Bramcote, 19 Station Road, Cultra, Holywood, County Down, BT18 0BP

Bramcote is a detached two-storey rendered house built around 1870. It is a substantial late Victorian residence with restrained Neo-classical detailing, retaining its original external appearance and original architectural details, though it represents a common type of the period rather than an exceptional example of the style.

The house is irregular in plan, facing southwest with a front entrance porch, a full-height canted bay to the northwest garden elevation, and a pair of two-storey projections to the southeast side elevation fronting onto Station Road. The property sits within its own landscaped gardens on an elevated site overlooking Belfast Lough to the north. The building is currently empty.

The roof is constructed of natural slate with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles. Three rendered profiled chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots rise from the roof. Ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering with cast-iron downpipes is supported on eaves corbels beneath overhanging rendered eaves. The walling is painted ruled and lined render with a moulded continuous sill course at first floor level and a plat band below. A projecting stepped plinth course is visible, with some redbrick walling exposed at the base.

Square-headed window openings feature stop-chamfered surrounds with painted sandstone sills. The original windows are 2/2 timber sash windows with original flat-panelled timber shutters. The southwest front elevation is three windows wide, with an advanced bay to the south and a central single-storey flat-roofed entrance porch set at the re-entrant angle. The porch is of square plan with a low parapet wall and projecting cornice. The round-headed door opening has a stop-chamfered surround, hood moulding with foliate label stops, and is fitted with a replacement flush timber door and glazed fanlight. The fanlight opens onto a sandstone platform and step leading to the front gravel area. To the north cheek of the porch is a slender round-headed window opening with a single-pane timber sash window. The south return adjoining the southeast side elevation extends the front elevation at a lower level with plainer detailing and smaller square-headed window openings with timber sash windows.

The northwest side garden elevation is dominated by an off-centre full-height three-sided canted bay with single-pane timber sash windows. The northeast rear elevation is two windows wide with detailing consistent with the front elevation. The southeast side elevation is abutted by a lower two-storey lean-to and a pair of gable-ended single-bay two-storey projections. Square-headed window openings with plain reveals contain 2/2 timber sash windows, except for a single segmental-headed window at the centre with a 2/2 timber sash window with margin lights. A screen wall spans the space between both projections, featuring a square-headed door opening with a timber plank door opening directly onto Station Road.

The house is set on its own mature landscaped site on the northwest side of Station Road, accessed via a bitmac lane that is a cul-de-sac serving No. 19 and several other detached houses to the east of the main Station Road.

Historical Context

Following the opening of the railway to Bangor in 1865, this area of the North Down coast became increasingly accessible to middle-ranking professional and mercantile families. Previously studded with mansions and gentlemen's residences, the area underwent more intensive development with numerous villas constructed on spacious plots. Bramcote first appears, captioned, on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1900–02. The site is close to Craigavad railway station, which closed in the 1980s.

The house entered valuation records in 1880 as a newly-built vacant property constructed by James McCutcheon and valued at £43, with the garden valued at £1. The first recorded tenant was Josiah C Bretland from 1886, at a rent of £70 per annum. Josiah Corbett Bretland was a civil engineer born in 1846 in Nottingham, son of a master painter and gilder. He moved to Belfast in the 1860s and became Belfast City Surveyor in 1884, overseeing major improvements to the city during its period of extraordinary growth. In 1896 he was co-assessor of the competition to design Belfast City Hall. His legacy of built heritage includes Alexandra and Woodvale Parks, a number of fire stations and markets, including St George's Market. The 1901 census lists Bretland as resident with his Cork-born wife and three adult children, his two sons also listed as civil engineers. The household included domestic servants: a parlour maid from Fermanagh and a cook from Tyrone. Bretland appears to have lived at the house until his death in 1921, though he was recorded elsewhere during the 1911 census.

John Holden Craig, a bank official for the Bank of Ireland, occupied the house from 1922 and subsequently became its leaseholder. Craig added a motor house to the plot in 1931, which raised the property's valuation to £50. Captain William J Cole was resident briefly from 1943, though he may not have survived the war. By 1945 the occupier was William F Black.