137 Cavehill Road Belfast BT15 5BL

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey, double-fronted detached house of 1875, probably by Young & Mackenzie, with gabled roof, brick and stucco façade, and a pair of canted bays.

SETTING Suburban, at the junction of Cavehill Rd and Kansas Ave, roughly 3km N of Belfast City centre. The property faces W into Antrim Rd Waterworks and retains practically all of its original garden plot, though the rear portion of this has been concreted to serve as a parking space. The plot is enclosed from the street (N and W) sides by a privet hedge with a vehicle gateway (with W-I gate) to the NE and timber pedestrian gate a few metres W of this.

GENERAL The house consists of a main gable-ended block with a lower, roughly centrally positioned, two-storey, gabled return with varying ridge height. A single-storey garage / shed abuts the S face of the return; this has been created by roofing over the yard to this side. The corresponding yard to the N of the return is untouched.

FRONT (W) ELEVATION Symmetrical. The central entrance is encased with painted render (or painted stone?) pilasters, a frieze and cornice, and a recessed timber door screen with a panelled door, sidelights and overlight. The entrance is flanked by flat-roofed canted bays finished in painted render (or stone?), each topped with parapet with cornice; the roofs of both bays are not identical and may not be original. There are plain timber sash windows to each facet of each bay set on a continuous sill. The first floor has five windows with the outer windows grouped more closely (i.e. almost paired) and all are set on sill course. A slight roof overhang is supported on a bracketed eaves cornice which continues a short distance along either gable. The façade (outside of rendered areas) is finished in Flemish bond brickwork.

S ELEVATION This and other elevations are finished in garden wall bond brick. The main gable has two ground floor windows (as front) to the centre and right. The side of the garage (the original yard wall) is blank. The exposed upper level of return has four windows, the pair to the – taller - left-hand section are larger, and all have frames as before.

N ELEVATION The main gable is blank. The yard wall has a doorway with sheeted timber door. On the ground floor of return are two doorways (much as previous) to centre left and centre, right of these are two relatively small windows with replacement frames with hopper openings, and to the far right is another doorway [CHECK - no clear view of last door.] To the first floor are two windows of slightly differing breadth to the right (within the taller section), both with 2/2 timber sash frames. There is evidence of an opening having been blocked up to left (on lower section.)

E ELEVATION The garage addition to the right has a large metal sheeted door. The gable of the return and the yard wall are blank. There is a window to the left on first floor of main block with one similar on each floor to right.

ROOF etc The roof of the main block appears to be covered in natural (Bangor Blue) slate, as does the return. There are two brick chimneystacks to main block. The RW goods appear to be mainly cast-iron with some sections possibly replaced with PVC.

Historical information

This house, originally named ‘Edenmore’, was built in 1875 by Thomas Sinclair (1838-1914), then owner of provision merchants firm J&T Sinclair. In 1867 Thomas had inherited ‘Hopefield’, a c.1840s mansion located roughly where Kansas Avenue Flats now stand, which possessed substantial grounds stretching north to south from what is now Evelyn Gardens to Rosemount Gardens, and from east to west between the Antrim and Cavehill Roads. The latter was at that point a semi-rural route that ran alongside the upper part (north of Antrim Rd) of the Cave Hill Railway, a horse-drawn line established in 1832-34 for the purpose of transporting limestone from the quarry on Cave Hill itself to the docks. In the 1860s the gardens of several of the villas that bordered this route began to be opened up for development. Sinclair’s property was the largest of these, and in the 1870s he followed his neighbours in establishing ‘ribbon’ development along the road, followed in the 1880s and 1890s by the creation of streets opening off it to the east, so that by around 1900 Hopefield itself sat within a plot less than a quarter of its original holding, and which was largely surrounded by suburban housing.

Sited along the Cavehill Road periphery of his land, Edenmore was one of Thomas Sinclair’s first developments in the area. It may have been designed by architects Young & Mackenzie, as Sinclair commissioned five houses to be built along the road from this firm in 1875, though the specifications in this instance would appear to relate to terraced and semi-detached two-and-a-half and three-storey buildings. It is first shown on the OS town plan of 1884 with what appear to have been sheds or stabling to the north side (accessed from an additional gateway to the north-east), a conservatory or greenhouse attached to the south, and some small additional structures within the yards either side of the return; on the 1894-95 plan one of the northern structures is marked as a ‘summer house’.

