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

The Royal Belfast Golf Club is a symmetrical three-bay two-storey former country house built in 1851 to designs by Thomas Turner. It stands in Italianate style, restrained in character, and now serves as the clubhouse for the Royal Belfast Golf Club. The building occupies extensive grounds at Craigavad on the south shore of Belfast Lough.

The house is square-on-plan with an abutting lesser east wing back-to-back with an L-shaped south return, further extended to the east by a large modern extension. A small single-storey annexe extends from the east end of the north return, featuring a curved porch to the re-entrant angle.

The roofs are hipped natural slate with a lantern to the central valley of the principal block, leaded ridges and hips. Sandstone ashlar chimneystacks have moulded caps and stepped bases, all fitted with terracotta pots. Stone gutters on heavy moulded stone eaves cornices sit over plain friezes to the main block. Minor adjuncts have profiled cast-iron gutters on stone eaves; some downpipes are uPVC. The walling is ashlar sandstone on a bead-moulded plinth, with banded rustication to the ground floor and a moulded string between floors. A continuous cill course runs across the first floor. The south return is painted rendered, whilst the east wing matches the main house.

Windows are segmental-headed to the main block and east wing, set in slightly recessed reveals that are moulded to the first floor. Timber sashes throughout adopt various configurations: generally 2/1 (horizontally divided) to the ground floor and 6/6 to the first floor, with exceptions noted below. 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 a segmental-headed 6/6 tripartite arrangement to the projecting end.

The principal (entrance) elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged with a window to each bay flanking a central Doric portico surmounted by a balustraded parapet. Within the portico are three openings divided by pilaster responds with pronounced entasis, each set in a classically styled surround consisting of a moulded stone archivolt rising from pilasters with architrave and plain frieze. The central opening comprises a double-leaf timber door with two raised-and-fielded panels on each leaf, flanked by a 3-light (horizontally divided) window on either side; a bell push sits to the right. The portico has a stone flagged threshold. Three narrower windows occupy the first-floor centre. Two small modern windows have been inserted to either side of the ground-floor right window, lighting WCs.

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

The north elevation faces the Lough. The central bay of the main block is bowed and has three windows to each floor. Side bays each have a single window; those to the ground floor are wider, with the left being tripartite with stone mullions and the right having had its mullions removed and replaced with a modern plate glass pane with top-hung casement openings.

The east elevation is abutted by the east wing and return. The north elevation of the east wing has five equally spaced windows to the first floor; the ground floor has four windows similarly aligned, except for the extreme left side which is abutted by a quadrant porch leading to the annexe.

The annexe is a single-storey single-bay structure with painted rendered walling and a roof concealed by a blocking course over a moulded cornice. It is lit to the north and west by round-headed 2/2 sash windows set in rebated moulded reveals with a continuous string course at impost level over banded rustication. The north window is set in a breakfront projection and flanked by two blind roundels above the string course. The porch features a four-panelled door with 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. The angle with the main block contains an early twentieth-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.

The modern extension is of no architectural interest.

The clubhouse is set within several acres of landscaped and managed grounds forming a golf course. Terraced gardens and lawns to the west and north step down to the wooded shore of Belfast Lough. To the east lies a large tarmac carpark. The site is accessed from Station Road at the west by a long tree-lined tarmac road.