Windrush, 33 Old Quay Road, Marino, Holywood, BT18 0AL

Windrush is a substantial, classically styled stucco house built around 1850, located in large grounds on the east side of Old Quay Road, Holywood, with uninterrupted views over Belfast Lough towards Carrickfergus. It forms part of a group of three attached dwellings — together making up what was originally known as Ardville — alongside a former service wing (Ardville, which predates the main house and dates from before 1830) and former servants' quarters (Ardreagh), both abutting to the south. The house is a fine and interesting example of how a substantial residence evolved throughout the 19th century to reflect the growing fortunes and changing tastes of its wealthy occupants.

The building is rectangular in plan, symmetrical, and two storeys in height with three bays to the principal elevation, which faces north. A central full-height bowed bay is the dominant feature of this elevation, flanked by Giant Order Ionic half-engaged columns supporting a bowed cornice above, with a blocking course raised and panelled to the centre. The walling is painted stucco with contrasting quoins, a plain frieze to a moulded cornice, and a plinth. The hipped roof is natural slate with leaded hips and ridges and a central roof lantern. Chimneys are stucco with moulded and semi-circular caps. Concealed leaded gutters run to the moulded cornice, with cast-iron downpipes below.

The principal north elevation is symmetrical with five windows to each floor: three to the bowed bay, flanked by one to either side. Ground floor windows are timber sliding sash, segmental-headed and horizontally divided 2/1, with panelled aprons and jambs and segmental hood mouldings on scrolled stucco brackets. First floor windows are horizontally divided 2/2 with moulded architrave surrounds and sills on moulded brackets.

To the west, a single-storey side entrance porch is topped by a balcony accessed from the first floor by a pair of timber-framed French doors with a plain-glazed toplight. The balcony is enclosed by an Ionic balustraded parapet. The porch has corner pilasters and a contrasting stucco cornice; its openings to the north (door) and west (window) are set within segmental-headed recesses. The door itself is a six-panelled timber replacement with brass door furniture, accessed by a large stone-flagged step and set within a moulded stucco architrave. Immediately to the left of the porch on the west elevation there is a tall, very narrow horizontally divided 2/2 sash light with decorative leaded glazing, flanked by one and a half pilasters — the right-hand one abutted by the porch — topped by a scrolled bracket, which may be a remnant of a former original opening, now otherwise gone.

The east elevation is three openings wide to each floor. The ground floor left opening has been obscured by a flat-roofed kitchen extension, though the segmental head with hood moulding remains and has been infilled. A lower two-storey sanitary block abuts the extreme left side of the east elevation, projecting slightly from its plane and extending southwards. The rear elevation cannot be inspected from within the grounds as it is abutted by Ardville to the rear and the property boundary meets the south-east corner; from the adjoining garden a 6/6 sash window can be seen lighting the rear sanitary block, with no other openings visible to this elevation.

Internally, the house has impressive spaces that reflect the grandeur of the exterior.

The setting survives, albeit curtailed by the subdivision of the three properties, through the retention of a garden wall and original access lane. There is a large lawn to the north bounded by mature planting, and a cast-iron cow-tail handle water pump to the east side. The original access lane with paired steel gates remains from the south-west, now superseded by a modern tarmacadam driveway flanked by stone-clad entrance walls. To the east is a renovated former coach house, much altered and converted for use as a flat, opening directly onto Farmhill Road and connected to a tall rendered boundary wall inset with a pointed arched timber gate.

The history of the house is well documented. The land was bought in 1830 by the Reverend Henry Wallace with 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. By the time of the Townland Valuation of 1828–40, the property was listed as belonging to a Mr McCammond, described as a house and offices valued at £18 16 shillings. The house had been significantly remodelled by the time of the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, which shows it captioned as Ardville.

According to Brett's Buildings of North County Down, the house was occupied in 1849 by Theodore Bozi, a linen merchant and consul for Spain and Portugal, and the remodelling around 1850 appears to have been 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 valuation describes it as a house, gate lodge, offices and land valued at £110, with the valuer noting: "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." The valuation also records a number of outbuildings including a coal hole, water closet, coach house, byre, stable, greenhouse, melon pits, sunken sheds and a gate lodge.

James Barbour, an engineer and iron-founder of the firm Combe, Barbour & Combe who ran the Falls Foundry in North Howard Street, bought the house in 1871 for £2,637. During his ownership, the gate lodge was raised a storey in 1894 and the coach house was improved in 1895. Thomas Barbour, the American herpetologist and a relative of James Barbour, published a book of letters in which his wife describes a visit to the house 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, William McMullan was in residence and several improvements were subsequently made, raising the valuation to £150. These included the addition of a chauffeur's house and an extension to the gate lodge in 1921. Valuers' notes from this period record that McMullan bought the house for £3,600 and spent approximately £4,000 on electric lighting, improving heating, and related works, with papering and painting alone said to have cost £1,200 to £1,400, as well as the installation of new baths and lavatory basins to four bedrooms. Outbuildings recorded at this time included a fowl house, dynamo, gas engine for light and pump, greenhouse, vinery, conservatory, potting shed, a small house and dry closet thought to be the chauffeur's house.

After 1933 the property was offered for sale, with accommodation listed as: hall, breakfast room, pantry, drawing room, dining room, butler's pantry, kitchen and scullery (combined), china and glass room, dairy, smoke room (panelled), wine cellar, cloak room; on the first floor: five principal bedrooms (with lavatory basins), two other bedrooms, five maids' bedrooms, two bathrooms, dressing/linen room, three WCs, boxroom and two store rooms over the garage. A chauffeur's house with four bedrooms and a kitchen in the grounds was also listed separately, along with an aviary shown on the plan.

In 1936, after standing empty for several years, the house was sold to Geoffrey Garrod of 32 Deramore Park, Belfast — headmaster of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution — for £500, with the valuation reduced to £138. The Garrods faced heavy renovation costs including new wiring, roof works and the addition of a further bathroom, and kept a staff of two maids, a boy and two gardeners. By 1938 the house had been extended and the rear portion converted to flats. By 1947, having been purchased by Ralph Gordon Cully, merchant of Belfast, the house had been divided into three and Cully became the occupier of the main portion; it appears to be at this point that the name was changed to Windrush. This new dwelling was valued at £60. Brett records that in 1966 Windrush was bought by a Mr Frank Lamont of the linen family, who emigrated to Australia in 1979, since when the house has changed hands twice.