28 Windsor Park, Belfast, BT9 6FQ

28 Windsor Park, Belfast

This is an end-of-terrace, three-storey red brick house with a full attic, built in 1889–90 to designs by architect Robert Watt. It forms the eastern half of a terrace of four dwellings originally known as 'Victoria Gardens', paired with its immediate neighbour no. 26. The terrace faces south onto Windsor Park, a tree-lined street running east to west between the Lisburn and Malone Roads in south Belfast.

Group Value and Setting

No. 28 is one of a significant group of late Victorian red brick houses along this stretch of Windsor Park. Together with nos. 22, 24 and 26 (the rest of the Victoria Gardens terrace), the semi-detached pair at nos. 30 and 32, and the detached house at no. 34, it forms a substantial and cohesive streetscape, all built in the late 1880s. Nos. 30–34 were designed by William Batt rather than Robert Watt, but all the properties share similar stylistic devices: bold pedimented gabled attics, bay windows, and decorative brick and terracotta detailing. Each property has individual merit, and together they make a striking and confident contribution to the Derryvolgie and Windsor Conservation Area, an effect significantly enhanced by the mature trees within the front gardens.

The house is set back from the tree-lined street by a front garden whose boundary is not formally defined. A large mature tree dominates the front lawn, shared with no. 26. A tarmacked drive to the east is aligned with hedging and some timber fencing to the rear. A tarmacked path leads to the entrance, with three modern tiled steps spanning the shared porch with no. 26. The large rear garden is now gravelled and used as a shared car park with no. 26. To the north, an intact and substantial eight-foot-high boundary wall in red brick with stone saddleback coping survives in good condition. A modern concrete block wall marks the western boundary with no. 24.

Architectural Description

The building is three storeys high with a full attic, three bays wide, and built in red brick in Flemish bond with decorative brick and terracotta detailing. It sits on an inverted T-plan, with a three-storey rear return built at half-landing level. The return is conjoined with that of no. 26 to form a wide shared gable. Nos. 22 and 24 (the left-hand side of the terrace) are a mirror image of nos. 26 and 28. A single-storey gabled appendage abuts the return, also shared with no. 26, with an adjoining flat-roofed enclosure that may originally have been a walled yard.

The main roof runs east to west with natural slate, terracotta (red) ridge tiles, and finials. There is a hipped roof dormer to the front (south), a large chimney with multiple pots to the east gable end, and a second chimney on the gable end of the return. Three modern rooflights have been added: one at the front and two at the rear slope. Cast aluminium rainwater goods are used to the front; plastic to the rear. Windows throughout are timber, single-glazed, double-hung sliding sashes with 1/1 panes to the front and 2/2 panes to the rear, unless otherwise noted.

Front Elevation (South)

The south elevation is asymmetrical. A chamfered brick plinth runs at base level with underfloor ventilators. All openings are segmental-headed with brick arches, moulded reveals, and sandstone cills.

At ground floor, a rectangular single-storey projecting bay sits to the right (east) of an arched entrance screen leading to a lean-to porch. The porch is shared with no. 26 and springs from a central carved timber column with a sheeted timber privacy screen behind; it is supported at either end by carved sandstone corbels. The entrance door is six-panelled with raised panels and a plain glass overlight, and there is a tall, narrow sidelight to the left of the door (a sliding sash with 1/1 panes). The ground floor projecting bay has two windows, with a raised 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 first floor windows. A continuous gutter runs across the face of the parapet and the eaves of the lean-to porch, defining the bay further.

There are three windows each at first and second floor levels, diminishing in height. Above the first floor windows, a decorative moulded string course rises to form a hood. 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 are highlighted in decorative egg-and-dart and dentil mouldings in terracotta. A small box dormer centred on the roof contains a pair of uPVC windows. Wide overhanging eaves with a boarded soffit, all painted, complete the roofline. The cheeks of the dormer are boarded in either uPVC or timber, dark grey in colour (possibly originally lead-clad).

