95 Victoria Road, Holywood, Co. Down, BT18 9BG

95 Victoria Road, Holywood, County Down

This is one half of a large semi-detached Picturesque-style house, built around 1850 and originally constructed as a model agricultural college. It now forms the left-hand dwelling of a matching pair, its neighbour being 93 Victoria Road. The building first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, where the two houses are separately named 'Burnleigh' to the north and 'Crofton' to the south.

Origins and Historical Background

The building was designed by architect Frederick Darley, who produced a number of model schools and model agricultural schools across Ireland during the late 1840s and 1850s. It was part of a wider model farm movement that began in Ireland in the 1830s. By the late 1840s, the Irish Commissioners for National Education had divided the island into twenty-five districts, each receiving a government grant to establish an agricultural school with an attached model farm. The Holywood Model Agricultural School was in operation by April 1849, but the years of the Great Famine meant it failed to attract sufficient pupils and it closed in 1852. After closure, the building was converted into two semi-detached dwellings, with bay-fronted wings added to each end and entrance porches added to the front. The former entrance hall of the original college remains within one house, with the first floor above it falling within the other. The thickness of the original exterior walls remains visible in the interior, reflecting the building's earlier institutional use.

Occupancy History

Griffith's Valuation (1856–64) records 'Burnleigh' as the residence of John Simms, who leased it from John Hunter. John Hunter junior, the landlord, was a Town Commissioner in Holywood in 1877 and combined business and diplomatic interests, serving as Vice Consul for Portugal and heading the firm John Hunter junior & Co, general merchants and agents for Liverpool and London Fire and Life Insurance Co, with premises in Waring Street, Belfast. John Simms, the first known occupier, may have been a partner in Simms and McIntyre, publishers of Donegall Street, Belfast, a John Simms of that firm being listed in an 1852 street directory as resident in Holywood. An undated newspaper advertisement from the period, found in Griffith's fieldbook, offers the house to let furnished: "Villas in Holywood at Reduced Rent… To be Let, Furnished, the semi-detached Villa of Burnleigh, with separate Grounds, commanding a beautiful view of the Bay, and within ten minutes' walk of the sea. An Omnibus plies from every Train, Fare 2d. Apply on the Premises; or to James Greenfield, Post Office, Holywood." Greenfield served as postmaster between 1842 and 1865. The valuation of the property at this time was £54, with dimensions given for the house and outbuildings, including a porch, water closet and pigeon house.

The property saw several changes of occupier and a gradual drop in valuation through the later 19th century, reaching £35 around 1890. Valuers' notes from 1903 describe the house as "old and liable to non-occupancy," and although a new bathroom had just been installed on the first floor and part of the house had been "raised and improved," there was no rise in valuation. Notes from this time include dimensions and a plan showing the property had by then been extended to the rear and included a conservatory.

Around 1880, Alfred M. Munster and his wife briefly occupied 'Burnleigh' before moving to the adjoining house, 'Crofton'. Alfred Munster combined diplomatic and commercial roles, appearing in street directories as Danish Consul and Vice-Consul representing Sweden, Norway and Liberia, and as head of Alfred Munster & Co, grain, wood, insurance brokers and commission merchants. His wife, Mary C. F. Monck, was a well-known poet and regular contributor to Dublin University Magazine, Bentley's Miscellany, Household Words and Chambers' Journal. She contributed two poems to a collection commemorating the centenary of Robert Burns in 1859 and published her own collection of poetry shortly before the couple moved to 'Crofton'. They married in 1858 and lived in Holywood for the rest of their lives.

The 1901 census records the occupier as Jemmina Hunter, a widow — possibly of the landlord John Hunter — living with her daughter, two sons (employed respectively as a packer and an architect), and a cook from County Monaghan. Between 1903 and 1909, John W. Kempster was in residence. John Westbeech Kempster is described in a 1910 street directory as head electrical engineer at Harland and Wolff. He was present at the launch of the Titanic in 1911, where he spoke at a luncheon for pressmen of his pride in the vessel. Following the loss of the liner, Kempster, by then a Director of Harland and Wolff, again addressed the press: "it seemed only the other day that he was speaking to Captain Smith, and asked him if the old British pluck remained in the seamen of to-day. Captain Smith was seated at the time, and he got up and raised his hand, declaring that if any disaster such as the loss of the Birkenhead occurred again the seamen would go down as those men went down. He had lived to prove his words." By the time of the 1911 census, the occupier was John Wilkinson, a linen collar manufacturer, living with his adult son who followed the same trade and one domestic servant, a widow aged 45. The building has remained in residential use since.

Architectural Description

The house is rectangular on plan, with a slightly later perpendicular projecting east bay featuring a double-height canted bay to the north gable, a rear return, and a rear extension. The central bay of the main elevation is shared between the two houses: No. 95 holds the front portion of the ground floor, while No. 93 holds the remainder.

The roof is pitched natural slate, with rendered chimneystacks having moulded caps and multiple terracotta pots. Fretted timber bargeboards and fascias with pointed finials adorn the gables. Rainwater goods are cast iron. The walls are ruled-and-lined render with stucco quoins and a contrasting base. Windows are generally square-headed 4/4 timber sash; those to the canted bay are segmental-headed 2/4 and 1/2 sashes set within square-headed frames. Reveals are plain; ground floor windows and those to the central gabled bay have label moulds, and all cills are projecting painted masonry.

The principal elevation faces north and has a projecting gabled bay to the left with a full-height canted bay window. The main section of the elevation is four openings wide at each floor, though the first-floor window to the central gabled bay belongs to the adjoining house. The entrance is a four-centred arch, offset slightly left of centre, surmounted by a hood moulding and set within a gabled porch with replacement timber bargeboards and finial. The timber entrance door comprises two elongated bolection-moulded panels flanking a beaded muntin, with cast-iron door furniture and a boot scraper. Each cheek of the porch has a narrow 2/2 horizontally divided window. The east elevation has two windows to the first floor and one to the ground floor.

The rear elevation has a gabled right bay and is variously abutted. To the left is a return shared with the adjoining house, abutted at ground floor by a late 20th-century sandlime brick extension containing shed and utility space. To the centre is an original return substantially extended around 2000 and detailed as part of the house. Between the two is a narrow full-height gabled projection with a modern rear entrance door and a window enlargement above. Fenestration throughout the rear is irregular. The west elevation is abutted by the adjoining house, No. 93.

Setting

The house is set slightly back from the road within a garden setting, with lawns to the front and rear and a tarmacadamed driveway and forecourt. The boundary is marked by mature trees and a rendered boundary wall, with the entrance defined by a pair of rendered gate piers with flat caps and orb finials.