79 Victoria Road, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 9BG

79 Victoria Road, Holywood

This is a detached two-storey-over-basement Victorian stucco house built around 1850, located on the south side of Victoria Road in Holywood. It exemplifies the neoclassical style and represents the type of more modest villa built for merchants and professionals following the development of the railway to the area in 1848.

The house is square on plan with gabled end bays and a two-storey return to the rear. A canted bay projects to the west, and a single-storey extension dates from around 1900 and extends to the east. The pitched natural slate roof features scalloped bargeboards to the gables and centred chimneystacks with terracotta pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on corbelled eaves.

The walling is painted smooth render with quoins. Windows are mainly paired 2/2 round-headed sliding sash with horizontal glazing bars set in raised moulded surrounds. Some original glass panes survive. First-floor windows have projecting sills supported on corbels. Ground-floor windows are framed by Doric pilasters and surmounted by plain entablature and cornice. The south elevation has undergone replacement to some windows, which are now timber-framed and square-headed.

The principal elevation faces north. It comprises gabled bays at each end, each with paired windows to ground and first floors. The centre has a slightly recessed entrance bay with a single window to the first floor. The entrance itself is a recessed timber panelled door with two round-headed etched glazed panels and brass furniture, surmounted by a transom light. The doorcase is framed by one and a half Doric pilasters with plain entablature and cornice.

The east elevation is abutted by the single-storey extension added around 1900. The south elevation includes a two-storey gabled return to the right, with a small basement window at ground level. The west elevation has two square-headed windows to the first floor, a canted bay to the left, and to the right a round-headed blind window with Doric pilasters surmounted by a moulded arch.

The property is set back from the main road in mature grounds on a slightly sloping site. A gravelled driveway runs to the west, with a second driveway at this point leading to the rear. A rubble stone boundary wall encloses the rear yard and is accessed by a modern timber latch gate in a brick surround. A small rubble stone outbuilding is located to the right, accessible via a carport at the far south. The grounds include a lawned and shrub garden to the east.

The house, originally named Riversdale, first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858. An advertisement in the Belfast Newsletter for October 1857 describes it as "that detached and commodious Villa, Riversdale, High Holywood", noting it contained a drawing room commanding an extensive view of the Lough, a dining room 25 feet long, a parlour, five bedrooms, a dressing room, water-closet, pantries, cellars, a cow-house, a small walled-in garden, and private grounds. The property was then ten minutes' walk from Holywood Railway station.

At the time of Griffith's Valuation, the house was occupied by John Burgoyne and leased from the Reverend Henry Henderson, minister of Holywood First Presbyterian Church and a substantial landlord and landowner in the area. The property was valued at £42. John Burgoyne was Chairman of Holywood Police Commissioners and a Provisional Director of the Holywood Gas Company.

In 1863, John Hanson took over as occupier, followed at an unknown date by Thomas Lodge. Following Reverend Henry Henderson's succession by Reverend Henry Halliday in 1878, the property passed to the Provincial Building Society in 1883. In that same year, Adam Speers became the occupier. The Speers family remained as tenants for an unusually long period, with records showing them still in residence in 1930. The property fell in value during this period, decreasing to £29 by 1885.

By 1888, Adam Speers was principal of Sullivan Upper School, and he advertised his ability to receive "into his House, Riversdale, High Holywood, a limited number of Resident Pupils", with Riversdale thus housing the boarding section of Sullivan School. The 1901 census records Adam Speers living with his wife and two daughters, the younger of whom taught at the school. The family employed a single domestic servant, a cook, who remained with them until at least 1911. By the 1911 census, Adam Speers' wife had died. He had become a Justice of the Peace for County Down, and his younger daughter continued as a teacher at the school.

The building retains much of its original detailing and plan form, with the architecture and proportions remaining largely unchanged. It continues in use as a domestic dwelling.