The Grey House, 60 Station Road, Craigavad, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 0BP

The Grey House is a detached, classically styled two-storey three-bay house with a concealed basement and attic, built around 1855 on an elevated position on the south shore of Belfast Lough, east of Holywood, on the south side of Station Road, Craigavad. It is a building of good architectural quality and local historical interest, notable for its classical proportions, original layout, and survival of fine detailing.

EXTERIOR

The house is square on plan and built in ruled-and-lined render, painted grey, with rusticated quoins, a plinth, a frieze with elongated panels, and an architrave. The roof is hipped natural slate with rolled leaded ridges and hips, leaded dormers, and rendered chimneystacks with stepped caps and multiple pots at the centre. Gutters are concealed behind an eaves cornice and lead-capped blocking course; downpipes are cast iron.

The windows throughout are one-over-one timber sash with horns, set in architrave surrounds with bracketed cills. Those to the ground floor have corniced hoods over a decorative panel.

The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged with three openings to each floor, centred on a single-storey classical porch. The porch has paired pilasters to the front supporting an entablature with blocking course; each side elevation of the porch has a plain-glazed window flanked by single pilasters. The entrance door is an original four-panel door with bolection-moulded raised-and-fielded panels and a beaded muntin, fitted with a lion's head knocker and decorative brass knob, within a moulded architrave surround and decorative transom. It is approached by four bull-nosed sandstone steps.

The north elevation is symmetrical, with four openings to the first floor and two wide canted bay windows to the ground floor. The canted bays are two windows wide on their main face, each with an entablature incorporating decorative detailing consistent with that found elsewhere on the house. The east elevation has three windows to each floor; the ground-floor window to the right is set in a box bay with a pilaster surround. The west elevation is abutted by the kitchen extension.

EXTENSIONS AND PAVILION

To the south-west, a single-storey pavilion is linked to the house by a kitchen extension and a replacement conservatory. The pavilion is detailed to match the kitchen extension and features round-headed Serliana or Palladian-style windows to its north and south elevations. The kitchen extension is single storey with a flat roof concealed behind a blocking course with decorative detailing; walls match the main house, though some windows are replacements, including some in uPVC. There is a more recent extension to the north end of this range.

The exposed section of the west elevation includes a mid-level round-headed stairwell window with replacement leaded glazing, glazed French doors giving access to a fire escape at the left, and a window to the right.

SETTING

The house is set back from the road within extensive grounds comprising lawns, shrubberies, and a tennis court, elevated above the south shore of Belfast Lough. Access is via a winding lane to a tarmac forecourt; there are no surviving gate piers. The former gate lodge is now a separate residence and retains few features of interest.

HISTORY

The house first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, captioned "Olinda", shown as a rectangular dwelling with a porch, with a bathing house nearby. Griffith's Valuation of 1860 records it as the property of William Stevenson Mitchell, leased from the Representatives of Robert S. Kennedy, and valued at £100 together with a gate lodge, offices, and land. The valuer's notes describe it as having four good rooms, a kitchen, a basement, and six or seven bedrooms, commenting: "A fine block of a house in excellent repair. Grounds nicely laid out, but inferior approach...not so improving looking as Mr Crawford's but [more room?] in it."

The valuation rose substantially in the 1870s to £127, and this increase appears to coincide with the construction of the west extension, which includes the conservatory and pavilion — the latter later used as a billiard room. This extension is shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1900–02. The 1877 Street Directory records "Olinda" as the residence of Joseph and William S. Mitchell, of Mitchell Brothers, linen yarn merchants with a spinning mill on the Crumlin Road, Belfast. In 1864 William S. Mitchell was also a director of the York Street Spinning Mills.

The house remained in the Mitchell family, passing to John Mitchell in 1887 and to Joseph Mitchell in 1913, continuing to appear as "Olinda" on maps through to the fifth edition of 1938–41. By 1933 the valuation had fallen to £108; valuer's notes from that period record the house as having "painted walls" — the same phrase used to describe the walls of the nearby Ardnalea (which features fine Italian painted decoration). As William S. Mitchell was the immediate lessor of Ardnalea, it is possible that the walls of Olinda were at one time painted in a similarly decorative manner.

In 1951 the house was purchased for £14,000 by Henry P. Lenaghan, a shipowner of Henry P. Lenaghan and Sons, 66 Corporation Street, Belfast. Lenaghan obtained a building licence for £5,500 of alterations and spent a further sum on garden works, including £600–700 on a hard tennis court and fencing around the entire curtilage. The alterations were carried out to designs by Blackwood and Jury and included a new single-storey wing with a rooflight, which infilled the courtyard and outbuildings to the west and contained a maids' room, pantry, kitchen, bathroom, and store. Lenaghan also had new fireplaces installed in all rooms, central heating put in, the house redecorated throughout, and new bathrooms fitted with "superior sanitary suites", raising the valuation to £150. According to the International Shipping and Shipbuilding Directory of 1958, Henry Patrick Lenaghan was at that time Chairman of Henry P. Lenaghan and Sons (Nassau) Ltd., Chairman and Managing Director of Irish Bay Lines Ltd. and Green Isle Shipping Ltd., and a Director of Comber Produce Co. Ltd. and George Flack and Co. Ltd.

The current Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in 1967, shows the property renamed "The Grey House". A new house on the plot now bears the original name "Olinda". The dates of the most recent additions could not be ascertained at the time of survey.