37 Belfast Road, Holywood, Co. Down, BT18 9EH

A two-storey house with attic, built in the early Victorian period, forming the central unit of a terrace of three identical dwellings on the west side of Holywood. The houses, known as Bellevue Terrace, first appear on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 and are dated by local sources to the mid-1840s, making them the earliest terrace to be built on Belfast Road. The group is notable for its good proportions, restrained ornamentation, and retention of substantial original fabric. It holds historical significance as an early example of residential development in this part of Holywood and as part of a cohesive group of contemporary buildings.

The house is set back from Belfast Road, largely concealed from view by two later nineteenth-century houses. It is rectangular on plan with a lower two-storey rear return, further extended by an outbuilding to the rear. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with angled clay ridge tiles. Two cement-rendered chimneysstacks with moulded caps and five terracotta pots rise above the ridgeline, shared with the adjoining buildings; a further stack serves the return. Gutters are ogee cast iron on moulded eaves to the front elevation and half-round to the rear. Modern rooflights have been inserted to the rear pitch.

The walling is painted with ruled-and-lined cement render over a slightly projecting plinth. A crenellated geometric frieze runs around the building, with a moulded string course at window head level at ground floor and at first floor, rising over the window heads. The principal north-west elevation faces away from Belfast Road and contains three evenly spaced openings to each floor. Windows are generally uPVC casements, though the ground-floor windows retain stop-end chamfered reveals with fluted keyblock detailing and moulding to the jambs, with painted masonry cills. The entrance door is original timber, four-panelled with bolection moulding and beaded muntin, with a plain glazed transom above (glazing original). The door surround comprises panelled pilasters on plinth blocks topped by scrolled foliated console brackets supporting a masonry canopy. Access is via a stone step and threshold.

The left north-east gable is abutted by the adjoining house to the south. The rear south-east elevation opens onto a rear yard enclosed by a tall crenellated rendered wall; the view is limited by the return structure and outbuilding. The right south-west gable is abutted by the adjoining house to the north.

According to Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, the house was occupied by Robert McGee and valued at £26, with accompanying dimensions recorded for a house and two returns. The valuation fell to £17 by 1886. Subsequent tenants included Henry Ferguson (1880), William Shaw (1887), Susanna Shaw (1890), Arthur W H Tripp (1900), Richard Carroll (1903), Thomas R Briggs (1910), Anna Boyle (1927), and Katherine Wallace (1929). A valuer's note from 1911, following a complaint, records the accommodation as comprising five bedrooms, two small attics, a boxroom, one dressing room, and three reception rooms, with an annual rent of £32. A contemporary neighbour's account suggests the house and the adjoining No. 35 may once have been used as a private school, though no supporting evidence has been found.

The setting comprises a gravel forecourt with a former garden on a lower level to the north, now overgrown and inaccessible. The rear yard is accessed via a narrow alley between the terrace and houses to the south, and is enclosed by a tall rendered wall with a timber-sheeted door set into a round-headed niche. An accompanying plan sketch from Griffith's Valuation indicates that the house has undergone little significant alteration or addition since the mid-nineteenth century.