Royal Ulster Yacht Club, 101 Clifton Road, Bangor, Co Down, BT20 5HY

Royal Ulster Yacht Club

A two-storey building with attic and tower, designed in the Tudorbethan style by Vincent Craig and built around 1899. The club is located on an elevated coastal site east of Bangor town centre, overlooking Belfast Lough towards County Antrim. The building has an irregular floor plan with various extensions and alterations carried out around 1930, 1960 and 2000.

The pitched roof is covered in rosemary tiles with crested ridge tiles and finial stop-ends. Exposed timber rafter tails are visible at eaves level, with timber barge boards. Cast-iron ogee moulded guttering features circular downpipes and vent pipes. Tall red bricked clustered chimney-stacks with terracotta pots punctuate the roofline.

The walls are of red brick laid in Flemish bond, with moulded brick string and plinth courses. Timber Tudor-style gabled ends and brackets are a prominent feature. Windows are generally Arts-and-Crafts segmental arched 6/1 timber sliding sashes, with 1/1 sliding sashes to the rear and chamfered brick surrounds. Dormer windows light the attic level, while the tower has squared-headed 1/1 windows with chamfered sandstone heads and cills. Wide timber panelled doors feature cast-iron ironmongery throughout.

The principal north-west elevation is asymmetrically arranged. A three-storey projecting gabled bay to the right has a chamfered ground floor with timber corner brackets and three tall segmental-arched window openings. A large tripartite window to the first floor is flanked by projecting brick piers supporting a jettied second floor, topped by a Tudor-style timber framed gable head. The central bays have a modern glazed opening at ground floor, replaced by a modern balcony above with three first-floor windows. Paired dormer windows sit on the roof. A large modern single-storey extension projects from the ground floor on the left-hand side, with extensions rising to first and second floors above.

The north-east elevation is also asymmetrically arranged, with a gabled end to the right and a return projecting southwards at a lower ridge level. At ground floor on the right is a semi-octagonal projected bay, now forming part of the modern 2000 extension projecting northwards. A secondary access door is centrally located. A hipped lean-to single-storey projection to the left adjoins a two-storey cat-slide gable with a single-storey canted bay projecting eastward from the rear abutment, dating from around 1930.

The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged with a 1½ storey half-hipped gable abutment to the right and gabled returns projecting westward from around 1930. A modern single-storey hipped extension projects from the ground floor. Various window sizes and types are found throughout.

The south-west elevation is asymmetrically arranged. The right-hand bay is two-storey and gable-ended with a single ground-floor window and a first-floor canted oriel bay featuring replacement windows and terracotta fish-scale tiling. A jettied Tudor-style timber framed gable head crowns this section. The centrepiece is a five-storey tower with three squared-headed windows at ground floor and a large segmental arched opening to the first floor embracing five arched windows with hood moulding over. Staggered single segmental-arched windows light the stairwell, with a single narrow square-headed window to the fourth floor, surmounted by a parapet and small gable-ended stairwell and chimneys.

A two-storey diminutive front entrance porch at the re-entrant angle of the central tower is glazed to the upper level and has a hipped roof. A deeply moulded voussoired sandstone arched entrance with hood moulding features long-and-short surrounds and a segmental-headed door opening with a stone arched lintel on corbels. A carved panel above reads "RUYC". A vaulted roof porch was added around 1990.

The building stands on an elevated site with uninterrupted views of Belfast Lough towards County Antrim. A large tiered lawn with stone steps embedded into the landscape is flanked by two small cannons. A curved entrance drive off Clifton Road leads to a large car park to the rear, adjacent to a single-storey outbuilding with rosemary tile roof and roughcast rendered walling. To the south are largely two-storey detached residential properties. To the north-east, the site borders green space, a tennis court and car parks adjacent to Ballyholme Yacht Club.