The Royal Belfast Golf Club, Station Road, Holywood, Co. Down, BT18 0BP

The Royal Belfast Golf Club Clubhouse, Craigavad, Holywood

The clubhouse of Royal Belfast Golf Club is a former country house built in 1851, designed by the architect Thomas Turner in a restrained Italianate style. Turner had previously worked in the office of Sir Charles Lanyon, and Lanyon's influence is clearly visible throughout the building, particularly in the impressive arcaded central stair hall. The house is square on plan, symmetrical, three bays wide and two storeys tall, robustly proportioned with simple, period-appropriate ornamentation. It sits in extensive grounds at Craigavad on the south shore of Belfast Lough, and now serves as the clubhouse of Royal Belfast Golf Club.

Exterior

The principal entrance elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged, with a window to each bay flanking a central Doric portico. The portico is surmounted by a balustraded parapet and contains three openings divided by pilaster responds with pronounced entasis, each set in a classically styled surround with a moulded stone archivolt rising from pilasters with architrave and plain frieze over. The central opening is a double-leaf timber door, each leaf having two raised-and-fielded panels, flanked on either side by a three-light horizontally divided window. A bell push is fitted to the right. The portico has a stone-flagged threshold. Three narrower windows sit at first-floor level in the centre bay. Two small modern windows have been inserted either side of the ground-floor right window to light WCs.

The west elevation is also symmetrical, with four openings to each floor and a stone balcony supported on paired corbel brackets with a moulded soffit and balustraded parapet. The two central openings at each floor are French doors, each with a tall two-light transom. The ground-floor doors open onto a paved terrace enclosed by a stone balustrade, accessed by two stone steps flanked by urns on circular-section corniced pedestals on square plinths.

The north elevation faces Belfast Lough. Its central bay is bowed and has three windows to each floor. The side bays each have a single window; those to the ground floor are wider. The left-hand ground-floor window is tripartite with stone mullions; the right-hand equivalent has had its mullions removed and replaced with a modern plate glass pane with a top-hung casement.

The east elevation is abutted by a lesser east wing set back-to-back with an L-shaped south return, and extended further east by a large modern extension of no architectural interest. The east wing matches the walling of the main house. The north elevation of the east wing has five equally spaced windows to the first floor and four windows to the ground floor, with the extreme left-hand position abutted by a quadrant porch leading to a small single-storey annexe.

The annexe has painted rendered walling with its roof concealed behind a blocking course over a moulded cornice. It is lit to the north and west by a round-headed 2/2 sash window on each side, set in a rebated moulded reveal with a continuous string course at impost level over banded rustication. The north window is set in a breakfront projection flanked by two blind roundels above the string course. The porch has a four-panelled door with a semi-circular transom, all set in a curved classical stucco surround with entablature and decorative spandrel panels, accessed by three curved stone steps.

The south elevation of the return has four windows to the upper floor and three irregularly spaced windows to the ground floor. At the angle with the main block there is an early 20th-century open porch with cornice and blocking course, over a timber door with glazed panels. The projecting right end has a window to each floor.

Construction and Materials

The roofs are hipped and covered in natural slate, with a lantern to the central valley of the principal block, leaded ridges and hips. Chimneystacks are sandstone ashlar with moulded caps and stepped bases, all fitted with terracotta pots. Stone gutters sit on a heavy moulded stone eaves cornice over a plain frieze to the main block; the minor wings have profiled cast-iron gutters on stone eaves, with some uPVC downpipes. The walling throughout is ashlar sandstone on a bead-moulded plinth, with the ground floor band-rusticated, a moulded string course between floors, and a continuous cill course to the first floor. The south return is painted rendered.

Windows are segmental-headed to the main block and east wing, all set in slightly recessed reveals, moulded at first-floor level. Timber sashes are used throughout in various configurations: generally 2/1 (horizontally divided) to the ground floor and 6/6 to the first floor. The east wing has 1/1 sashes; the return has square-headed 6/6 to the ground floor and 6/3 to the first floor, with segmental-headed 6/6 tripartite windows to the projecting end.

