14 - 16 Bladon Park, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT9 5LG

14–16 Bladon Park is one half of a handsome and imposing pair of semi-detached High Victorian villas, designed in 1877 by architect William Batt and originally known as Gretton Villas, formerly numbered 128 and 130 Malone Road. Batt was responsible for numerous large residences in the Malone and Stranmillis area of Belfast, and these villas are a good example of his preferred High Victorian style, characterised by finialled gables and polychrome brickwork tempered with sandstone dressings. Although now divided into two separate dwellings — the current 14 and 16 Bladon Park — the subdivision has been carried out with little disruption to the original layout and is not considered to detract unduly from the special interest of the building. The villas are prominently located along the Malone Road, within the Malone Conservation Area, and have group value with the neighbouring No. 8 Bladon Park and the original gate lodge at 1 Bladon Park.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building is a semi-detached two-bay, two-storey gentleman's residence with attic and basement, rectangular on plan. The original pair present a symmetrical west front to the Malone Road. There is an irregular elevation five openings wide to the north, with a projecting porch, and a lower two-storey return to the north-east, projecting beyond the main elevation.

The roof is steeply pitched and gabled, covered in natural slate, with a flat central section finished in single-ply membrane. Eaves overhang on exposed rafter tails with replacement timber fascia and bargeboards, capped with folded di-bond aluminium. Rainwater goods are uPVC. There are finials to the attic gables and an attic dormer to the west with sheeted plastic cheeks. Two red brick chimneystacks feature projecting blue brick banding, moulded copings, and yellow clay pots, one of which is shared with the adjoining house.

The walling is Flemish bonded red clay brick with flush blue clay brick banding at cill and lintel level. A sandstone plaque is located to the first floor of the west elevation, between Nos. 8 and 14–16 Bladon Park, inscribed "GRETTON VILLAS / 1877." Window openings are square-headed and shouldered, with chamfered red brick surrounds, chamfered flush sandstone sills, and profiled shouldered lintels. Polychromatic brick voussoirs sit beneath dog-toothed blue brick hood moulds. Paired window openings serve the principal rooms. All windows are painted timber one-over-one sliding sashes with horns.

ELEVATIONS

The west elevation, facing the Malone Road, has a gabled left bay fronted by a two-storey canted bay window with an attic window above, and a dormer to the right bay. Windows are paired throughout, except to the canted bay, which has the traditional arrangement of three windows to each floor.

The north elevation is five windows wide with an irregular arrangement. The extreme right bay has a pair of windows aligned to each floor. To its left is the entrance bay, contained within a projecting porch with a sandstone cornice carried on corbel brackets. The opening is shouldered with chamfered brick jambs and a sandstone lintel. The door is a bolection-moulded six-panelled double-leaf with a plain overlight, accessed by a set of four original bull-nosed stone steps. There is a window to each cheek of the porch. Immediately to the left, closely spaced, is a single window to each floor; both of these bays are spanned by a gablet. The two left bays are slightly subservient in their detailing and diminished in window size over three floors, with all windows single except for a paired window to the ground floor right. Between the extreme left bay and the projecting return, a secondary entrance was inserted around 1985, comprising a panelled hardwood door, fibreglass portico, and tiled steps.

The east (rear) elevation is gabled over each bay. The left bay has a pair of plainly detailed windows to the first floor and attic, and a window with floating sidelights to the ground floor. The right bay has margin-paned windows and is abutted on its right side by the lower two-storey return, which is itself abutted to the east and south by two lean-to brick additions. Windows to the north are original; a single window to the east and south is a casement replacement. The south elevation is fully abutted by the adjoining building, No. 8 Bladon Park.

SETTING

The property is situated on the east side of the Malone Road, accessed from Bladon Park in a historic suburb. It is set back from the Malone Road within a large, private, manicured garden with a gravel forecourt, bounded to the Malone Road by a quarry-faced rubble stone wall with mature trees. No. 8 Bladon Park is attached to the south, and there is a contemporary housing development to the east. The site is accessed from Bladon Park via a tarmacadam laneway with a stained timber fence and masonry boundaries, and an entrance screen in a historic style dating from around 2000. The entrance to Bladon Park from the Malone Road is flanked by original curved sandstone walls with decorative moulded sandstone piers surmounted by cast-iron urns. The original gate lodge, built at the same time as the villas, is located on the south side of Bladon Park.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The villas were built for and let by Robert Atkinson, who lived at Beaumont, a large house located to the north on the Malone Road (now demolished). The name "Gretton Villas" is discussed by Brett (1978), who suggests it may derive from the English brewing firm Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton, which owned several warehouses in Belfast at the time. While no direct connection between the villas and the firm has been established, the company's ownership of Bladon Castle in Derbyshire and the street name Bladon Park lend weight to this suggestion. The address was recorded at various times in the valuation revisions as No. 2 Bladon Park, later No. 96 Malone Road, and on at least one occasion — possibly erroneously — as No. 128 Malone Road. The house is occasionally referred to as North Gretton.

The first recorded occupant was an Elise Thompson, a retired widow who originated from Dublin. The valuations also note the existence of a coachman's house on the property. A William J. Malcolmson, a widower, is recorded as occupying the house, valued at £6; he remarried around 1905 to an Annie Malcolmson. Around 1892, No. 128 (the southern villa) was severely damaged by fire, which appears to have caused some damage to No. 130 as well. Both houses were valued at £73 around 1897, presumably before repairs were complete, rising to £106 around 1906. Larmour (1991) notes that, following this fire, the elaborate pierced bargeboards visible in a sketch of the villas published in the Irish Builder were not reinstated.

By around 1907, the occupant of No. 130 was Robert McBride, a linen merchant and handkerchief manufacturer, who lived there with his wife and two children. Occupancy passed to his son, William D. McBride — also a linen handkerchief manufacturer — around 1918, and then to a Mrs W. D. McBride around 1932, presumably William's wife. Survey notes from 1984 record that conversion works to divide the house into two dwellings were then underway, with a fibreglass portico being added to the north elevation at that time.