84C Sandown Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT5 6GU

Sandown House, 84C Sandown Road, Belfast

Sandown House is a detached, well-proportioned rendered villa built in around 1889 in a Regency style, located in the townland of Ballycloghan. It stands five bays wide across two storeys over a basement, with projecting bays to the north and south elevations and a single-storey entrance porch to the south. A single-storey hipped-roof extension was added at ground floor and lower ground floor level extending northward from the basement of the main house around 2010. The building now sits within a private residential complex to the north of Sandown Road, with red brick apartment buildings to the east and west.

Architecture and Exterior

The Regency character of the house is expressed through its hipped slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles, oversailing eaves on a cavetto moulded eaves course, and ogee moulded metal guttering discharging to circular metal downpipes. There are five rendered chimney stacks, each with a projecting moulded string course and coping, topped with octagonal terracotta pots. Windows throughout are square-headed with one-over-one timber sliding sash glazing, except where noted otherwise.

The five-bay south-facing front elevation has shallow projecting hipped bays flanking the entrance porch, which is recessed at ground floor level. The ground floor is rusticated, with a projecting plinth and moulded string course. The first floor is smooth rendered with a continuous moulded cill course. The entrance porch has a flat leaded roof with a balustraded parapet and moulded coping, and its projecting cornice and frieze are supported on four columns with moulded plinths set on steps. Above this, at first floor level, a three-centred arched opening is framed by panelled pilasters supporting a moulded surround with keystone and roundels to the spandrels, with paired round-headed stained-glass windows set within. To the east side of the porch recess, the entrance door is a round-headed opening with a timber panelled door and fanlight over. A cast-iron scrolled bracket and octagonal lantern complete the entrance porch.

The east elevation has three bays, with a tripartite window at ground floor level and a single-storey timber-framed conservatory extending eastward. The extension to the north has three bays with a flat roof and raised parapet forming a terrace at ground floor level, with a moulded string course and coping to smooth rendered walls. The north elevation has advancing east and west bays with hipped roofs flanking a gabled bay to the main house, projecting smooth rendered chimney stacks to the centre of the flanking bays, and openings at ground and first floor levels. The single-storey northward extension has a hipped roof and square-headed door opening. The lower ground floor extension to the north has seven bays, with advancing east and west bays flanking central three bays containing an entrance with a square-headed opening. The west elevation has three bays with a smooth rendered plinth to the basement and a tripartite window at ground floor level, with a three-bay lower ground floor extension to the north.

Interior

The ornately decorated hallway and gallery are of particular artistic merit. The decorative fanlight above the entrance door contains a ship's wheel motif, and the coloured leaded glazing to the first floor gallery is reminiscent of work carried out by Italian craftsmen in the Harland and Wolff shipyards during the 1930s. References to shipping recur throughout the design of the main hall area. The staircase is believed to be a later insertion, reputedly removed from a local church and fitted to the house, probably following Sir Frederick Rebbeck's acquisition of the property in 1919.

History

The land on which Sandown House stands was owned by Sir Robert E. Ward (Viscount Bangor), a prominent local magistrate and landlord who resided at Bangor Castle and also owned the adjoining No. 82 Sandown Road and No. 9 Sandown Park. Ward leased the land to a Mr Robert Corry on 7th November 1887, and the house had been constructed by 1889, when it first appeared in the Annual Revisions with a total rateable value of £89 and 10 shillings; the valuer recorded the construction cost as £1,400.

The first occupant was Robert Corry, a local builder and contractor with business premises on University Street. The 1901 census described his residence as a first-class dwelling of 12 rooms, with outbuildings including a stable, cow house, dairy, barn and laundry, all now demolished. Corry remained at Sandown House until his death in 1909. The house was subsequently briefly occupied by William Virtue, managing director of United Distillery Ltd, a company formed in 1902 by the merger of Watt's Distillery, the Irish Distillery Ltd and Avoniel Distillery, which came to dominate the Irish market.

On 28th May 1919, Sandown House was leased to Sir Frederick E. Rebbeck (1877–1964), who had served an engineering apprenticeship in England before moving to Belfast to work at Harland and Wolff. In 1930 he became Chief Executive of the shipyard, having bought out Sir Owen Cosby Phillips, who had succeeded William Pirrie following his death in 1924. Rebbeck guided the company through the downturn in international shipping during the 1930s depression, led Harland and Wolff into aircraft construction through the formation of Shorts Brothers and Harland, and during the Second World War oversaw the repair of the shipyards bombed during the Belfast Blitz. He personally received orders for ships from Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, and was knighted by King George VI in 1941. Rebbeck retired in 1962 and died at Sandown House on 27th June 1964.

By the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), ownership had passed to a Mrs McFerran and the rateable value had risen to £147. Following Rebbeck's death, the house was acquired by William J. Glover, who resided there from 1964 until the 1990s; by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the value stood at £151. The house was listed in 1987. The Glover family sold the property in 1999 to Fraser Homes Ltd, after which it remained vacant until around 2009, when it underwent an extensive refurbishment to convert it into self-contained apartments. The central return and flat-roof extension to the rear were added at this time. The restoration was carried out to the designs of Sutherland Architects, who were also responsible for the modern red brick apartment blocks constructed within Sandown's former grounds.

Setting

The building sits within a private apartment complex approached from Sandown Road via a tarmac driveway to the west, with metal gates and fencing surrounding the complex. Landscaped gardens lie to the south, east and west, with hedge and tree boundaries. Lawns, planting and pathways extend to the side and rear of the building.