The Cottage, 10 Glen Road, Cultra, Holywood, BT18 0HB

The Cottage is a one-and-a-half-storey three-bay Gothic Revival house located on the west side of Glen Road, Holywood. The building incorporates part of an earlier structure, evidenced by its appearance on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, but was extensively remodelled circa 1875. The house was originally used as a bathing lodge, with valuation records from 1856-64 noting its "fine view of the lough" and describing it as a "very plain building" then undergoing repairs. The substantial increase in valuation in 1878, when it was taken over by Van Brabant, suggests this was when the Gothic Revival remodelling occurred.

The building is rectangular on plan with a pitched natural slate roof featuring decorative ridge cresting and stucco chimneystacks with moulded caps and terracotta pots. All gables display ornate filigree finials and moulded timber bargeboards. The walling is painted ruled-and-lined stucco with quoins and plinth. Windows throughout are double-side-hung timber casements with lattice glazing set in moulded stucco architrave surrounds featuring scrolled keyblock detail. Dormers are timber-sheeted to their apexes. The gutters are notably ornate toothed cast-iron with square-section downpipes.

The principal elevation faces east and features a gabled porch that breaks the eaves and is offset to the right of centre. The door is woodgrained timber with two pointed-arched bolection-moulded panels, a beaded muntin, kickboard and brass furniture, with an obscurely paned pointed-arched transom light. The surround is moulded stucco with panelled jambs having stop-end chamfered corners and a stone threshold. Above the door, lighting the attic, is a narrow lattice-paned lancet window in a plain reveal. The principal elevation has two windows to the left of the porch and one to the right, with three dormers above.

The south gable features two Gothic-arched casement windows lighting the attic. The north gable contains a canted bay at ground floor with rolled lead ridges and profiled slates, beneath which runs a continuous cill serving traditional three 1/1 timber sash windows without horns. Two attic casements match those of the south gable.

A modern conservatory extension has been added to the south gable. The rear elevation is abutted by a return and lean-to kitchen extension. A motor house was added to the property by 1923.

Historical records document various occupants including Thomas Woodside (1828-40), Van Brabant (1878), Sarah Tolmi (1880), James N Hamilton (1887), H Wise (1890), J O Rogers (1897), and Audley J McKissack (1903), listed in the 1901 Belfast and Ulster Street Directory as a solicitor. Later occupants included B W Walpole (1908), John Lemon (1911), and John Henderson (1923). From 1933 onwards the house was named The Cottage. A valuation description from 1933 records the interior as comprising three receptions, kitchen, scullery, pantry, five bedrooms, bathroom, water closet and linen press, but noted the house as "old fashioned" with "dormer windows" and "sloping ceilings", with water supplied from a well with pump. By 1935, electricity had been installed and mains water from Sir Robert Kennedy's reservoir provided, though the valuer still noted the interior as "very old" with "dark corners and passages".

The house is set parallel to the roadside behind a paved perimeter path and clipped hedge boundary, with pedestrian access via a steel gate positioned on axis with the porch. Gardens extend to the rear and north of the property. The decorative proportions, gables, dormers and ornate detailing are appropriate to the Gothic Revival style, making this a good example of the picturesque cottage type popular in the later 19th century.