Culloden Hotel, 142 Bangor Road, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 0EX

The Culloden Hotel is an asymmetrical two-storey, three-bay sandstone house built in the Scots Baronial style, constructed in 1876–7 to designs by the architects Young & Mackenzie. It stands on the north side of the Bangor Road on the shores of Belfast Lough, and is one of the finest surviving examples of a Scots Baronial mansion house in the region, despite significant later alterations and extensions. The building was constructed by contractor James Henry for William Auchinleck Robinson, a stockbroker who named the house after his wife, whose maiden name was Culloden. Its construction was announced in The Architect on 8 December 1877.

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION

The walling is of Glaslough sandstone with white Scotch (Giffnock) stone dressings, laid as squared uncoursed rock-faced sandstone — coursed to the projecting bays — over a projecting plinth, with ashlar sandstone quoins. According to contemporary accounts, most of the stone came from Scotland by boat, was landed at Portaferry and brought by horse and cart to the site at Craigavad; the building took two years to complete, during which time Robinson lived in a small cottage in the grounds. The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles and finials. Ogee-profile rainwater goods are carried on moulded sandstone eaves. The polygonal cluster chimneystacks are arranged in groups of three. Gables have raised verges on kneeler stones, detailed with ornate finials and figurative carving. All windows are one-over-one timber sliding sashes with horns, set in bead-moulded ashlar sandstone surrounds with foliate carving to the lintel soffits; ground floor sills are flush-chamfered, first floor sills are projecting sandstone.

PLAN FORM

The house is L-shaped on plan, with a three-stage entrance tower and a series of two-storey rear returns. A single-storey early English-style chapel, dating from 1910, is attached to the south. Substantial three-storey extensions were added later to the east and south, which dwarf the original house to some extent.

PRINCIPAL (WEST) ELEVATION

The entrance elevation faces west and is dominated by the three-stage square-plan entrance tower, which is chamfered to its upper stages and finished with a castellated parapet over a trefoil frieze. The stages are separated by moulded string courses. To the left is a full-height canted bay. The right bay is set back and carries a semi-circular ashlar sandstone oriel, supported on an ornately carved corbelled base, positioned above a cusped stained glass window. This window was formerly one of a pair; the one to the left is now obscured by a single-storey extension built into the re-entrant angle.

The entrance itself consists of pointed arch openings set in a double-rebated ashlar sandstone surround inset with paired colonnettes having ornate capitals carved with foliate detail. The door is a sixteen-panelled oak door with a brass knob and a central bell, with a fixed glazed tympanum above, all reached by three sandstone steps. At the first stage of the tower, paired windows are flanked by a sandstone balconette on a base supported by carved sandstone brackets. The south elevation of the tower displays a coat of arms plaque carved in deep relief with a label mould. The north elevation of the tower has a narrow window. The second stage has a triple round-headed window to the west and single round-headed windows to the north and south.

NORTH ELEVATION

The north elevation has a slightly projecting right bay and a canted bay to the left. The left and central bays are abutted at ground floor level by a modern conservatory extension, and the original facade has been pierced and opened into it. The right bay is abutted at ground floor level by a semi-circular projecting bay surmounted by steel railings over a trefoil architrave. Ground floor windows on this elevation are framed by paired colonnettes with ornate capitals and shared architraves. At first floor level there is a triple window, and at attic level a diminutive paired window.

EAST AND SOUTH ELEVATIONS

The east elevation is completely abutted by the three-storey extension. The south elevation comprises, from left: the two-storey projecting canted end of the L-shaped block; a gabled stairwell return; and, set further back to the right, an additional two-storey return with lean-to extensions, now obscured. These returns are obscured at ground floor level by the single-storey chapel, which is set at an oblique angle and abuts the canted bay end at its right. The stairwell is lit by double-height paired lancet windows, each containing cusped sandstone tracery and surmounted by a circular window, all in stained leaded glass. The chapel has a pitched natural slate roof with raised cement skews; its walling matches the main house, with a cement plinth, and its windows are diagonal lattice with in-situ cement surrounds. The south-west elevation is three windows wide; a linking block has a single window and is abutted at its south-east end by a modern linking extension to the new wing.

ARCHITECTURAL DETAILING

The architectural detailing is largely intact throughout, incorporating Gothic and Scottish Baronial styles. The stone carving is of superior quality. The staircase windows contain glass by Heaton, Butler & Bayne, and other windows are by Ballantine of Edinburgh.

