Ardreagh, 40 Farmhill Road, Marino, Holywood, BT18 0AD

Ardreagh, 40 Farmhill Road, is a former servants' wing forming one of three attached properties that together make up what was once a single substantial house known as Ardville, parts of which date from around 1830. The section now known as Ardreagh was built as a laundry and servants' quarters during a major remodelling of the house around 1850, and it remains attached at its south-west corner to the former kitchen wing of the main house, now called Ardville. Its external appearance has been significantly altered, compromising much of its remaining historic character. Its chief interest lies in its role as a subservient element within the evolved group of three dwellings rather than in any architectural distinction of its own.

Architecturally, Ardreagh is an attached two-storey, three-bay building, rectangular on plan. The ground floor has a recessed corner at the north end of the west elevation, where the structure is cantilevered out to first-floor level on steel I-beams adjoining the former coach house of Windrush. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with a roll-topped leaded ridge. There are two rendered chimneystacks with moulded caps and terracotta pots. Rainwater goods are half-round cast iron set over a corbel course. External walls are painted rendered. On the west elevation, windows are 2/2 horizontally divided timber sashes; on the east elevation, windows are uPVC replacements of various sizes, some enlarged from their original openings. All windows sit on projecting masonry sills.

The east, garden-facing elevation is abutted by a timber-framed conservatory on rendered plinth walls, and the fenestration here is irregular and entirely replacement, with some openings enlarged. At the left end of this elevation, the wall projects slightly and is topped by a small parapet with chimneystack. The south gable is abutted by a 20th-century flat-lead-roofed projection at first-floor level, and at ground-floor level by a yard building belonging to Ardville. The west, entrance elevation is five windows wide at first-floor level — the leftmost window sitting above the ground-floor recess — and four openings wide at ground floor, including a multi-pane glazed timber entrance door.

The building occupies a restricted site with its north gable directly onto Farmhill Road, from where it is now accessed via a narrow flagged pathway bounded by the house on the left and the hedge boundary of Windrush on the right. The cantilevered corner at ground-floor level accommodates access to this pathway via a small winding set of curved steps. To the south lies a large, mature garden enclosed by a stone boundary wall.

The history of the site is well documented. The land was purchased in 1830 by the Reverend Henry Wallace under an obligation to build one or more houses on the site within three years at a cost of at least £300. A rectangular building with a return is shown on the site on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, though this had clearly been substantially remodelled by the time of the second edition of 1858, where the house is captioned "Ardville". The earlier building appears in the Townland Valuation of 1828–40 as the property of a Mr McCammond, recorded as a house and offices valued at £18 16s.

By 1849 the house was occupied by Theodore Bozi, a linen merchant and consul for Spain and Portugal, and it appears the remodelling took place around 1850, carried out either by Bozi or his successor James Lemon. By the time of Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, James Lemon — a ship-owner, ship's chandler and owner of a rope and canvas manufactory in Belfast — was in residence, leasing the property from the representatives of Robert Kennedy in chancery. The property was described at that time as a house, gate lodge, offices and land, valued at £110. The valuer's notes are notably enthusiastic: "all is lawn and gardens...gardens enclosed and high brick walls...large sheet glass windows all through property, front with pillars and pilasters, very elegantly finished house...a very fine house in excellent repair." Dimensions were recorded for the house and several outbuildings including a coal hole, water closet, coachhouse, byre, stable, greenhouse, melon pits, sunken sheds and a gate lodge.

James Barbour purchased the house in 1871 for £2,637. He was an engineer and iron-founder of the firm of Combe, Barbour and Combe, which operated the Falls Foundry in North Howard Street, Belfast. During his ownership the gate lodge was raised by one storey in 1894, the coach house was improved, and a small addition was made to the main house in 1895. A record of the house in the early 20th century survives in the published letters of Thomas Barbour, the American herpetologist and a relative of James Barbour, in which his wife describes a visit in 1906: "In the afternoon we took an auto and went to Ardville, James Barbour's place...Their house is very large and their place great...We had afternoon tea with them and then old Mr Barbour took me around the place and all through his greenhouses and gave me a huge basketful of the most delicious hothouse grapes I ever ate."

By 1914 the house was occupied by William McMullan, under whose ownership several further improvements were made, including the addition of a chauffeur's house to the plot and an extension to the gate lodge in 1921. Valuers' notes from this period record that McMullan had purchased the house for £3,600 and had spent approximately £4,000 on electric lighting, heating improvements and related works, with papering and painting alone said to have cost between £1,200 and £1,400, along with the installation of new baths and lavatory basins to four bedrooms. A plan and room-by-room schedule survives from this period, along with details of outbuildings including a fowl house, dynamo, gas engine for lighting and pumping, greenhouse, vinery, conservatory, potting shed, and a small house with dry closet — possibly the chauffeur's house.

After 1933 the property was placed for sale. The accommodation at that time was listed as: hall, breakfast room, pantry, drawing room, dining room, butler's pantry, kitchen and scullery combined, china and glass room, dairy, panelled smoke room, wine cellar, and cloakroom at ground floor; five principal bedrooms with lavatory basins, two further bedrooms, five maids' bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dressing and linen room, three water closets, a boxroom and two storerooms over the garage at first floor. An aviary is also shown on a plan from this period, and a chauffeur's house with four bedrooms and a kitchen in the grounds was listed separately.

In 1936, after several years standing empty, the house was sold to Geoffrey Garrod of 32 Deramore Park, Belfast — headmaster of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution — for £500, and the valuation was reduced to £138. The Garrods faced heavy renovation costs including rewiring, roof work and the addition of a bathroom, and are noted to have maintained a staff of two maids, a boy and two gardeners. By 1938 the house had been extended and its rear portion converted to flats. By 1947 it had been divided into three separate dwellings following purchase by Ralph Gordon Cully, a Belfast merchant, who occupied the main front apartments, subsequently renamed Windrush. The portion now known as Ardreagh was valued at £44 and was purchased by William Herbert Jemphrey from Cully on 5th November 1946 for £1,250, before being sold to Francis William J. Dolan on 31st October 1947 for £3,400.

The block now known as Ardreagh was converted from the wing that contained the laundry and servants' bedrooms of the main house. This wing is shown on the 1858 map, though it is today much reduced in size compared to its original extent. A valuer's plan of 1921 shows a former extension at right angles to Ardreagh that served as a garage and loft, also housing the gas engine that provided power for lighting and the water pump.