Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/28/073 C

Address :
28 Windsor Park Belfast BT9 6FQ

Townland:
Malone Lower

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
05/10/2017 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
House - Terrace

Former Use
House - Terrace

Conservation Area:
Yes

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
147/5NW

IG Ref:
J3276 7194

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Owner Category

Exterior Description And Setting

No28 Windsor Park, paired with no26, comprises the eastern half of a terrace originally made up of four dwellings, built 1889 to designs by Robert Watt and known as ‘Victoria Gardens’. 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 neighbours, nos 22, 24 & 26(HB26/28/073A & B), 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, three bays wide with three-storey rear return built at half-landing level and conjoined to return at no26 to form a wide gable. Both properties are converted to apartments with four each to front and two in upper floors of shared return. Nos 22 & 24 (the left hand side of the terrace) is a mirror image of nos 26 & 28, both on an inverted T plan. Single-storey gabled appendage abuts return, also shared by no26, with adjoining flat-roofed enclosure - possibly an original walled yard. Natural slate roof with terracotta (red) ridge tiles and finials. Main block with ridge running E-W, hipped roof dormer to front (S), large chimney with multiple pots to east gable end and second chimney on gable end of return. Modern roof-lights: one at front and two at rear slope. Materials ROOF: Natural slate RWG: Cast aluminium to front, plastic to rear (where seen) WALLS: Red brick in Flemish bond, with decorative brick and terracotta detailing WINDOWS: Timber, single glazed double hung sliding sash, 1/1 panes to front, 2/2 panes to rear unless otherwise described. Front Elevation (S) Asymmetrical. Chamfered brick plinth with underfloor ventilators. All openings are segmental headed with brick arches, moulded reveals and sandstone cills. At ground floor, rectangular single storey bay to right (E) of arched entrance screen to lean-to porch; latter shared with no26 springing from a central carved timber column with sheeted timber privacy screen behind. The porch is supported at either end by carved sandstone corbels. Six panelled entrance door, with raised panels and plain glass over-light; tall thin sidelight to left of door (sliding sash with 1/1 panes). Ground floor projecting bay has two windows, with raised parapet, sandstone coping and flat roof behind (not seen). The coping returns onto the face of the building to form a moulded string course and cill to first floor windows. The bay is further defined by a continuous gutter, which runs across the face of the parapet and the eaves of the lean to porch. Three windows each at first and second floors, diminishing in height. Above the first floor windows, a decorative moulded string course rises to form a hood; 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 highlighted in decorative egg and dart and dentils in terracotta. Small box dormer centred on the roof contains pair of uPVC windows; wide overhanging eaves with boarded soffit (all painted),. Cheeks boarded in either uPVC or timber, dark grey in colour (possibly originally lead). Side Elevation (E) Monumental gable of main block is largely blank, articulated only by the expression of the two chimney flues which rise in ground to second floor at which point they taper at sides and form a central arch below red brick chimney on the ridge. Walls rendered, painted to match brick and ruled and lined. Terracotta cornice returns from front elevation and stops against the chimneybreast. Small side hung casement windows off-centred at first and second floor appear to be later and together with plastic SVP suggest either kitchens or bathrooms on reverse side. East face of three-storey return is informally arranged. Ground floor: from S-N has a four-panelled door and five equally sized windows at ground floor (all original frames and single glazed with some replacement textured glass); first floor has a replacement uPVC window (white), two original sliding sashes (2/2 panes) and paired uPVC casement windows (white) near gable end; and second floor has one original window, two replacement timber framed double-glazed top hung casements within original openings and paired matching casement windows near gable end (black). Wider openings near gable end have concrete lintels and cills suggesting a later intervention. East face of gabled appendage has three windows, original and matching ground floor windows in return. Flat roofed enclosure has sheeted timber door, painted, with concrete lintel. All openings are plain, with square heads, brick arches and sandstone cills. Rear Elevation(N) Three-storey gabled return, shared with no26, placed centrally between the two properties. Left (E) of return, no28 has one window each at ground, first and second floors and above return, a single window at attic level. 1/1 panes to ground and first floor sliding sashes; 2/2 panes to second floor. 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 left (E), no 28 has original sliding sash window at second floor and replacement top-hung double glazed window at first floor, painted black to match with mock central glazing bar and applied horns to resemble original style. Single storey gabled appendage abuts ground floor; blank with clipped eaves and joined by flat roofed enclosure. Side Elevation(W) No26 abuts west elevation, including return. Setting Set back from tree-lined street by front garden; boundary is not defined. Large mature tree dominates front lawn, shared with no26. Tarmaced drive to E aligned with hedging and some timber fencing to rear. Tarmaced path to entrance, with three modern tiled steps spanning porch to nos 26 & 28. Large rear garden now gravelled and used as shared car-park with no26. Intact, substantial eight-foot high, boundary wall in red brick with stone saddleback coping to north. Modern concrete block wall aligns W boundary with no24.

Architects

Watt, Robert

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 Ridge in the late Victorian era. A large number of these later 1800s streets were created along the boundaries of the 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. No.28 Windsor Park This property 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. Oddly, although the terrace and its eastern neighbours were completed by late 1890, it is not shown on the 1896 OS town plan. It does appear on that of 1903, however. 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.28 (originally 4 Victorian Gardens) appears to have been John McClinton (‘retired soap merchant’), who in the 1901 census is noted as sharing the house with his wife, Mary Ann, their two grown-up children, Mrs McClinton’s brother in law, George H. Thomson, and a domestic servant. The McClintons were followed in 1907 by Rev. James Little, a Presbyterian minister who in the 1911 census is recorded as the occupying the house along with two domestic servants. Rev. Little was succeeded as resident c.1915 by Miss Jane McNeill, who was still living there in 1932, with 1943 Misses M and A Park were in residence by 1943. The property is recorded as vacant in 1951 and at some point in the next decade was split into three flats, increasing to five flats in the early 1970s 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 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

Historic Interest

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

Evaluation

End terrace, red brick dwelling, 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. Group value with its immediate neighbours: nos 22, 24 & 26 (HB26/28/073A & B); 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 – they form a substantial 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, they make a striking and confident contribution to the Derryvolgie and Windsor Conservation Area, significantly enhanced by the mature trees within front gardens. Internal subdivision to form self-contained apartments has resulted in some loss of plan form and replacement windows in the rear return detract from its character. Nonetheless, no28 remains significant as part of a strong group, fabric is largely intact, and as a whole it is a very good example of late Victorian domestic architecture in Belfast.

General Comments

Date of Survey

02 June 2017