3 The Crescent, Holywood, County Down, BT18 9AY

3 The Crescent, Holywood, is a mid-Victorian three-bay two-storey mid-terrace house built around 1860 and situated within an informal square. The building is constructed in polychromatic brick, a notable feature in this area, and represents a good example of the type in original condition.

The house is symmetrically arranged on its principal elevation, which faces west towards High Street. It is a rectangular building on plan with a single-storey return and glass-roofed conservatory to the rear. The pitched natural slate roof is topped with rectangular brick chimneystacks having stone plinths and terracotta pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are fitted with drive-in brackets.

The principal elevation displays Flemish bonded polychromatic brickwork with a dentilled brick course to ground level and a cornice to the first floor. The three-bay arrangement contains paired window openings between brick pilasters at ground floor level, with a dentilled cornice continuous with a string course. The central entrance is approached up a bull-nosed stone step and features a double-panelled door with brass door furniture, a transom light, and side lights. Windows throughout are timber-framed 2/2 sliding sash with horizontal glazing bars and stone sills, with yellow brick surrounds of varying detail. The north elevation is abutted by an adjoining building and finished in smooth render. The rear (east) elevation is painted smooth render and contains three window openings to the first floor, with a single-storey return to the right abutted to the south by a slightly projecting glass-roofed conservatory.

The house survives in original condition with its original floor plan intact. The architectural detailing throughout is of quality and is largely intact. The building possesses group value within its own terrace and combines with an earlier terrace located at right angles to form the square, whose informal setting survives in relatively original form.

The property is situated in a secluded garden with mature trees, enclosed by a brick wall with cast-iron electric gates to the north. A small front garden with lawn and shrubbery is enclosed by a polychromatic brick wall and accessed by a stone step with a central paved pathway. The rear garden is enclosed by a rubble stone wall.

The house appears on valuation town plans dating from around 1860 to 1866 and is recorded in the fieldbook of 1864 as one of four new houses nearly finished. These were valued at £24 and leased from Hugh Stewart, possibly the grandson of Hugh Stewart who developed numbers 5 to 8 The Crescent in the 1820s. By 1867 the occupier was James Campbell, a bonded warehouse owner at 13 Corporation Street, Belfast. Matilda Brett subsequently came into residence, and according to Sir Charles Brett's recollections in his 'Buildings of North County Down', his great-grandfather Charles Brett settled his widowed mother and five sisters in this house following his marriage. The youngest daughter emigrated to New Zealand in 1881; their mother died in the house in 1886. The other sisters remained for half a century, with the last of them living here until her death in 1935. The valuation was reduced in stages to £20 by 1884, though no reason for this reduction is recorded. Elizabeth C Brett was the occupier in 1892 and Annie Brett in 1902, with Annie becoming the immediate lessor in 1924.