22-24 Windsor Park, Belfast, BT9 6FQ

22–24 Windsor Park, Belfast

These substantial red brick premises were originally built in 1889–90 as two separate terraced houses, forming the western half of a four-house terrace known as 'Victoria Gardens'. They were designed by architect Robert Watt for James Hetherington, a linen manufacturer of the Broadway Damask Company, who himself lived in 'Canmore' (since demolished) on the opposite side of Windsor Park. The two houses have since been amalgamated into a single property and are currently in use as a nursing home. The building is three storeys high with a full attic, and faces south onto Windsor Park, a tree-lined street running east to west between the Lisburn and Malone Roads in south Belfast.

Its special interest is enhanced by its group value with immediate neighbours: nos 26 & 28; the semi-detached pair at nos 30 & 32; and the detached no 34 Windsor Park. Although nos 30–34 were designed by a different architect, William Batt, all these buildings date from the late 1880s and together form an impressive late Victorian red brick group. They share similar stylistic devices including bold pedimented gabled attics, bay windows, and decorative brick and terracotta detailing. Each is of individual merit, with well-tended, treed front gardens, and together they make a striking and confident contribution to the Derryvolgie and Windsor Conservation Area. Nos 22 & 24 retain their original plan form and a significant amount of original fabric, particularly to the main front block. Although the conversion to a nursing home has involved fundamental changes — including the replacement of a stair with a lift and an extension at eaves level to the rear — the building is sufficiently robust to have absorbed these without loss of its special character.

Layout and Roof

Nos 22 & 24 form a mirror image of nos 26 & 28, both being on an inverted T-plan. The original arrangement comprised two houses each of three bays, with conjoined rear returns. The main block faces south, with the roof ridge running east to west, and two dormers. A lower three-storey rear return projects northward, with a single-storey hipped-roof block at the end of the return. A modern hipped-roof extension to the north-west is aligned with the gable end of the main block. There is a large chimney with multiple pots to the west gable end, a matching chimney on the centre ridge of the terrace, and a third chimney on the north gable end of the return. Modern extensions to the rear at eaves level include a lift shaft. A partially enclosed fire escape rises to full height, abutting the north-east rear of the main block and the east side of the return.

All original roofs are covered in natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles. Rainwater goods are generally cast iron to the front and plastic to the rear. The walls are red brick with decorative brick and terracotta detailing. Windows are single-glazed double-hung sliding sash: 1-over-1 to the front, 2-over-2 to the rear and return unless noted otherwise.

South (Front) Elevation

The front elevation is symmetrical to eaves level, built off a brick plinth with underfloor ventilators. All windows have segmental heads with brick arches, moulded reveals, and sandstone cills.

At ground floor, two rectangular single-storey bays sit either side of paired doorways, each reached by three steps (concrete). The original entrance opening to the west (left-hand side) has been converted to a window, with the steps replaced by a modern ramp. Between the two entrance openings is a round-arched timber-screened porch springing from a central carved timber column, all painted, and supported at either end by carved sandstone corbels. Between the two entrance openings are two tall, thin rectangular 1-over-1 sliding sash 'sidelights'. The entrance doors are six-panelled with raised panels and a plain fanlight over each. Each bay has two windows, with a moulded parapet, sandstone coping, and a flat roof behind. The coping returns onto the face of the building to form a moulded string course and cill to the two central windows. The bay is further defined by a continuous 'string course' gutter running across the face of the parapet and the eaves of the lean-to porch.

At first and second floors there are six windows, arranged in two groups of three. Above the first floor windows is a decorative moulded string course, and to the underside of the second floor window cills there is raised apron detailing. Above the second floor windows runs a further continuous moulded string course.

The eaves line is broken at the east end (right-hand side) by a pedimented attic dormer, the full width of the original house. This has exposed rafter ends with a plain bargeboard supported on three timber posts and a moulded corbel, and contains a pair of smaller sash windows with a continuous cill and decorative raised apron, centred on the dormer gable. A decorative egg-and-dart and dentilled terracotta cornice runs under the eaves at the west end (left-hand side). Above the middle of the three windows at second floor on this side is a small timber-framed box dormer with a pair of sash windows, wide overhanging eaves supported to the front by timber brackets (all painted), and a hipped roof. The dormer cheeks, possibly originally lead, appear to be replacements.

A carved white marble plaque lettered 'Victoria Gardens' in what appears to be lead lettering is set into the wall at first floor level between nos 24 & 26.

West (Side) Elevation

The monumental gable of the main block is blank, articulated only by the expression of the two chimney flues, which rise in raised brick from ground to second floor level, at which point they taper inward to the chimney on the ridge. The terracotta cornice returns around the corner and stops against the chimney breast.

The west elevation of the return is abutted for its full length at ground floor by a single-storey modern brick extension with a hipped slated roof, timber windows, and double doors fully glazed above a brick plinth. At first floor, the return has three modern timber windows in existing openings. At second floor there are three 2-over-2 sash windows, with openings grouped towards the rear wall of the main block.

The west elevation of the single-storey block abutting the end of the return has three large 2-over-2 sash windows and a modern flush timber door. All openings here are plain with square heads, brick arches, and sandstone cills.

