Brook House, 9 Marino Park, Holywood, County Down, BT18 0AN

Brook House, 9 Marino Park, Holywood

Brook House is a detached two-storey stucco villa built around 1835 to designs by the architect John Millar. It is one of a group of similarly styled Tudor-Gothic dwellings occupying a secluded position at the west end of Marino Park, Holywood, on the North Down coast. The group was built around 1830 for Thomas Ward as bathing lodges — seasonal letting properties catering to wealthy merchant families from Belfast who wished to enjoy coastal leisure pursuits. Together, the houses represent the beginnings of speculative residential development in this part of the coast, and Brook House is a significant element in the enclave's notable and unusual neo-Tudor character.

Architectural Description

The house is asymmetrical and cruciform on plan, with the entrance to the north and the east arm truncated at ground floor by a modern sun room addition. The pitched natural slate roofs have angled clay ridge tiles and raised saddleback kite-shaped gable copings (fractables). Slender lozenge-shaped chimneystacks with white pots rise from feature chimneybreasts and from diagonal and angle buttresses flanking the principal gables; simpler stacks serve the subordinate elevations. Rainwater goods are ogee-profile cast iron. The walls are finished in ruled-and-lined stucco, painted white, over a bevelled plinth, with a matching string course running between floors on the principal elevations. Windows are generally replacement timber multi-pane double-side-hung casements with chamfered reveals and cills; those on the west elevations have label moulds above them.

The north arm is the shorter projection and its north elevation features an arcade of three recessed four-centred arches at ground floor. The arch to the left contains three blind loops; the remaining two are inset with windows, the right-hand one being a later replacement infill with a modern painted concrete cill. At first floor, a central window is set in a projecting surround with a blind panel to the apron below it. The entrance door — a four-centred arch with a vertically panelled Gothic door and cast-iron door furniture — is positioned to the right cheek of this arm. The left cheek has a small casement at ground floor level.

The east arm is abutted at ground floor on its east elevation by a sympathetic sun room extension. Above this, at first floor, is a window in a projecting surround. The left and right cheeks each have a window at ground floor, with an exposed basement to the left, against which a lean-to outbuilding is built.

The south arm is the deepest and rises to three storeys. It has a window to each floor, including a deeply recessed tripartite mullioned window with chamfered reveal at basement level, and a timber oriel window at first floor. The right cheek has French doors at basement yard level to either side of a narrow chimneybreast. The left cheek has a central, slightly offset gabled chimneybreast inset with a window at first floor and a triangular-headed panel at ground floor, with a single window to its right.

The west arm's west elevation has a window to each floor. The right cheek has a gabled projection containing a blind musket loop, supported half by corbelling and half by a buttress. The left cheek has an ornate chimneybreast with corbelling detail.

Setting

The house sits within a small enclosed garden planted with mature shrubs, sweeping down to a stream at the south. The boundaries are defined by mature trees and hedges. Access from Marino Park to the north is via a short tarmac drive.

Historical Background

The group of houses was built around 1830 by Thomas Ward for use as seasonal bathing lodges. The earliest Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows the building as already complete, as confirmed by the Ordnance Survey Memoirs, which record that the houses "have been built for the bathing season, when they are generally filled from Belfast." Writing in his 1837 Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, Samuel Lewis described the development in slightly different terms, noting that "several houses in detached situations and chiefly in the Elizabethan style of architecture are now in progress on the Cultra estate, by Thomas Ward Esq, after designs by Millar," and adding that the houses were "sheltered with thriving plantations and beautifully situated on a gentle eminence commanding a richly diversified and extensive prospect of Carrickfergus bay, the Black mountain, Cave hill, the Carnmoney mountains and the town and castle of Carrickfergus, the view terminating with the basaltic columns of Black Head." It appears, however, that Lewis's observations were made some time before his publication date, since the houses were already finished by 1834.

The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 lists the property as "(to let) house and office," the property of Thomas Ward, valued at £16. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 shows the villa without a caption, and the plan appears to differ somewhat from the earlier map — either reflecting remodelling that had taken place in the intervening period, or indicating that the first edition had captured the house while still under construction.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, Thomas Ward himself was both owner and occupier, though a valuer's note records that the house was let to one Thomas Vallentine for the bathing season, unfurnished, at £12 per month. Ward is also noted to have been secretary to the Belfast and Holywood Railway Company, a position which, as the architectural historian C.E.B. Brett has observed, may well have given him influence over the convenient siting of Marino Halt. Brett also notes a confusion in his own reading of the Griffith's Valuation records: a sketch plan drawn in the margin of Captain Richard Hoskin's residence identifies it as Linden Lodge, not Brook House, as he had initially supposed.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the houses in the group were increasingly difficult to let, likely owing to the growing popularity of Bangor as a seaside destination after the railway reached it in 1865. By 1908, the occupier of Brook House was Isabella Ellis, leasing from Henry J. Harris. Valuers' notes from this period include a plan showing the house as comprising three bedrooms, two sitting rooms, and a bathroom with hot and cold water. The valuer commented that "rents in this terrace are much lower than they were" and that "the plan of the house is bad from a letting point of view." The house remained in the Ellis family until at least 1921.

By 1933, the occupier was Emily Graham and the property was valued at £22, later raised to £26. By this time the accommodation comprised two reception rooms, a porch, a bathroom, a WC, and three bedrooms on the upper floors, with a kitchen, scullery, and pantry in the basement. The house was supplied with gas and water from a well with pump. The valuer noted: "Very old-fashioned. Said to be 100 years old." According to Brett, the houses in the group subsequently fell into considerable disrepair and were all acquired in the post-war years by a developer who proposed to demolish them. Brook House has since been sympathetically restored.