7 Walnut Court

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A symmetrical three-bay, one-and-a-half-storey red and yellow brick cottage once terraced, now detached; built c. 1860 and restored 1985; located to the south side of Walnut Court south of Donegall Pass in Belfast city centre. Rectangular on plan with two box-bay windows to front.

Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles; tall red-brick chimneystacks with yellow brick detailing and three tall clay pots. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods on projecting timber eaves with decorative brackets to gables. Walling is Flemish-bonded red-brick to front and stretcher-bonded red-brick to rear with yellow brick quoins and dressings. Windows are a variety of timber-framed sliding sash with projecting masonry sills; 1/1 elongated triple windows to box bays.

The principal elevation faces northwest; box bays under truncated catslide roof to either side of central entrance; decorative plasterwork to soffit at porch. Original entrance door with four-raised-and-fielded panels (top panels are round-headed), beaded muntin kickboard and original ironmongery. Door is flanked by round-headed leaded side-lights with panelled aprons, all divided by pairs of pilasters; surmounted by entablature with pulvinated frieze and cornice. Geometric tiles to porch.

The northeast gable has two segmental-headed 2/2 windows with flat brick arches to first floor; 2/2 window to centre at ground floor.

The southeast (rear) elevation has irregularly arranged fenestration; timber-sheeted door to left of centre with diminutive 2/2 window under eaves; 4/4 window with side-lights to far left; to centre first floor is a 2/2 window with sidelights and a diminutive 2/2 window; to right are two further 2/2 diminutive windows at ground floor.

The southwest gable has two 2/2 round-headed windows at first floor; 2/2 window to ground floor right; round-headed blind window to ground floor left.

Setting:
The
setting has completely changed since the house was built in the late nineteenth-century; retained during redevelopment of the area in the 1970s the cottage is now situated at the heart of a late twentieth-century housing executive estate. Lawned garden to rear enclosed by a red-brick wall. Paved yard to either side of house enclosed by red-brick wall and timber-sheeted gates. Lawned garden to front with red and black tiles to path, enclosed by low red-brick boundary wall.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Flemish and stretcher-bonded red brick
Windows: Timber-framed sliding sash
RWG: Cast-iron (replacement)

Historical information

Coyle’s Place first appears on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey map for Belfast in 1858 which also depicts two cottages (Cromac Lodge and Cromac Cottage) within the Earl of Donegall’s estate off the Ormeau Road; however Rose Cottage was not completed until November 1862 when it was first noted in the Annual Revisions, valued at £15. The valuer recorded that Rose Cottage was let by a Mr. Thomas Ferguson (possibly a trustee of the Earl of Donegall’s estate, although this is unknown) to John Coyle, a grocer and spirit dealer who operated from premises on the Ormeau Road and presumably gave his name to Coyle’s Place (Belfast Street Directory – 1861). The Annual Revisions indicate that Coyle resided at Rose Cottage until c.1905, however the Belfast Street Directories record that Coyle had vacated the house by 1877 when a Mr. David Abernathy, a draper, was occupying the cottage.

By 1901 occupation of Rose Cottage had passed to a Mr. William John Gillespie, a Presbyterian bread server, who lived there with his wife and five children. The Census Building Return of that year described the cottage as a 2nd class dwelling which consisted of six rooms. The cottage lay vacant in 1908, however in 1910 a Mr. Robert Thornberry, a gas stoker, was recorded as occupant; with this change of occupant the value of Rose Cottage was reduced slightly to £14. By 1905 the cottage had been purchased by a Mr. Charles McManus (this was likely Charles McManus, a publican and horse supplier, recorded on the 1901 Belfast Street Directory) who continued to let the cottage until at least the 1970s. Robert Thornberry did not remain at Rose Cottage long and after his departure the cottage continued to be sporadically occupied; in 1918 a Mr. James Adams was in possession, although both he and his wife Mary Jane Adams died by 1923 leaving the dwelling vacant once more (Belfast Burial Records - 20 Apr 1920; PRONI Wills Catalogue – 30 Mar 1923).