North (Rear) Elevation

The gable of the broad return — originally two returns placed back to back, serving the two houses — sits centrally in the rear wall of the main block. On the west side of the main block there is one 2-over-2 sash window to each of the first and second floors. The wallhead has been extended in modern brick at eaves level to form a wide flat-roofed dormer. The east side of the main block matches this arrangement; the ground floor window here is modern, and the eaves wallhead has also been extended on this side to form a second flat-roofed dormer giving access to the external fire escape from the attic floor, with the original eaves running between the two modern dormers.

Immediately below the eaves, and one either side of the ridge of the rear return, are two plain timber tripartite 2-over-2 sash windows that originally lit the half-landings on the stairs up to the attic. The one to the west remains intact externally but is now blocked internally by the lift shaft, which has been extended through the roof and is visible externally as a corrugated metal flat-roofed box abutting the modern brick dormer. The tripartite window to the east is also intact externally but is partially blocked internally to accommodate a modern glazed screen subdividing the stair at attic level.

The rear gable wall of the return is symmetrical, surmounted by a wide brick chimney with eight plain brick pots and no corbel, and sandstone coping at the verge. There are four window openings: two each to the first and second floors, all set towards the outer edge of the wall beyond the chimney flues (which are not expressed externally). To the west, two 2-over-2 sash windows are stacked one above the other. To the east, the opening at first floor has been bricked up, with one 1-over-1 sash above it at second floor.

The rear elevation of the single-storey block at the end of the return has a new opening with modern flush doors (to a boiler room), one step up to a painted timber sheeted door, and a modern plain-glazed window, both in original openings.

East (Side) Elevation

The main block is completely abutted by the adjacent building. The rear return has five irregularly spaced 1-over-1 sash windows and a modern glazed door to a rear exit at ground floor. The original first floor openings have been altered, including a new door opening to provide access onto the fire escape. At second floor there are two 2-over-2 sash windows and a new door opening. The single-storey block at the end of the return has three 1-over-1 sash windows on this elevation. All original openings are plain with square heads, brick arches, and sandstone cills. The external fire escape consists of a series of metal open-tread stairs and landings, partially enclosed by corrugated sheeting.

Setting

The building is set back from the tree-lined street by a front garden with a hedge boundary, a cast iron pedestrian gate, and piers from the pavement. There is a large rear garden (now gravelled and in use as a car park), accessed by a driveway running alongside the west gable through painted timber double gates. The entrance to the driveway is flanked by Victorian-style lamp standards, with the one to the left side enclosed by decorative cast iron railing; all of these appear to be contemporary with the building. An intact, substantial 8-foot brick boundary wall with stone saddleback coping runs along the west and north sides. Only a remnant of the original boundary wall with the neighbour at no 26 survives on the east side; the remainder is modern concrete block.

Historical Background

Windsor Park (originally 'Windsor Park Avenue') was laid out around 1873, following the line of a path that had previously run through a large nursery belonging to 'Laurel Bank' (later renamed 'Bellevue'), a house standing to the east close to the Malone Road. Laurel Bank was built around 1835 within one of the long-established strip farms that originally stretched from the high ground of the Malone Ridge westwards to the Bog Meadows. Many of these farms were converted into small semi-rural demesnes in the mid-19th century, and were in turn broken up by the more intensive suburban expansion that gradually spread southwards along the Malone Ridge in the late Victorian era. A large number of the streets created in the later 1800s were laid out along the boundaries of these former farms and demesnes. In the case of Windsor Park, it is the northern and southern boundaries of the building plots on either side of the street that mark the limits of the older property. The earliest house to be developed along the new street was no 33 in 1873, followed by nos 42–44 in 1874 and nos 11–13 a year later, all since demolished. Much of the southern side of the street was developed within the following two decades, while the land to the north was retained as a nursery into the mid-1890s, when it too began to be developed with a mixture of large detached, semi-detached, and terraced dwellings.

Early letting advertisements for Victoria Gardens described each house as possessing 'three reception rooms and seven bed rooms, cloakroom, lavatory etc; all fittings first quality; garden in front; also garden and conservatory in rear.'

The first recorded occupant of no 22 (originally 1 Victoria Gardens) appears to have been J. G. Leathem of the Northern Banking Co. Ltd., followed by John Hunter and Miss Mary Lindsay in 1897. In the 1901 and 1911 census, Miss Lindsay is recorded as occupying the house with two domestic servants, with no mention of Mr Hunter; the house is noted as a first-class dwelling with 12 rooms in use. Hunter and Lindsay continued to be listed as occupants until at least 1924. H. H. Mussen, Crown Solicitor, lived there from 1932 until around 1956, and J. C. Davison was resident from around 1956 to around 1991.

No 24's first recorded occupant was Clyde Kirkwood, succeeded in 1897 by Thomas Hall, chief accountant of the Belfast Banking Co. Ltd., then Mrs Frederick Little by 1899, and Moses Wilson, secretary of Belfast Bank, in 1901. The 1901 census records Mr Wilson, his wife Elizabeth, their seven children, and two domestic servants in occupation, noting the building as a first-class dwelling with 10 rooms in use. By 1911, Mr and Mrs Wilson and four of their children were still in residence with two new domestic servants. The family continued there until around 1920, when they were succeeded by J. P. McCoy, an auctioneer, whose family remained until the mid-1950s, at which point the property was divided into three flats. It remained in this form until the early 1980s, when the building was converted to a nursing home called 'Victoria Residential Home'. In the early 1990s, this was amalgamated with the nursing home already operating at no 22.

It is noted that although the terrace was completed by late 1890, it does not appear on the 1896 Ordnance Survey town plan of Belfast, though it does appear on the 1903 edition.