By mid-1896 Kansas Avenue had been cut to the immediate north of the property, slicing off the edge of the garden. This resulted in the removal of the gateway, summer house and other buildings to this side, with the garden plot shown much as today on the 1903 town plan. The conservatory was still present at this date but was taken down sometime before 1931. On the 1960 plan, a small freestanding building is shown within the southern yard, presumably a garage. This was replaced with the present garage to this side sometime between 1973 and 1987.

The property was initially leased to John Boal, a teacher. He seems to have died c.1890 after which Ann Porter (who may have been his daughter) is listed as the occupant in the valuation books. She was followed by Samuel Keightley J.P. in c.1894, John Moat c.1899, and Michael Hughes in c.1900. In the 1901 census Mr. Hughes, a 32yr-old ‘civil service tutor’ (and who established an academy for the training of civil servants in Royal Avenue), is recorded as living here with his younger sister, Lizzie, and five ‘visitors’, with the building itself noted as a ‘1st class’ dwelling with 10 rooms in use. Michael Hughes died in 1909 and in 1912 a J. Hughes (a relative?) is listed as resident, a J. Hanna by 1918, and James D. Laird (‘rent agent’) in c.1923.

Mr. Laird died in 1939 but Edenmore seems to have remained with his family until at least 1952, when ‘this substantially built, well-maintained residence… [with an] unrivalled outlook over Belfast Waterworks’ was advertised for sale. At some point before 1960 it was acquired by William Corran, a dentist who later became an antique dealer with premises in Wellington Place and Arthur Street. After his death in 1966 the house was sold again and a Mrs. M. Moloney is noted as residing here in 1969. It was advertised for sale again in 1975 and T. Cunningham was recorded as householder in 1980.

The property was sold again in 2023.

References – Primary sources
1 OS town plans of Belfast – 1858, 1871-73, 1884, 1894-95, 1896, 1903, 1931, 1938, 1960, 1973, 1987
2 PRONI VAL12B/43C/7, 11 Annual valuation revision books, Belfast ED, St. Ann’s Ward – 1863-96
3 PRONI D2194/66/1 Records of Young and Mackenzie, Chartered Architects – May 1875
4 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’ – various dates 1877-1980
5 PRONI VAL12B/43C/25, 43F/4, 7 Annual valuation revision books, Clifton Ward ED – 1897-1930
6 National Archives of Ireland Census of Ireland - 1901, 1911 (also online www.census.nationalarchives.ie)
7 ‘Irish News and Belfast Morning News’ – 27 January 1909, p.7
8 ‘Northern Whig’ – 20 April 1923, p.5; 30 January 1952, p.6
9 ‘Belfast Telegraph’ – 24 May 1923, p.2; 8 April 1939, p.3; 7 March 1966, p.2; 22 September 1966, p.19; 20 June 1969, p.14; 13 May 1975, p.22
10 ‘Belfast News-Letter’ – 5 December 1951, p.1
11 Information from McGranaghan Estate Agents – March 2023

Secondary sources
12 Harron, Paul, ‘Architects of Ulster: Young & Mackenzie, a transformational practice 1850-1960 (Belfast, UAHS, 2016), p.306

Online sources
13 https://sinclairgenealogy.info/ireland/other-irish-sinclair-families/sinclairs-of-hopefield-house/ (accessed 10 May 2023)

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Edenmore is a substantial, two-storey, double-fronted detached house of 1875, probably by Young & Mackenzie, with gabled roof, brick and stucco façade, and a pair of canted bays. The property is one of the earliest houses to have been built along the Cavehill Road and - in contrast to many of its neighbours - is largely original both inside and out. It also retains practically all of its original garden plot, the latter not only allowing the structure to be largely visible on all sides but also affording it both individuality and a certain quiet gravitas within the wider streetscape. Although not wholly uncommon within some other areas of Belfast, later Victorian houses in this all-round state of originality are relatively rare in this particular part of the city, and this added to the prominent corner setting makes this a building of some importance to its locale.

General comments

Previous LQ HB26/LQ328