By 1930 the house was occupied by a Mr. D. Wilson. Wilson was employed as a ‘red leader’ in the Belfast Shipyards (a red leader painted red lead oxide paint onto the metal surfaces of ships to prevent them from rusting) and his family continued to occupy Rose Cottage until the 1970s (Belfast Street Directories). During the 1935 general revaluation of property in Northern Ireland the value of Rose Cottage was increased to £18; a second revaluation of the cottage took place from 1956 at which time its value had slightly increased to £20. Wilson’s son John was also employed in the shipyards as a boilermaker and resided at the cottage in Coyle’s Place until at least 1970. The cottage was briefly occupied in the 1980s by a Mr. Patrick Dunne but in the mid-1980s it fell vacant when Hearth Housing Association took possession and carried out an extensive renovation.

Rose Cottage was originally constructed in 1862 in a (then rural) area south of Belfast which was part of the estate of the Earl of Donegall. Patton states that it was one of four cottages ornees constructed in the Earl’s land. The other three dwellings were Cromac Lodge and Cromac Cottage (erected prior to 1833), and Havelock Cottage which was contemporary to Rose Cottage having been built c. 1860. However, the once secluded cottages were enveloped by the expansion of the town southwards c. 1870 and the construction of additional houses on Coyle’s Place 1873-90. In 1880 an adjoining redbrick dwelling was added to Rose Cottage’s south-west gable.

In the 1970s the majority of buildings on Coyle’s Place were flattened as part of a redevelopment scheme of the Donegall Pass area undertaken by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Saved from demolition, Rose Cottage was listed in 1985 and in that year was renovated by Hearth Housing Association. The renovation included the restoration of the south-west gable (with the removal of the adjoining c. 1880 dwelling) and the complete replacement of the back wall and many of the roofing slates; Hearth completed the renovation of Rose Cottage in 1986 and since that time it has continued to be used as a private dwelling (Patton, p. 325; Hearth Housing Association projects website)

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1832-33
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 1901-02
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1931
5. PRONI OS/6/1/61/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1938
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/3 – Annual Revisions 1863-1881
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/24 – Annual Revisions 1882-1896
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/26 – Annual Revisions 1897-1905
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/41 – Annual Revisions 1906-1915
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/43 – Annual Revisions 1916-1930
11. PRONI VAL/3/B/3/1 – First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1935
12. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/8 – Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1956-1972
13. Belfast Street Directories (1861; 1877; 1880; 1901; 1907; 1908; 1910; 1918; 1921-22; 1930; 1940; 1950; 1960; 1970; 1980; 1990)
14. Census of Ireland (1901; 1911)
15. Belfast Burial Records (1920)
16. PRONI Wills Catalogue (1923)

Secondary Sources

1. Patton, M., ‘Central Belfast: An historical gazetteer’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
2. First Survey Record – HB26/30/099 (1983)

Online Resources

1. Hearth Housing Association Website - http://freespace.virgin.net/hearth.nireland/RoseCottage.html

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
U. Historic Associations
X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

A detached symmetrical one-and-a-half-storey red-brick cottage built c.1860. Situated at the heart of a late-twentieth-century Housing Executive development, and located south of Donegall Pass in Belfast city centre. The cottage sits comfortably within a courtyard development and creates an element of architectural distinction in an otherwise ordinary housing development. Sympathetically restored in 1985 by Hearth Housing Association, the cottage once formed part of an adjoining terrace. Despite the cottage requiring extensive alterations to one of its gable walls following demolition of the terrace, much of the cottages original character has been retained. The simple detailed exterior houses a fine example of mid-nineteenth-century craftsmanship with ornately carved plasterwork throughout. Of architectural and historic interest, Rose Cottage is also of considerable local interest.