Ardavon, 16 Glen Road, Cultra, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 0HB

Ardavon is a detached, symmetrical two-storey three-bay house built around 1870, set in extensive grounds on the west side of Glen Road, Craigavad, in the townland of Ballycultra. It is rectangular on plan with canted bays, a double return to the rear, and a further three-stage tower extending to the south. The house is well-proportioned with loose classical detailing and appears largely unchanged, despite some alterations, though it is considered a late example and not among the finest of its type.

The roof is hipped natural slate with rolled lead ridges and hips. The tall rendered chimneystacks have corniced and bracketed caps. Rainwater goods are ogee-profile cast iron, with some uPVC replacement guttering to the return. The external walls are cement rendered with rusticated quoins and a beaded plinth. At eaves level there is a cornice over an architrave and frieze made up of alternating plain scrolled brackets and raised panels. The canted bays have their own cornice, plain frieze, and architrave, which extend to form string courses between floors. A further string course runs at impost level to the first-floor windows.

Windows throughout are 1/1 horned timber sashes. Those on the principal elevations are round-headed at first-floor level, while ground-floor windows have rusticated voussoired heads with diamond-pointed keyblocks. First-floor windows have architrave surrounds, and all round-headed windows are paired with archivolt surrounds connected by a small raised panel between them.

The entrance door is double-leaf stained timber, each leaf having two raised panels and bronze door furniture, with a semi-circular fanlight over. The surround comprises an archivolt over foliated impost panels supported on sandstone columns with ornate carved capitals, all set within a rope-moulded surround incorporating a bronze bell-push. The entrance is reached by two concrete steps flanked by square piers with fielded caps. The canted bays have decorative cast-iron parapets.

The principal elevation faces north and is symmetrical, with all openings contained within a breakfront central section. The central entrance is flanked by single-storey canted bays, each with paired windows at first-floor level, and a single window at first-floor centre. The east elevation has a full-height canted bay to the right with the traditional arrangement of three windows to each floor; to the left is a single-storey canted bay at ground floor with a paired window above. The rear elevation is almost entirely abutted by the double return and is otherwise blank. The return is abutted to the east by a timber conservatory with rendered plinth walls, and to the south-west by the tower. Fenestration to the east side of the return is irregular, including a single and a bipartite leaded-lattice obscurely glazed window at first floor. The south gable has a four-panelled door, a plain projecting chimneystack, and a deeply recessed replacement timber rear entrance door. The west elevation has three equally spaced windows at first floor; at ground floor there are metal-framed casement enlargements and a large patio door insertion.

The tower has cement rendered walling and a pierced parapet over a bracketed frieze matching that of the main house. The first stage has a timber-sheeted door to the east and a window to the south. The second stage has a decorative string course rising over an obscurely glazed 2/2 horizontally divided timber sash window to both east and west. The third stage is blank with circular motifs and a string course. The west elevation of the main house has a full-height canted bay to the left; the right side is recessed, and there is a sanitary extension in the re-entrant angle with a flat roof and leaded-lattice windows to each floor. To its right is a metal-framed casement at ground floor and a single square-headed sash above.

The house is set well back from the road in extensive grounds comprising lawns, woodland, and shrubberies, all now overgrown. There are densely planted mature tree boundaries on all sides and a tall rubble stone boundary wall to the west. A tarmac drive leads to a forecourt, and a secondary lane to the south leads to outbuildings located some distance to the west of the house. The outbuildings are single-storey with roughcast walls and timber sash windows, and are of no architectural interest. The site is entered from Glen Road to the east via an alcoved entrance terminated by square rendered piers; the gates are gone and the site is protected by a security fence chained in place. A secondary avenue to the south, leading to the outbuildings, is accessed by a pair of wrought-iron gates.

The development of this part of Cultra was directly prompted by the building of the railway from Holywood to Bangor between 1862 and 1865, which transformed what had previously been an area of isolated mansions and farmhouses into a location for substantial villas in spacious grounds, attracting the professional and mercantile classes. Ardavon first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1900-02, conveniently situated between Cultra Station and the since-closed station at Craigavad. The house enters valuation records in 1878 as a vacant newly-built property — a house and yard — built by Samuel Trimble and valued at £45. The valuation was raised to £50 the following year, possibly as the house reached completion. Samuel Trimble, Deputy Treasurer of County Antrim, occupied the house from 1880 until his death in 1887. A succession of wealthy tenants followed from 1892 onwards.

From around 1892 to around 1897, the occupier was H. McNeile McCormick, Clerk of the Crown and Peace for County Antrim, who is remembered locally as the donor of the "Johnny the Jig" playground in Holywood High Street. The McCormick family appear to have moved to Cultra House around 1903. John O. Rodgers, resident in 1900, was manager of the Irish Billposting Company, billposting and general advertising contractors with offices in William Street South, Belfast.

Granville Craig, noted as living in the house in 1909, was a younger brother of James Craig, Viscount Craigavon, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. On the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899, Granville volunteered for service in South Africa, and his collection of photographs from the campaign is held by King's College London. Granville enjoyed a private income and lived at Ardavon with his English wife and a staff of three — a house and parlourmaid, a cook, and a motor-car driver. The couple had one child who did not survive. The 1911 census records Ardavon as a first-class house on account of its size and construction, with thirteen rooms in use. Granville was a keen motorist, participating in the first Cultra Hill Climb competition in 1905 and again in 1908 in his Daimler. When war broke out in 1914 he was initially unable to serve due to illness, but in 1916 he joined the Royal Flying Corps balloon section as an Equipment Officer, becoming the fifth of the middle-aged Craig brothers to join the war effort. William Edward Williames Esq JP, recorded as living in the house in 1914, was a coal merchant and shipping agent with premises in Donegall Quay. In 1976, George Edmund Cameron, Chartered Accountant of Ardavon, was named among Northern Ireland's top businessmen in Fortnight magazine.

Visual inspection suggests that the two-storey return wing at the rear is a later addition dating from around 1900. The rear return underwent some minor modernisation during the 1970s, including the installation of patio doors. The house currently lies vacant but was in use as a domestic dwelling until recent times.