Linden Lodge, 1 Marino Park, Old Quay Road, Marino, Cultra, BT18 0AN

Linden Lodge is a detached two-storey stucco villa built around 1830 to designs by the architect John Millar. It stands at the junction of Marino Park and Old Quay Road, Holywood, within a group of similarly styled dwellings forming a distinctive neo-Tudor enclave on the North Down coast. The house was built for Thomas Ward as one of a cluster of bathing villas, representing some of the earliest speculative residential development in this part of the coastline and reflecting the growing enthusiasm for coastal leisure among the wealthy merchant classes of Belfast. The original plan layout and fabric appear to survive in large measure, making the house a significant element within its group.

The building is cruciform on plan, with the principal entrance facing west and a truncated southern arm extended at ground floor level by a modern sun room. The roofs are finished in natural slate with angled clay ridge tiles, and the gables have raised fractables with saddleback masonry copings. The chimneystack arrangement is a particularly lively feature: twin stacks rise from ground level flanking a gablet to the west; two stacks are corbelled out from first-floor level to either side of the principal south gable; and elsewhere octagonal flues sit on square stacks above mock-machicolation detailing. All stacks carry white pots and are finished in a diamond or lozenge pattern. Rainwater goods are half-round cast iron.

The external walls are finished in ruled-and-lined stucco painted white, over a chamfered plinth. The south elevation has a triple dogtooth moulding and a string course between floors to its projecting section. Windows are generally replacement timber multi-pane double side-hung casements with chamfered reveals and cills; those to the principal elevations have label moulds above them. Slender buttresses and pointed gables contribute to the picturesque Gothic character of the composition.

The principal entrance elevation faces west and is gabled to the right. A single-storey porch sits in the re-entrant angle and has a buttress at its corner and a Tudor-arched timber door of vertical panels, reached by a stone step. The gable carries a window to each floor. To the left, the elevation is more irregular but is dominated by a window set into a gablet flanked by chimneystacks, with a blind triangular-headed niche at ground-floor level between the stacks.

The north gable has a canted timber bay window at ground-floor level with a window above it. The left cheek of this gable is blank, with a chimneystack rising from ground level. To the north-east internal angle there is a single-storey projection mirroring the entrance porch in form and dimensions, with buttresses and a rebated chamfered window opening containing a triple lancet window in a timber frame on either side.

The east gable has an exposed basement level that opens onto an enclosed yard bounded by metal railings and reached by a flight of stone steps. At basement level there is a set of multi-pane timber patio doors, with a window to each floor above, the ground-floor one having been enlarged. The south gable is abutted at ground-floor level by a modern conservatory extension with Gothic glazing, and has a window at first-floor level.

The house is set within a small enclosed garden planted with mature shrubs, with mature tree and hedge boundaries, a gravel turning circle to the west, and access from Marino Park.

The historical record of the house is well documented. It appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 captioned as "East Cottage", shown among a number of villas within a single plot. It is listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828 to 1840 as a "house and offices", the property of Mr Thomas Ward, valued at £16 14 shillings. Writing in 1837, Samuel Lewis described the wider development: "There are several good lodging-houses in the village and its environs; and from the increasing number of visiters [sic], several houses in detached situations and chiefly in the Elizabethan style of architecture are now in progress on the Cultra estate, by Thomas Ward Esq, after designs by Millar. These houses are sheltered with thriving plantations and beautifully situated on a gentle eminence commanding a richly diversified and extensive prospect of Carrickfergus bay, the Black mountain, Cave hill, the Carnmoney mountains and the town and castle of Carrickfergus, the view terminating with the basaltic columns of Black Head." However, the Ordnance Survey Memoirs record the houses as already complete by 1834 and note that they "have been built for the bathing season, when they are generally filled from Belfast."

By the time of Griffith's Valuation of 1856 to 1864, the occupier is recorded as Captain Richard Hoskin and the property is described as a "house and lawn", valued at £32. A sketch plan drawn in the margin of the valuation fieldbook corresponds closely to the plan of Linden Lodge. It is worth noting that while one secondary source identified Linden Lodge as the house occupied by Thomas Ward himself, other primary sources suggest that Brook House was in fact Ward's own residence.

During the later 19th century and into the early 20th century, the house became increasingly difficult to let, a decline possibly linked to the growing popularity of Bangor as a seaside destination following the arrival of the railway there in 1865. The house stood vacant for a period after 1867, then was occupied by Thomas H. Wilson in 1880. Its rateable valuation fell to £23 in 1886, suggesting some deterioration. Hugh Adair — also the occupier of The Cloisters during this period and possibly the publisher of Hugh Adair's Belfast Directory — is recorded as occupier in 1907, and the house was again vacant in 1914.

Martha Butler became occupier in 1919, when the valuation was reduced to £19. Valuers' notes from that year record the accommodation as comprising two reception rooms, three bedrooms and a bathroom with hot and cold water, but state that the windows were "nearly all broken" and the house had been "lying vacant for a long time." By 1911 John Baird is recorded in occupation. In 1933 the house was known as "Ashville" and occupied by George Sanderson, leased from Sir R. J. Kennedy and later from H. J. Harris. The valuation was raised at this time to £30. The accommodation then comprised two reception rooms, a kitchen, scullery and WC on the ground floor, and three bedrooms and a WC on the upper floor, with a disused kitchen in the basement. The house was supplied with gas and well water via a pump, and there was a separate motor house within the plot.