Interior

The interior is well preserved. The original plan layout survives, and the building contains fine period plasterwork. Of particular note is the impressive arcaded central stair hall, which reflects the influence of Charles Lanyon on Turner's design. A grand central hall rising through the full height of the building was incorporated during refurbishment works in 1978.

Setting

The clubhouse is set in several acres of land, landscaped and managed as a golf course, with terraced gardens and lawns to the west and north stepping down to the wooded shore of Belfast Lough. To the east is a large tarmac car park. The site is accessed from Station Road to the west by a long tarmac road, tree-lined at its western end. The gardens, woodland, and uninterrupted views over Belfast Lough have maintained much of the original character and status of the property. An original lodge survives (listed separately) to the site, though it is now separated from the main house.

Historical Background

A house known as Craigavad House was in existence by 1783 as the home of the Pottinger family, among Belfast's founders, Thomas Pottinger having been Town Sovereign in 1661. By 1817 the property had been acquired by Arthur Forbes, and it appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834. The Townland Valuation records Forbes as resident, with the house valued at £35 13s. He was described in 1848 as "an excellent country-gentleman and magistrate…from whose demesne there is an enchanting view of the sea as bounded by the Antrim coast." A relative made an engraving of the house and surrounding countryside in 1844.

Following Forbes's death, the house was acquired by John Mulholland and entirely rebuilt in 1851 to Turner's designs. The contractors were John Kelly and Robert McCready of Belfast, and the estimated cost was £3,379. The rebuilt house appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, and Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 reflects the improvement, raising the value first to £200 and then to £240. The valuer was notably enthusiastic: "A splendid house…very superior. Grounds about house very ornamental" and "A first class house. Stone fronted and in excellent repair – offices also first class. Beautifully laid out grounds." The accommodation at this time comprised the main house with billiard room, laundry, drying loft and kitchen, together with a farmyard with steward's house, barn, piggery and stable. Two gate lodges were each valued at £8.

John Mulholland had inherited his father's flax spinning business and renamed it the York Street Flax Spinning Mills, which became the largest firm of flax spinners, linen manufacturers and distributors in the world. He was also a Justice of the Peace for Antrim and Down, High Sheriff of Down in 1868 and of Tyrone in 1873, Member of Parliament for Downpatrick between 1874 and 1885, and was created Baron Dunleath in 1892.

Annual revisions to the valuation record a reduction to £245 in 1863, noted as a "railway deduction" following the arrival of the railway line to Bangor. By 1869 the house was occupied by George Washington Charters, apparently renting from Mulholland. By 1882 Sir Edward Porter Cowan had purchased the property. During his residence the valuation rose to £300, consistent with a major remodelling of the building that is also evident from the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1900–02. Sir Edward Porter Cowan was a whiskey distiller who was appointed Mayor of Belfast in 1881 and knighted in the same year. He served as Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum for the county of Antrim, and held appointments as Chairman of the Board of the Ulster Bank, Director of the Great Northern Railway, and Director of the Belfast Steamship Company. He died of typhoid fever in 1891 at the age of 47.

The house was subsequently let by the Cowan family to A. M. Kirker, described in 1906 as "probably the largest individual grower of early potatoes in Ireland." In 1910 the house was acquired by John C. White, who went on to become Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1919. Royal Belfast Golf Club purchased the house and surrounding grounds in 1925 for £6,000 from White's widow. The course was designed by the eminent English golf course architect H. C. Colt, who also laid out Royal Portrush. A major refurbishment costing £40,000 was undertaken in 1958, and in 1978 the grand central hall rising through the centre of the building was incorporated. An extension was added in 2000, designed by Barrie Todd Architects to replace an earlier 1960s extension, adding a new informal bar and glazed entrance to the club.