144 High Street, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 9HS

A three-bay three-storey Victorian mid-terrace townhouse built around 1855, located to the south of High Street in Holywood town centre. The building forms part of an important group as one house in a terrace of six known as Walmer Terrace, which illustrates the ongoing growth of Holywood in the mid-19th century.

The house is rectangular on plan with a three-storey return to the rear. The roof is pitched with natural slate and brick chimneys topped with terracotta pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on overhanging corbelled eaves with paired brackets. The walling is Flemish bonded red-brick with painted smooth render featuring band rustication to the ground floor; the rear is rendered in smooth painted finish.

The principal elevation faces west and is three openings wide. To the right is a four-panelled double-leaf replacement timber door with transom light and panelled pilaster surround, surmounted by carved console brackets and a simple corniced canopy. Windows throughout are timber-framed replacement sashes with segmental-headed flat brick lintels and continuous sills to the first floor. The north gable is abutted by the adjoining building. The east rear elevation has two segmental-headed windows, with a lower three-storey return abutted to the left. This return has a window to all floors at the gable. The exposed section to the left has single openings at first and second floor, with a modern timber door to the ground floor. The south elevation is abutted by the adjoining building.

The house has been refurbished in recent years, resulting in some loss of historic fabric and minor alteration of the floor-plan, though most historic detailing remains. Windows are a mix of timber and uPVC.

The terrace first appears on the second edition ordnance survey map of 1858. According to historical records, the houses were built in 1856 and housed merchants and professional people attracted to Holywood following the opening of the railway in 1848. The terrace was also home to at least three members of the clergy: a Catholic priest, a Presbyterian missionary, and a Church of Ireland curate. All houses were leased from Andrew Cowan, who also owned the semi-detached pair called Mill Bank, built at about the same time.

This house was initially occupied by William Carson, a solicitor, listed in Griffith's Valuation (1856-64) as a house, yard, and small garden valued at £36, later raised to £38, with rent of £45 yearly plus taxes. Subsequent tenants included Robert McGee (1863), Mary Ross (1880), James M Barkley (1887), a merchant, and Edward Polland (1900), a jeweller who died in 1904 and had previously lived at 122 High Street. A valuer's note from 1900-06 records that the house contained nine rooms and a box room with a combined bathroom and WC, and comments that the drawing room was too large for probable tenants, the gable of the return was cracked and leaking, and the hall was large and draughty with a fireplace.

Holywood entered something of a decline in the late nineteenth century due to several factors, including the arrival of trams in Belfast in the 1870s, which meant that the mercantile and professional classes had many more residential areas to choose from. The property valuation was reduced to £37 in 1889, £35 in 1891, and following a complaint in 1904, to £28. Further tenants included Mary J Polland (1905) and Anne Boyd (1915), who died a widow in 1917. The house was taken over by the Secretary for War in 1921 for reasons that remain unclear. The valuation was reduced to £22 in 1912, and a motor house was added in 1929. The building is currently in use as offices.

The house is situated to the south of High Street in Holywood town centre, with St Comcille's Church and Tower directly to the south. A tarmacadam car-park to the east is semi-enclosed with a painted masonry wall. A small paved garden to the front is enclosed by simple cast-iron railings and gate. The rear yard is enclosed by a painted masonry wall with a modern cast-iron gate.