37 Farmhill Lane, Farmhill Road, Marino, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 0AG

37 Farmhill Lane is a mid-terrace, two-storey, two-bay red-brick former coastguard cottage, built around 1870 to designs by Enoch Trevor Owen of the Board of Works in Dublin. It forms the officer's end of a coherent coastguard estate at Marino, situated east of Farmhill Road to the north-east of Holywood town centre. The plan is L-shaped.

EXTERIOR

The roof is hipped natural slate with blue-black angled ridge tiles. The brick chimneystack has sandstone dentilled eaves, and the bargeboard is decorated with quatrefoils. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are carried on projecting eaves. The walls are laid in Flemish bond red brick with a yellow brick dog-tooth string-course and ornamental stone dressings to the windows; the rear is finished in smooth render.

The windows are pointed-headed multi-paned timber sliding sashes to the principal elevations, with 6/6 timber-framed sliding sashes with horns to the rear.

The principal elevation faces west. To the right is a projecting bay containing two windows on each floor; the exposed section to the left has a carved stone angled pistol loop. To the left is a recessed entrance bay with a timber-sheeted entrance door beneath a pointed-headed transom light.

The north elevation has a small square-headed window to the left at first-floor level. To the right is a projecting pointed oriel window carried on geometric painted sandstone supports. At ground-floor level there are two small square-headed windows.

The rear (east) elevation has at ground-floor level a replacement timber-sheeted door with transom light to the centre, reached by two concrete steps, with a window to either side. At first-floor level there is a window to the left and a projecting pointed oriel window on geometric painted sandstone supports to the right. A cement-rendered off-shot projects to the right. The south elevation abuts the adjoining building.

SETTING

The house is set back from the road to the west by a lawned garden with a central gravelled pathway, enclosed by a mature hedgerow and accessed through a cast-iron latch gate. Lane access to the north is marked by ashlar gate piers with pointed caps. A large mature garden to the rear is enclosed by hedgerow.

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER AND SPECIAL FEATURES

The architectural detailing throughout the terrace is of good quality and is largely intact, including the weathervane to the top of the watch tower and the carved stone angled gun loops. The oriel windows fitted with gun loops, and originally with wrought-iron shutters, formed part of the defensive arrangements of the station. Following sectarian riots in 1864, gun loops were inserted into coastguard terraces in much greater numbers, and Marino is considered particularly well defended in this regard. In order for crews to be able to defend any part of the station, interconnecting doors were also fitted between the bedrooms on the first floor.

HISTORY AND CONTEXT

The station was built in an area north of Holywood that was relatively undeveloped at the time of construction, surrounded by open fields and the grounds of large villas. The Irish Builder of 15 October 1870 recorded that a coastguard station had been commenced at Cultra, County Down, under the Board of Works, with Messrs J and R Thompson as contractors and quantities prepared by Mr Bermingham. The station is first shown and captioned on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1901, though it first enters valuation records in 1872, when it was valued at £42.

The station was sited inland, without a sea view. According to Charles Brett, this was due to the difficulty of obtaining coastal plots, which had already been earmarked for development following the opening of the railway line to Bangor in 1865. Government correspondence of 1 June 1870 noted that the watchtower was not considered essential to the finished building, on the grounds that villas yet to be built closer to the coast would in any case obscure its view.

The chief architect at the Board of Works was James Higgins Owen, but after 1863 Owen delegated responsibility for design to Enoch Trevor Owen, who is considered likely to have been responsible for the station at Marino. Marino follows the standard layout for coastguard stations of the period: a terrace of houses with a clearly defined officer's house at one end and a watchtower at the other, the latter containing the room where the nightly watch was kept and where the crew's arms were stored.

According to D. Mayne's study of 19th-century coastguard stations, the stations were often built to a standard design with slight amendments according to terrain and the availability of local materials. A typical crew's house had at ground-floor level a scullery of approximately 8 feet by 10 feet fitted with 24 wrought-iron hat and clothes pins, and a living room of approximately 17 feet by 11 feet. Upstairs was a master bedroom of the same dimensions as the living room and two smaller bedrooms. To the rear of the terrace was a yard containing, for each house, a coal shed and a two-seater privy with yellow pine seats. A communal wash house stood in the centre of the row, with wash days allocated by rota. A pump sometimes stood in the middle of the yard.

In 1856 the Coastguard — at that time largely an anti-smuggling force — was transferred to the Admiralty and given additional military functions. Responsibility for building and maintaining coastguard buildings passed to the Board of Public Works, which designed and built over 60 new stations during the following 20 years.

Street directories of the period record a Chief Boatman and four crew at the station. In 1880 the Chief Boatman was John Thompson and the crew were Francis Beggs, James McKeown, William Medden and Cornelius Cronin. By 1892 the command structure had changed, with a Chief Officer, two Commissioned Boatmen and two Boatmen listed. The Chief Officer at that date was Edward Jeffers, who was still in post at the time of the 1901 census.

The 1901 census return shows that Jeffers occupied the house at the western end of the terrace — the present 37 Farmhill Lane — which comprised eight rooms, compared with only four rooms for each of the crew families. All houses were assessed as second class based on their size and construction. Jeffers, who was English-born, lived there with his Scottish wife, five children and one granddaughter. Three of the children had been born in County Wexford, apparently during a previous posting, and a fourth in County Cork. All children over the age of sixteen were contributing to the household income, working as a milliner, a dressmaker, a monitress in a school, and in the linen warehouse business.

The coastguard houses are recorded as vacant in the 1911 census, and it appears that by 1913 the terrace had ceased to operate as a coastguard station and was being occupied as private dwellings, with separate valuations beginning to be given for each dwelling from that date. The valuation of the present house was £10 5s, more than twice that of the houses in the middle of the terrace, reflecting its considerably larger size. Multiple occupants are listed in the valuation records, suggesting the accommodation was shared between several households. From 1913 the occupiers were Levi Edward, Mrs Erskine and Mrs D. Williams; from 1917, Mary Jane Harper replaced Levi Edward while Mrs Erskine and Mrs D. Williams remained. From 1923 the occupier is recorded as William Anderson, and in the same year a motor house is added to the description, raising the valuation to £15.