Glenbank House, 118 Princetown Road, Bangor, County Down, BT20 3TG

Glenbank House is a large two-storey Victorian house built around 1890 to designs by Young & Mackenzie, located in Bangor West on Princetown Road. The house overlooks Belfast Lough towards Bangor Esplanade and stands adjacent to the listed building Seacourt.

The building has a principal rectangular plan with two large wings projecting to the rear, together with further additions and abutments. The roof is natural slate with pitched and hipped form, leaded ridge and hips, overhanging timber moulded eaves with panelled soffits. The gable ends feature decorative fretted barge boards with sexfoil and pentafoil detailing, projecting purlins and brackets. Cast-iron ogee moulded gutters and circular down pipes drain the roof. Red brick chimneystacks, stretcher-bonded with cement rendered bases, are surmounted by reconstituted stone cornices with circular terracotta pots.

The external walls are of red brick in Flemish Bond with cement panelled long-and-short quoins, a cement plinth, and reconstituted moulded cill and string course. Windows are 1/1 timber sliding sashes with horns, set in reconstituted stone moulded surrounds with central key-blocks; a continuous cill course runs to the ground floor with console brackets supporting first floor cills.

The front door is Palladian in style, framed by a single-storey portico partially in antis. The door is a timber replacement with an arched fixed light above, flanked by a pair of arched side lights. The surround features pilasters rising to a dentiled cornice and moulded head with corbelled key-stone. Sandstone Ionic columns flank the steps up to the portico.

The principal north-east elevation is symmetrically arranged with a central bay surmounted by a gablet, flanked by two slightly projected gabled bays. The central bay contains paired ground floor windows with matching diminished windows above. The side bays are two-storey canted bays, rendered in smooth cement with matching surrounds rising to a corbel course and hipped roof, all beneath the gable barge boards.

The south-east elevation is two-storey and two-bay, arranged asymmetrically. At ground floor, a flat-roofed single-storey abutment with balustraded parapet runs the full width. The left bay at first floor has a slightly projecting gable with paired arched windows; the right has a single square-headed window. The abutment includes a former principal entrance to the left with a portico, a single window to the right, and three closely positioned windows to the curved easternmost corner. The south-west face contains an arched window to the left with a square-headed opening to the portico to the right.

The south-west rear elevation is abutted by two returns and partially enclosed by a walled yard containing outbuildings, some incorporated into the house. The exposed central section has a casement window at ground floor with an arched window above. The right return has a hipped south-west face abutted to the left by a single-storey lean-to outbuilding and has two windows on the right surmounted by a window and a broad arched window; its north-west face comprises a door and window on each floor. The left gabled return is abutted to the south-west by a two-storey extension added around 1920. The exposed section has a window to each floor on the right; the projecting hipped south-east face comprises three windows on each floor. The extension is detailed to match the main block with moulded string between floors; its gabled south-west face has two windows on each floor, and its south-east face has two first-floor windows with the ground floor obscured. The north-west face is entirely abutted by a further extension also added around 1920.

The north-west elevation is asymmetrical, with a two-storey segmental bow-bay on the left lit by three windows at each floor, and three further non-uniformly arranged windows to the right on ground and first floors. A modern single-storey hipped porch stands at the re-entrant of the projecting extension, with a modern door and surround to the north-west face and a single window to the north-east. A two-storey extension to the far right has a notable rounded ground floor corner supported at first floor by a 45-degree bracket, with two first-floor windows and one ground-floor window on the north-west face; a window at ground floor right and a casement window at first floor left on the north-east face; and two windows on each floor on the south-west face.

The setting comprises much development in Bangor West from around 1880 onwards, with the house set among large detached and semi-detached properties. The front land has been substantially developed. Behind the house is a tennis court and small pavilion installed around 1930. To the north-west is a row of six garages, five of which retain original timber doors. A former chauffeur's house, now under separate ownership, and a formal arched entrance dated 1890 (no longer in use) are located adjacent to the present entrance. The current entrance gates are robust stucco moulded piers surmounted with finials. A small patio adjoins the front lawn, which slopes down towards a bungalow erected around 1990 at the front of the site. A large rendered brick wall stands to the south-east adjacent to Marine Gardens.