90 Church Road, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 9BX

90 Church Road, Holywood

A two-bay, three-storey end terrace house built around 1870, forming part of a five-house terrace near Holywood town centre. The building is set back from the road behind a small garden with paved pathway, enclosed by hedge and cast-iron railings with gate.

The house is rectangular on plan with a two-storey return to the rear and a two-storey canted bay to the front. The walls are constructed in Flemish bond red brick, with the canted bay finished in painted stone. The pitched roof is natural slate with brick chimneys featuring moulded painted masonry plinths, multiple flues and terracotta pots; a brick gable chimney rises from the rear return. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are set on sandstone corbelled eaves.

Windows are timber-framed 1/1 sliding sash with sandstone moulded lugged surrounds, flat brick arches and painted sandstone cills. A continuous cill course runs across the upper floors. Bay windows are decorated with console brackets to their sills. The principal southwest elevation has triple window openings to the left bay (those at ground and first floor contained within the projecting canted bay with dentilled eaves), paired openings to the upper floor, and single openings to the right bay. The entrance door, in the right bay, has four bolection-moulded raised-and-pointed panels with brass furniture, surmounted by a transom light beneath a sandstone pediment on scrolled console brackets. A sandstone architrave surrounds the door, which is accessed by a single bull-nosed stone step.

The rear elevation is abutted by the two-storey return. The exposed section of the right bay has 6/6 sash windows at each floor; the left bay has multi-paned windows at each floor. A gable with modern uPVC window to ground floor contains a timber door providing access to the yard. The southeast gable is blank. The rear return has a single timber-framed 2/1 sliding sash window to first floor and two diminutive glass brick openings with painted masonry lintel at ground floor.

The terrace was constructed between 1867 and 1870 on land previously shown on valuation town plans dated around 1860–1866 as pasture leased by William Brown from Andrew Cowan. The houses first appear in the valuation book for 1867–79, listed as newly built and initially vacant. By 1870 three were occupied, leased from Robert and Daniel Reade. All houses were initially valued at £28 each, reduced to £25 by 1883 following appeal. By 1880 the terrace became known as 'Riverston Terrace', taking its name from nearby Riverston House. The current house was occupied by M Stewart Burnett in 1870, Joseph Mills by 1887, and the Reverend John Connell (curate of Holywood parish from 1889 to 1896) by 1890. Edith Eliza Payne occupied the house from 1906 until 1930.

The house retains its original character and robust detailing. The terrace is a good example of the larger Victorian terraces that formed part of Holywood's development in the later 19th century and represents an important group of period residential architecture.