Ardville, 31 Old Quay Road, Holywood, County Down, BT18 0AL

Ardville is a small, plainly detailed two-storey house dating from around 1830, forming part of a group of three attached dwellings at 31 Old Quay Road, Holywood. The other two properties are Windrush (the main Classical-style residence built roughly fifty years later) and Ardreagh (the former service quarters). Ardville is the oldest of the three and is the origin of the whole site's development. It predates Windrush by approximately half a century and, when the main house was remodelled around 1850, Ardville provided the service wing. Evidence of the historic relationship between the parts survives in the form of traces of former internal access between the houses.

The house is L-shaped on plan. The main front faces west onto the garden, and the rear return, with a small enclosed yard in the re-entrant angle, abuts and runs alongside the main house. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate and there is a blocking course over a painted masonry cornice — which conceals the gutters — to the west front, with contrasting verges to the south gable. The chimneystack is rendered, with moulded caps and terracotta pots. Where gutters are visible, they are half-round cast-iron on the eaves course. The external walls are ruled-and-lined render on a contrasting bevelled plinth.

Windows are generally 2/2 timber sashes — that is, horizontally divided and without horns — with moulded architraves to the west front elevation and projecting contrasting masonry cills throughout. The west front has three windows at first-floor level. At ground floor, the left bay is lit by two closely spaced windows, while the right bay has 1/1 horned sashes.

The south gable is dominated by a large canted bay with a bitumen-covered roof. This bay contains a 1/1 glazed French door flanked by matching sashes with low cills. To the right of the bay is the entrance, which has a multi-pane glazed timber door fitted with ornate brass furniture. The gable continues to the right into the rear elevation of a courtyard outbuilding, which encloses the rear yard and is otherwise blank except for a small timber casement. A bitumen-covered canopy carried on painted masonry uprights spans the gap between the canted bay and the courtyard entrance — accessed via a pointed-arched modern hardwood door — at the far right.

The east side of the main block, which overlooks the courtyard, is lit above the adjoining outbuilding by a 6/6 sash, and beyond that a stairwell extension is lit by two modern leaded and stained glass windows. The south elevation of the return has modern hardwood openings at ground floor and two windows matching the main block at first floor. The outbuilding is detailed consistently with the main block, and the yard is paved and enclosed to the east by the adjoining building.

Internally, the original plan and detailing survive, including later stylistic elements. Signs of former internal access between Ardville and Windrush remain visible.

The house is reached via a gravel drive from Old Quay Road and sits within a large, mature garden setting. The garden boundary with Ardreagh is formed by a rendered wall, and the boundary with Windrush by mature trees and planting. Although the subdivision of the three properties has curtailed the setting to some degree, the garden wall and original access lane are retained.

The history of the site is well documented. The land was bought in 1830 by the Reverend Henry Wallace, Presbyterian minister of First Holywood congregation, along with an obligation to build one or more houses on it within three years at a cost of at least £300. A rectangular building with a return is shown on the site on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834. The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 lists this earlier house as the property of a Mr McCammond — a house and offices valued at £18 16s.

By the second edition map of 1858 the house had clearly been significantly remodelled and appears captioned as "Ardville". This remodelling is believed to have taken place around 1850, carried out either by Theodore Bozi — a linen merchant and consul for Spain and Portugal who occupied the house in 1849 — or by his successor James Lemon. By the time of Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, James Lemon, a ship-owner, ship's chandler and owner of a rope and canvas manufactory in Belfast, was in residence, leasing the property from the representatives of Robert Kennedy in chancery. The valuation describes "a house, gate lodge, offices and land valued at £110", with the valuer noting: "all is lawn and gardens...gardens enclosed and high brick walls...large sheet glass windows all through property, front with pillars and pilasters, very elegantly finished house...a very fine house in excellent repair." Dimensions are given for the house and several outbuildings, including a coal hole, water closet, coachhouse, byre, stable, greenhouse, melon pits, sunken sheds and a gate lodge.

James Barbour bought the house in 1871 for £2,637. He was an engineer and iron-founder of the firm Combe, Barbour & Combe, who operated the Falls Foundry in North Howard Street. During his ownership, the gate lodge was raised a storey in 1894, the coach house was improved, and a small addition was made to the house itself in 1895. Thomas Barbour, the American herpetologist and a relative of James Barbour, published a book of letters in which his wife describes their visit to the house in 1906: "In the afternoon we took an auto and went to Ardville, James Barbour's place...Their house is very large and their place great...We had afternoon tea with them and then old Mr Barbour took me around the place and all through his greenhouses and gave me a huge basketful of the most delicious hothouse grapes I ever ate."

By 1914 William McMullan was in residence, and several further improvements were made, including the addition of a chauffeur's house and an extension to the gate lodge in 1921. Valuer's notes from this period record that McMullan bought the house for £3,600 and spent approximately £4,000 on electric lighting, improving heating, and general works, with papering and painting alone costing between £1,200 and £1,400, and new baths and lavatory basins installed in four bedrooms. A plan and room dimensions were recorded, along with a list of outbuildings including a fowl house, dynamo, gas engine for light and pump, greenhouse, vinery, conservatory, potting shed, a small house and a dry closet — the last of which may have been the chauffeur's house.

After 1933 the property was offered for sale. The accommodation was listed as: hall, breakfast room, pantry, drawing room, dining room, butler's pantry, kitchen and scullery (combined), china and glass room, dairy, smoke room (panelled), wine cellar, and cloakroom on the ground floor; five principal bedrooms (with lavatory basins), two further bedrooms, five maids' bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dressing and linen room, three water closets, a boxroom and two store rooms over the garage on the first floor. A plan showing an aviary was also recorded, and the chauffeur's house in the grounds — with four bedrooms and a kitchen — was listed separately.

Having stood empty for several years, the house was sold in 1936 to Geoffrey Garrod of 32 Deramore Park, Belfast — headmaster of Royal Belfast Academical Institution — for £500, and the valuation was reduced to £138. The Garrods faced substantial renovation costs including new wiring, roof repairs and an additional bathroom, and are noted to have kept a staff of two maids, a boy and two gardeners. By 1938 the house had been extended and the rear portion converted to flats. By 1947, following purchase by Ralph Gordon Cully, a merchant of Belfast, the house had been divided into three. Cully occupied the main front apartments, which were subsequently renamed Windrush. The remainder of the main house retained the name Ardville and appears to have been occupied by Cully's son, R. Cully Junior, and was valued at £76.