INTERIOR

Although the internal layout has been altered, the original floor plan is still discernible and the historic fabric of the principal ground floor rooms survives. The original layout and historic fabric of the first floor has, however, been compromised. A 1933 valuers' report records the ground floor as containing a hall, drawing room, study, dining room, writing room, the chapel (by then dismantled), a store, service pantry, maid's bedroom, kitchen, rooms for boots and coals, a larder, scullery, pantry, morning room, butler's pantry, and a cloakroom with WC and washbasin. The main staircase was of pitch pine and led to a large landing. The first floor had five bedrooms, a writing room, dressing room, bathroom and WC. Ten steps down were a maid's bedroom, a closet, bathroom and WC; a further seven steps down were a billiard room, playroom, bedroom and maid's bedroom. On the second floor were an attic, a tank room, and a room in the tower with a spiral stair to the tower roof. Several outbuildings were also recorded at that time, including greenhouses, a byre, a stable, a motor house and a vinery.

SETTING

The house is set in mature grounds overlooking Belfast Lough. A tarmacadam driveway and car park lie to the west and south. The former entrance to the west retains its polygonal ashlar sandstone piers with foliate carving and pointed caps, though the central pier has been removed. Curved boundary walls of rock-faced stone are surmounted by cast-iron railings, with large polished granite entrance signs to the hotel. Hedge boundaries enclose the other elevations. The original grounds on the Lough side have been retained and the setting is largely unspoilt from that aspect. The original gate lodge to the south-west has survived and is now used as offices; together the house and lodge form a significant group.

HISTORICAL NOTES

Robinson died in 1884, and after his wife Elizabeth Robinson's death in 1889, the house was taken over by the Church of Ireland as the Bishops' Palace for the Bishops of Down, Connor and Dromore. The Reverend Thomas J. Welland, who had been bishop since 1892, is recorded as the occupier in valuation records from 1900, having moved in around 1898. His predecessor, Dr William Reeves, had rented Conway House at Dunmurry from the Barbour family until his death in 1892, after which Dr Welland had lived at Ardtullagh, near Redburn in Holywood. (Prior to that, the church had sold the previous palace in Holywood to the War Office in 1886, on the site of which Palace Barracks now stands.) Dr Welland, who was the son of ecclesiastical architect Joseph Welland, died at Culloden in 1907.

His successor, the Right Reverend John Baptist Crozier, added the chapel to the south facade during his residence. The architect was W. J. Fennell, and timber from Bishop Jeremy Taylor's pulpit at Magheralin was incorporated. The chapel was dedicated on 7 August 1910. Percy French, the songwriter and entertainer, was a frequent visitor during this period, and the Bishop became godfather to one of his children. Bishop Crozier's successor from 1911, the Right Reverend Charles F. D'Arcy, requested a review of the valuation; the resulting report includes a plan and dimensions of the building showing the new chapel, and the valuation was reduced to £200 in 1912.

According to Brett, the house was sold during the episcopate of Dr Grierson, who became bishop in 1919. Around 1923 it became the property of Sir John Campbell, a Belfast consultant surgeon and gynaecologist. He was senior surgeon at the Samaritan Hospital for Women, consulting surgeon at the Belfast Maternity Hospital, and author of a textbook on obstetrics and gynaecology. He was one of the first doctors in Belfast to perform caesarean sections, at a time — in 1911 — when the maternal mortality rate from the operation was 13.2% in Ireland. He served as Ulster Unionist MP for Queen's University between 1921 and 1929 and was knighted in 1925. After his death in 1929, his widow and children continued to live in the house until 1959. The house was requisitioned by the War Department in the 1940s; in 1945, following derequisitioning of the buildings, the War Department retained some of the grounds.

In April 1959 the house was purchased for £10,000 by Ulster farmer Mr Thomas C. Reid, then Chairman of the Northern Irish Ploughing Association. In 1962, Mr Rutledge White of White's Home Bakery Ltd and White's Milk Bar in Rosemary Street, Belfast, bought Culloden for £18,500 and opened it as a hotel, at which time the chapel was converted into a bar. William Hastings acquired the property in 1967, since when substantial alterations and extensions have been made.

In 1981, a large extension was added to the rear to designs by Alan Jones of Belfast, comprising two floors of 21 double rooms each and four additional deluxe suites, joined to the lower hotel foyer by a glazed link garden way; extensions to the kitchen, dining room, function lounge, bar area and grill bar were carried out at the same time by contractors J. Kennedy and Co. of Coleraine. An octagonal pool and fitness suite, the Elysium Leisure Complex, was designed by Ken Scott and added in 1990. In 1994, Alan Jones served as architect for a further refurbishment creating a new feature staircase, more spacious lounge, new cloakrooms, a new reception area and an extended kitchen. In 1995, 20 new bedrooms and new conference facilities were added, with Savage Brothers as contractors.