2 Tudor Park, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 0NX

Two Tudor Park is a mid-nineteenth century brick and sandstone semi-detached house, built around 1850 in Holywood, County Down. It stands as a fine example of the type that wealthy Belfast merchants were constructing during this period, and forms part of the notable Tudor Park group of three pairs of semi-detached houses commissioned by Henry Murney, a successful tobacco merchant with a business in High Street, Belfast.

The house is built of Flemish bond red brick with painted sandstone quoins and plinth. It is a multi-bay two-storey structure with an L-shaped plan, incorporating a two-storey return and a single-storey extension with conservatory to the rear. The roof is hipped with natural slate and features tall brick chimneys with stone plinths and terracotta pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on sandstone eaves.

The principal elevation faces northwest and comprises, to the right, a canted bay window with a hipped roof to the ground floor and a single opening to the first floor, whilst the left bay is slightly recessed with two openings on each storey. Windows are timber-framed sliding sash with horizontal glazing bars (1/1 to ground floor and 2/2 to first floor). The ground floor windows have moulded sandstone surrounds with round arch pediments and decorative scrolled console brackets, with projecting sills on squared console brackets to the plinth. First floor windows have painted sandstone moulded squared and lugged surrounds with projecting sills on console brackets. The canted bay window has moulded surrounds divided by Doric pilasters to the plinth, with decorative scrolled consoles to the architrave.

The southwest elevation is the main entrance, featuring a central projecting porch with a round-headed doorway accessed by two tiled steps. The porch has round-headed windows set into a moulded surround with projecting sill and keyblock. At the corners are moulded Doric pilasters with base and console brackets with Doric capitals; the raised moulded cornice to the architrave is topped by a small pediment. The door comprises six bolection-moulded raised panels with brass door furniture and a moulded architrave. To the right of the porch, a slightly recessed single-storey extension is abutted by a glass conservatory. The rear elevation includes a yard wall to the right; to the left, a single-storey return with two modern windows to the first floor and two modern timber doors to the ground floor, partly abutted by a glass conservatory extending the length of the gable and partly abutted to the south by a modern double garage.

The house is situated on a leafy private lane within Tudor Park, accessed via cement-rendered gate piers and cast-iron gates, with a further set of painted masonry piers with simple stone caps. The driveway is shared access with the adjacent semi-detached property and is pebbled, with gardens to the front and a large mature garden to the rear. The houses are separated by a simple hedgerow to front and rear and are enclosed on all sides by hedgerow and trees.

According to historical records, the area of Holywood began to attract well-to-do businessmen and merchants in the 1830s and 40s, with the district most favoured being the higher ground bounded by Bangor Road, Victoria Road and Croft Road, which became unofficially known as "High Holywood". This location proved attractive because it offered the opportunity to site each villa within four or five acres of prime woodland that could be landscaped to resemble a small country estate, whilst commanding unrivalled views of Belfast Lough and the County Antrim hills.

The houses were first shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1858, together with a gate lodge on the Bangor Road entrance to the demesne. This gate lodge and castellated gates were lost when a private housing estate was built in the grounds in the 1970s.

The house is recorded in Griffith's Valuation (1856-64) as occupied by Charles George Knox and leased from Henry Murney, valued at £56. The valuation notes describe them as "Brick houses, neatly got up but not large...Good red brick houses with stone dressings and quoins". Henry Murney let out the property throughout the nineteenth century to various tenants including Jemima Hunter (1887), Brandon B Boileau (1900), Charles E Radcliffe (1909), Samuel Paxton Cowan (1911) and Mary E and Dorothy Boyd (1930). The valuation decreased by degrees to £42 by 1891, possibly indicating lack of repair. Following Henry Murney's death in 1907, Frederick Hoey became the immediate lessor from 1909 onwards.

Although the setting has been compromised by modern development, the group of six houses in Tudor Park, built by Henry Murney, forms a notable architectural group and represents the expansion of Holywood in the mid-nineteenth century. The house itself is a well-preserved example of superior quality and craftsmanship in its historic detailing.