was, by that time, slightly larger than its neighbour, with a full height bay to the N elevation, where the neighbouring house has a single storey bay.

Street Directories record further residents as Thomas S Lyttle, manufacturer (1910) and J A Pringle, solicitor (1915). A longer-term resident (1920-1930) was Eustace Stanley Dashwood, director of William Coates & Son Ltd, electrical engineers and brass founders of Belfast. Dashwood was a native of England but joined the firm of Coates as an electrical engineer and rose to become the managing director. He was also known in sporting circles, playing football for some of the best amateur teams in England (Corinthians, Casuals and Old Foresters) and for Cliftonville when he came to Belfast. He had served in the Royal Marine Artillery during WW1 attaining the rank of Captain.

Dashwood was followed by Graham Weir, yarn merchant of Springfield spinning mills, who died in 1954 and from c1960 to c.1985 James F Carberry, an insurance broker with offices in various parts of Belfast, including Donegall Square and University Road, who lived at the house for a lengthy period. An outbuilding was added along the E boundary of the plot between 1937 and 1959. The rear yard of the house was filled in and the original porch removed between 1959 and 1970. The rear outbuildings had been further extended, and a new porch added by 1985.

The house was subsequently purchased c.1986 by Dr Mary Buchanan, a former lecturer in psychology at Edinburgh University, who used the funds from the sale of her business in draught minerals and converted the building to a private day nursery called ‘Wee Care’. Further premises were opened by the Wee Care brand in the 80s and 90s and today Wee Care has locations in the Antrim Road, North Road and Kings Road in Belfast, all housed in historic former dwellings. In recent years the outbuildings along the E boundary have been further extended and the entrance to the property has been moved westwards. The building remains in use as a day care facility.

References:
Primary Sources:
1. PRONI OS/6/1/60/1 First Edition OS map (1823)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/60/2 Second Edition OS map (1859)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/60/3 Third Edition OS map (1904)
4. PRONI OS/6/1/60/4 Fourth Edition OS map (1934)
5. Large-scale OS maps, 1858, 1873, 1896 (https://shop.centremapslive.co.uk)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/D/7General Valuation of Ireland - Annual Revisions (1862-1882)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/D/14 General Valuation of Ireland - Annual Revisions (1882 - 1896)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/36 General Valuation of Ireland - Annual Revisions (1897 - 1905)
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/3 General Valuation of Ireland - Annual Revisions (1906 - 1915)
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/7 General Valuation of Ireland - Annual Revisions (1916 - 1930)
11. PRONI VAL/7/B/14/23 Belfast Revaluation field book 1900
12. PRONI VAL/3/D/3/1/P/77 First NI General Revaluation Binder 1933-57
13. PRONI Street Directories 1863-1995
14. Northern Whig, 3rd November 1862
15. Belfast Newsletter, 4thOctober 1877
16. Ulster Echo, 20th June 1884
17. Ulster Echo, 21st June 1884
18. Ulster Echo, 11th November 1890
19. Ulster Echo, 1st June 1891
20. Ulster Echo, 15th January 1892
21. Lisburn Standard, 1st May 1897
22. Ulster Echo, 26th October 1908
23. Belfast Newsletter, 2nd November 1908
24. Northern Whig, 15th April 1909
25. Belfast Newsletter, 19th August 1911
26. Northern Whig, 12th August 1927
27. Northern Whig, 8th March 1928
28. Belfast Newsletter, 16th April 1936
29. Belfast Newsletter, 5th May 1938
30. Belfast Telegraph, 20th February 1943
31. Belfast Newsletter, 22nd February 1943
32. Belfast Newsletter, 27th October 1987
33. Belfast Newsletter, 4th October 1990
34. Belfast Newsletter, 31st December 2003

Secondary Sources:
35. Carleton, Samuel Trevor (1967) The Growth of South Belfast. Unpublished MPhil thesis, Queen’s University Belfast
36. Dictionary of Irish Architects (www.dia.ie)
37. Dictionary of Irish Biography (www.dib.ie)
38. Larmour, Paul (1991) The Architectural Heritage of Malone and Stranmillis. Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

No.1 Windsor Avenue North is a substantial five bay, two-storey Italianate-style semi-detached villa, built c.1865, located on a wedge-shaped plot at the junction between Windsor Avenue and Windsor Avenue North, just off the Malone Road in South Belfast. It is attached to No.50 Windsor Avenue (HB26/28/098A) on the S side and the pair were part of the first phase of prestigious suburban development, southwards from the city, in mid-nineteenth century Belfast, providing a high quality residential environment for wealthy citizens.
Despite the retention of Italianate detailing, such as stucco, string courses and cornicing, No.1 has been altered for use as a commercial premises, with inappropriate replacement of original timber sliding sash windows and the addition of a flat-roofed extension to the E side, reducing the special interest.The building does not meet the threshold for protection by listing.