51 Old Holywood Road, Belfast

51 Old Holywood Road is a small but well-proportioned and finely detailed late-Victorian semi-detached house, built in 1881 and possibly designed by Thomas Jackson & Son. It is one-and-a-half storeys in height — ground floor plus attic — and is constructed in red brick. It sits in the townland of Ballymaghan, fronting Old Holywood Road and facing Belvoir Park. The house is also known as one of the four "Pilgrim's Cottages" at Nos 45–51 Old Holywood Road, and forms part of a group with its immediate neighbour No. 49 (its other half as a semi-detached pair) and the adjacent semi-detached pair at Nos 45 and 47.

The four cottages were built for the gardeners of nearby Glenmachan House at the instruction of Sir William Ewart (1817–1889), one of Belfast's most prominent citizens and linen manufacturers. Ewart's father and grandfather had established the firm William Ewart & Son in 1814; William became a partner in 1843 and by his death in 1889 had transformed the business into one of the largest linen manufactories in the world. His associated properties included the warehouse at 17 Bedford Street in central Belfast, a landmark building in the city. Active in public life, he served as Mayor of Belfast in 1859–60 and as Member of Parliament for Belfast from 1878 to 1889. Glenmachan House itself was erected in 1879 to a design by Thomas Jackson & Son, and the four cottages followed two years later, in 1881 — also possibly by Thomas Jackson & Son, though this cannot be confirmed with certainty. In character, the grouped layout of the cottages, set in pairs and set back from the road with generous front and rear gardens, is reminiscent of worker housing at garden villages such as Bournville and Port Sunlight.

No. 51 was initially valued at £4 10s. Its occupants were not recorded in valuation sources until the early 20th century: in 1901 it was occupied by David McIlwaine, a gardener maintaining the Glenmachan estate, along with his neighbours. The 1911 census building return described McIlwaine's cottage as a second-class dwelling of five rooms. The Ewart family retained ownership of Glenmachan House and Nos 45–51 Old Holywood Road until at least the 1970s, and a number of the cottages continued to be occupied by Glenmachan's gardeners until the mid-20th century. In the 1940s No. 51 was occupied by Hugh Warden Byers, who maintained the estate until his death in 1949. By the close of the Second Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72), the rateable value of the building had risen to £8 10s. The group of cottages was listed in 1976.

The plan form is rectangular, with a single-storey flat-roof extension added to the rear in 1978. The principal elevation faces west and is two bays wide. The building's most visually distinctive feature is its roofscape: a half-hipped roof clad in plain red clay tiles with bonnet hip tiles, decorative bands of club and fishtail tiling, crested ridge tiles, and terracotta ball finials. Moulded timber barge boards are fitted throughout, and the projecting eaves have exposed rafter ends that carry ogee-profile cast iron guttering discharging to rectangular-section downpipes. The chimney stacks, shared with the attached property, are rectangular in section, in red brick, and have corbelled copings with red clay chimney pots.

The attic storey is clad in vertically hung red clay tiles with alternating bands of club and fishtail tiles. The walls below are in red brick laid to Flemish bond, with a dentilled string course at impost level, buff and black brick banding at sill level, and a projecting black brick plinth course. Window openings are square-headed with flat-arch lintels, painted sills, and margin-paned double-hung timber sash windows with a diamond pattern to the upper sash.

The principal west-facing elevation has a square-headed door opening to the north bay, fitted with a timber panelled door and fanlight. Over the door is a canopy supported on decorative timber brackets, slated in plain red clay tiles with fishtail banding. At attic level, a gabled dormer contains a three-sided canted bay window with timber sashes, built off the front wall and supported on moulded timber brackets. The dormer cheeks are tiled in alternating courses of club and fishtail red clay tiles, and the dormer has crested ridge tiles and ball finials to match the main roof.

The north elevation has one window at ground floor and one at first floor. The rear extension at the east end is single storey with a flat roof and has a square-headed timber panelled door with glazing; its east-facing elevation has modern uPVC casement windows. The south elevation abuts No. 47 Old Holywood Road.

The setting comprises a narrow paved pathway around the building, a lawned front garden shared between the two semi-detached properties, and a lawned rear garden. The site is enclosed by a dwarf red-brick wall topped with stone coping and iron railings with arrow-headed rail tops. A plain wooden gate on the west side is supported on rectangular-section sandstone piers with moulded copings. The listing extends to the house, gate pillars, and walling.

Repairs and maintenance recorded include emergency roof repairs in 1991–92 involving replacement of defective timbers along the barge boards and installation of new lead cover flashings, and repointing of the brickwork of Nos 49–51 in 1993.