1 Tudor Park, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 0NX

A two-storey semi-detached house built around 1850 in brick and sandstone, located south of Bangor Road in Holywood. It is a fine example of mid-nineteenth century merchant housing and forms part of Tudor Park, a notable group of six houses built by Henry Murney, a successful tobacco merchant.

The house is L-shaped in plan with a two-storey return and single-storey extensions to the rear. It features a hipped natural slate roof with tall brick chimneys topped with terracotta pots and stone plinths. The walls are constructed of Flemish-bonded red brick with painted sandstone quoins and plinth. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods run along painted sandstone eaves.

Windows are timber-framed sliding sashes with horizontal glazing bars, with 1/1 glazing to the ground floor and 2/2 to the first floor except where otherwise stated. Ground floor windows have moulded sandstone surrounds with round-arch pediments topped by decorative scrolled console brackets and projecting sills on squared console brackets. First floor windows have painted sandstone lugged and moulded surrounds with projecting sills on console brackets. A canted bay window to the principal elevation features moulded surrounds divided by Doric pilasters to the plinth, with decorative scrolled consoles to the architrave and a hipped roof.

The principal northwest elevation comprises, to the left, a canted bay with hipped roof to ground floor and a single opening to first floor. The right bay, slightly recessed, is two openings wide at both levels. The northeast elevation is the main entrance, featuring a central projecting porch opening to the south with symmetrical single openings to north and south. A slender round-headed 2/2 sash window with horizontal glazing bars sits to the right of the south opening. A simple timber door is located to the far south. The porch has round-headed windows to north and east set into a moulded surround with projecting sill and keyblock. At the corners are moulded Doric pilasters with base and console brackets with Doric capitals. The architrave is topped by a raised moulded cornice and small pediment. The entrance door has six bolection-moulded raised panels with brass furniture, a moulded architrave, and is accessed by a single deep stone step.

The rear elevation comprises a two-storey return to the left, with a projecting gable abutted by a two-storey return to the right. The left return contains a Diocletian window to the first floor, and a small projection with pent roof and modern timber-framed window to the first floor, abutted at ground floor by a single-storey L-shaped extension. The right return has two openings at each floor and is abutted by the single-storey L-shaped extension, with a further modern extension to this.

The house sits on a leafy private lane at the entrance to Tudor Park. Stone gate piers with cement render and cast-iron gates mark the entrance, with a further set of painted masonry piers and simple stone caps beyond. A shared pebbled driveway serves both this property and the adjoining semi-detached house. There is a garden to the front and a large mature garden to the rear. The pair of houses are separated by simple hedgerows to front and rear and enclosed on all sides by hedgerow and trees.

Henry Murney, a successful tobacco merchant with business premises on Belfast's High Street, developed this area of Holywood in the mid-nineteenth century. From the 1830s and 1840s, the district bounded by Bangor Road, Victoria Road and Croft Road became popular with wealthy businessmen and merchants. The elevated terrain outside the town allowed substantial villas to be set within four or five acres of prime woodland, landscaped to resemble small country estates, while commanding unrivalled views of Belfast Lough and the County Antrim hills. This locality became unofficially known as High Holywood. The three pairs of semi-detached houses comprising Tudor Park were first shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1858, alongside a gate lodge at the Bangor Road entrance. The gate lodge and castellated gates were lost when a private housing estate was built in the grounds during the 1970s.

In Griffith's Valuation of 1856-64, the house was occupied by Edward Pim and leased from Henry Murney, valued at £56. The valuer noted it as a "Brick house, neatly got up but not large", commenting on the "Good red brick houses with stone dressings and quoins". A small greenhouse was recorded in the garden. Edward and George Pim were listed in the 1861 Belfast street directory as tea dealers, wine importers and general grocers with premises in High Street. Edward Pim was a Quaker whose death was announced in The British Friend in 1878. Murney subsequently let the property to various tenants, including Mary A Carson (1887), James McGee (1900), Isabella O'Rorke (1906) and Charles W Leathem (1915). The rental value declined to £42 by 1891, possibly indicating lack of repair. Frederick Hoey became the lessor by 1909, following Henry Murney's death in 1907.

The house retains historic detailing of superior quality and craftsmanship, representing the expansion of Holywood in the mid-nineteenth century. Although its setting has been compromised by modern development, the six houses of Tudor Park form a notable group and exemplify the type of fine merchant villas that wealthy Belfast businessmen were building at this period.