Side Elevation (East)

The monumental east gable of the main block is largely blank. Its only articulation comes from the expression of two chimney flues that rise from ground to second floor level, where they taper at the sides and form a central arch below the red brick chimney on the ridge. The walls here are rendered, painted to match the brick, and ruled and lined to suggest coursing. The terracotta cornice returns from the front elevation and stops against the chimneybreast. Two small side-hung casement windows, positioned off-centre at first and second floor, appear to be later additions; together with a plastic soil-and-vent pipe, they suggest kitchens or bathrooms on the reverse side.

The east face of the three-storey return is informally arranged. All openings here have square heads, brick arches, and sandstone cills. At ground floor, running from south to north, there is a four-panelled door and five equally sized windows, all retaining their original frames and single glazing, with some replacement textured glass. At first floor, there is one replacement uPVC window (white), two original sliding sashes (2/2 panes), and paired uPVC casement windows (white) near the gable end. At second floor, there is one original window, two replacement timber-framed double-glazed top-hung casements within original openings, and paired matching casement windows near the gable end (black). The wider openings near the gable end have concrete lintels and cills, suggesting a later intervention. The east face of the gabled appendage has three windows, original and matching those at ground floor in the return. The flat-roofed enclosure has a sheeted timber door, painted, with a concrete lintel.

Rear Elevation (North)

The three-storey gabled return, shared with no. 26, is placed centrally between the two properties. To the left (east) of the return, no. 28 has one window at each of ground, first, and second floor levels, with a single window at attic level above the return. The ground and first floor windows are sliding sashes with 1/1 panes; the second floor has 2/2 panes. The rear gable wall of the return is symmetrical, surmounted by a wide brick chimney (eight pots, plain brick, no corbel), with sandstone coping at the verge. There are four window openings, two each at first and second floor, all positioned towards the outer edges of the wall beyond the (internally expressed) chimney flues. To the left (east), no. 28 retains its original sliding sash window at second floor; at first floor, a replacement top-hung double-glazed window, painted black to match the original style, has a mock central glazing bar and applied horns to resemble a traditional sash. A single-storey gabled appendage abuts the ground floor; it is blank with clipped eaves and is joined by the flat-roofed enclosure.

West Elevation

No. 26 abuts the entire west elevation, including the return, so this face is not visible.

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 that stood to the east close to Malone Road. Laurel Bank was itself 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 had been converted into small semi-rural demesnes in the mid-19th century before being broken up by the more intensive suburban expansion that spread southwards along the Ridge during the late Victorian era. A large number of the streets created in the later 1800s were laid out along the boundaries of former farms and demesnes. In the case of Windsor Park, the northern and southern boundaries of the building plots on either side of the street mark the respective limits of the older property. The earliest house to be built along the new street was no. 33 in 1873, with nos. 42–44 following 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 land to the north was retained as nursery ground into the mid-1890s, after which it too began to be developed with a mixture of large detached, semi-detached, and terraced dwellings.

The Victoria Gardens terrace, of which no. 28 is part, was built in 1889–90 to designs by 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. Despite the terrace and its eastern neighbours being completed by late 1890, the group does not appear on the 1896 Ordnance Survey town plan, though it does appear on the 1903 plan. Early letting advertisements described each house as having '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. 28 (originally 4 Victoria Gardens) appears to have been John McClinton, a retired soap merchant, who in the 1901 census is noted as sharing the house with his wife Mary Ann, their two grown-up children, Mrs McClinton's brother-in-law George H. Thomson, and a domestic servant. The McClintons were followed in 1907 by the Reverend James Little, a Presbyterian minister, who in the 1911 census is recorded as occupying the house with two domestic servants. Reverend Little was succeeded around 1915 by Miss Jane McNeill, who was still in residence in 1932. By 1943, Misses M. and A. Park were living there. The property was recorded as vacant in 1951, and at some point in the following decade it was divided into three flats, increasing to five flats in the early 1970s.

Condition and Significance

The conversion to self-contained apartments has resulted in some loss of original plan form, and replacement windows in the rear return detract from the building's character. Nonetheless, no. 28 retains largely intact fabric and remains significant both as part of a strong group and as an individual example of late Victorian domestic architecture in Belfast. It is a very good representative of the confident, well-detailed residential development that characterised the southward suburban expansion of Belfast in the 1880s and 1890s.