32 Maxwell Road, Bangor, Co Down, BT20 3SG

32 Maxwell Road, Bangor

This is an asymmetrical two-storey house with attic, loosely in the Arts and Crafts style, built between 1912 and 1915 to designs by Ernest L. Woods as his own dwelling. Originally known as The Nook, it stands on the west side of Maxwell Road in a largely suburban area of Bangor, developed during the town's expansion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The house is irregular on plan with projecting full-height gabled bays and a double-height stairwell bay to the front, with a double garage to the north. The roof is hipped and gabled, covered in rosemary tiles with tall roughcast rendered chimneystacks topped with terracotta pots and exposed rafter ends. Rainwater goods are cast-iron ogee (replacement). The walls are roughcast render on a plinth with sandstone kneelers to the gable. Windows are a mix of original timber and replacement uPVC double side-hung casements with painted masonry projecting sills; original leaded and stained glass windows survive to the entrance bay.

The principal elevation faces east and is asymmetrically arranged. Roughly to the centre is a catslide stairwell flanked by two projecting bays. The left bay has sandstone coping and kneeler stones to the gable. The right bay contains an oval-headed entrance in moulded ashlar surround with hood mould, flanked by dwarf buttresses. Two narrow stained glass windows flank the left side of the entrance. The original panelled timber door features a replacement oval stained glass panel and brass furniture, accessed by a curved granite step. A single window lights the first floor of this bay. The right projection is hipped with a gablet ornamented with decorative bargeboards and a cartouche; it has plain buttresses without offsets and a window to each floor. The stairwell is lit by a stained glass window with lintel below the eaves. End bays are plainly detailed with lower eaves height to the right bay. A dormer offset to the left lights the attic.

The south elevation has a projecting chimneybreast to the centre, rising from a single-storey projecting hipped bay with two diminutive windows. A single window lights the first floor to the right, with a slender window at ground floor level to the right.

The west (rear) elevation is symmetrically arranged with three windows to the first floor. The ground floor contains double-leaf glazed doors with sidelights to the left and two large multi-paned windows to the right. A gabled dormer sits at the centre of the roof. A double-height bay with modern double-leaf glazed doors is positioned to the far left.

The north elevation has three slender windows to the first floor and a single slender window at ground floor level, with a single-storey double garage abutted to the right.

Early twentieth-century architectural details of good quality survive throughout. The house demonstrates the work of a prominent local architect on a smaller, domestic scale.

Ernest Lucius Woods (1877–1952) was a civil engineer and architect responsible for several of Bangor's best-known buildings, including the Carnegie Library and the Grammar School. Educated at Methodist College, Belfast, he articled for five years to Belfast's city surveyor before his appointment as Bangor's town surveyor in 1899, a position he held until 1908. It was during this period, at perhaps the apex of his career, that Woods purchased a plot of land at Maxwell Road. He was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland in 1911 and continued to work on domestic and commercial projects, largely in Belfast, until his retirement and resignation from the RIAI in 1940.

Historical records show the property first appeared on the Ordnance Survey map of 1919–1926, uncaptioned. It first entered valuation records in 1915 as 'house, motor house and land', initially vacant and then occupied by Isabella W. Woods, the architect's wife, with a valuation of £59 5s. By 1917, Ernest Lucius Woods himself was in residence and a conservatory was noted as yet to be erected. A valuation town plan dating from circa 1925–1935 captioned the house 'The Nook'. At the general revaluation of the early 1930s, Woods remained in residence; the house was leased from Viscount Bangor at a valuation of £86. Records note that the lease was obtained in 1908 and the cost of construction was £1,850 in 1915. The house was equipped with central heating, gas and electric light. The ground floor comprised three reception rooms, a cloakroom with WC and wash-hand basin, a kitchen, scullery with hot and cold water, and two pantries, with external coal-shed, WC and motor house. The first floor contained four bedrooms, a bathroom with hot and cold water and separate WC, a hot press and a dressing room. Two of the bedrooms had wash-hand basins with hot and cold water, and the bathroom was well fitted with a shower bath. The second floor held two attic bedrooms and a box-room with two dormers. The rear of the house commanded views of Belfast Lough. By 1944, a glass house and an octagonal summer house had been built in the garden. The occupier in the 1940s was J. Gilpin.

The setting comprises a paved parking area to the front and a landscaped garden to the rear, enclosed by mature hedgerow. Development along Maxwell Road did not begin in earnest until the early twentieth century, and this house was among the first to be built along it. It illustrates the development of western Bangor during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, providing homes for the growing number of wealthy merchant and professional classes.