20 Victoria Road, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 9BG

20 Victoria Road is an asymmetrical three-bay, two-storey-with-attic detached late-Victorian villa, built in 1850 and situated north of Victoria Road near Holywood town centre. It was designed by architect Thomas Turner for William Bankhead and is a good example of the substantial houses built for wealthy professionals and merchants during Holywood's rapid expansion following the opening of the railway in 1848. The architectural fabric is largely intact, though somewhat compromised by a uPVC conservatory over the porch and a large modern extension to the rear. The design is unusual in its treatment of the attic storey, and the house remains a well-proportioned and relatively well-preserved example of its type.

The building has a T-shaped plan. To the front there is a single-storey canted bay and a projecting porch; to the rear, a double-height lean-to return and a single-storey extension. The roof is pitched and finished in natural slate with blue/black angled ridge tiles and tall rendered chimneystacks. Rainwater goods are plastic, fixed to projecting timber boarded and bracketed eaves.

The external walls are in painted smooth render on a plinth, with an eaves band, channelled rustication to the ground floor, and a moulded string course between the floors. A moulded roundel with an inset shield decorates the first floor of the main elevation. Ground-floor windows are 1/1 timber-framed sliding sashes with horns; first-floor windows are 2/2 with horizontal glazing bars, moulded surrounds, and continuous sills — the window to the projecting bay has a plain architrave and moulded cornice. The attic is lit by a round-headed 2/2 window with horizontal glazing bars and timber casements.

The principal elevation faces northwest and is composed, from left, of a projecting gabled bay one window wide with a canted bay at ground-floor level, a single-storey porch at the re-entrant angle in the centre, and a right bay two windows wide. The porch is surmounted by a uPVC conservatory accessed from the central bay via a replacement timber door. The porch has a window at its right cheek and is approached by two bull-nosed steps. The entrance door has six raised-and-fielded panels, brass door furniture, and a transom light set in a moulded surround, surmounted by a corniced canopy with parapet on ornate console brackets. A diminutive blind window sits at the centre of the attic level.

The northeast elevation is three windows wide, with blind windows to the left and right at attic level. The southeast rear elevation has a projecting bay at the right with two windows to the attic, abutted at first-floor level by the two-storey lean-to return which has a window to the first floor of the northeast elevation, and further abutted by the single-storey return, which is of no architectural interest. The left bay of this elevation has two windows at attic level, a window at first-floor left, a diminutive 1/1 window at centre, a replacement stairwell window at right, and a window at ground-floor left. The southwest elevation has a single window at the centre of the attic level.

The house is set on a substantial mature plot. There is a lawn and shrub garden to all sides, enclosed by mature trees, a hedgerow, and a timber fence. Detached modern garages stand to the rear. There is a secondary entrance from Victoria Road to the rear with modern timber gates. The original entrance from Victoria Road to the northwest retains its original square painted rendered gate piers with caps surmounted by ball finials on plinths, though modern metal electric gates have been attached to them.

The historical background to the house is well documented, though complicated by changes of name. In the early 1850s, William Bankhead built three structures on this High Holywood plot, all initially known as 'Hillbrook'. Thomas Turner supplied designs for the buildings, which were originally intended to comprise a mansion, outbuildings, and a porter's lodge. Correspondence of 1854 between Turner and Bankhead is cited by local historian C. Auld, and the Dictionary of Irish Architects refers to documents of 1852 held at PRONI confirming Turner's involvement, including designs for alterations to Hillbrook and the addition of outbuildings. All three structures appear on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, captioned 'Hillbrook'. In time, the house now known as 20 Victoria Road became 'Glenburn', a neighbouring house to the east became 'Donnybrook', and the third retained the name 'Hillbrook'. Local historian Tony Merrick records that Hillbrook was used as a school in the 1850s and 1860s by John Turpin, though given the changes of name it is unclear in which building the school actually operated; Auld suggests it may have been in the current house, then known as Glenburn.

The occupancy history, so far as it can be determined given the confusion over house names, is as follows. Griffith's Valuation of 1861 lists Allen Clarke as occupier, leasing the house, offices, yard, and land from William Bankhead, with a valuation of £54. In the late 1860s the house was taken over by John Larkin and subsequently by Richard Farrell. The valuation was reduced to £44 in 1882 as part of a general devaluation of property in the area. Later tenants included Thomas Fisher in 1887 and Edward S. Meredith in 1892. By 1900 the house was home to James C. McErvel, a seed and implement merchant with premises in Victoria Square, Belfast; the 1901 census records him living at Victoria Road with his wife and a general domestic servant. McErvel later appears to have built himself a house called 'Temora' at Ballycultra. In 1903 the valuation was reduced again to £38 10s.

By 1908 the house had passed to the Wylie family, who became long-term residents. John Beattie Wylie was a Presbyterian minister who chose Glenburn as his retirement home. The 1911 census records him aged 70, living with his wife and two servants — a general domestic from County Monaghan and a coachman from County Cavan. He had previously ministered in congregational churches in Cork and Kingstown, becoming minister of Macrory Memorial Church in Belfast in 1874. He was active in the Temperance movement and served as Convener of the General Assembly's Temperance Committee from 1884 until his resignation through ill-health in 1891. After Wylie's death the house passed to his widow Jane and then to John Owens Wylie, probably a son, who became the immediate lessor in 1924. The house rose in valuation during the 1910s; the addition of a motor house accounts for a rise of £2 to £44 10s in 1914. James Owens Wylie, estate agent, died in 1931. The house has remained in residential use throughout, though soldiers were billeted there during the Second World War. Map evidence indicates that a substantial extension has been added to the rear in recent years.