Lismachan House, 378 Belmont Road, Belfast, County Antrim

Lismachan House is a detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey stucco-fronted Italianate house built around 1870, with a central three-storey entrance tower. The building is irregular on plan when viewed from the south, with a single-storey annex to the southeast and a two-storey wing to the northeast enclosing an internal yard to the east.

The house stands on a large mature site to the east of Glenmachan Road and north of Belmont Road. Access is via a winding bitumac avenue opening onto Glenmachan Road, which passes the original gate lodge before reaching the property.

The roofs are hipped natural slate with rolled lead ridges and several tall rendered profiled chimneystacks with corbelled caps, though the chimney pots have been removed. The roofs sit behind deep moulded corbelled cornices with painted iron downpipes breaking through. The walling is textured cement-covered stucco with a moulded plinth course, some channel rustication, and rusticated rendered quoins.

The south front elevation is the principal façade, featuring the central three-storey square-plan entrance tower as its focal point, flanked by a secondary single-storey square-plan entrance porch to the right, a single-bay single-storey connecting wing, and a single-storey single-bay annexe to the east. Window openings have camber heads with kneed architrave surrounds on the first floor, while ground floor windows are round-headed with moulded archivolts rising from pilasters and continuous sill courses with apron panels. All windows are single-pane timber sashes with slender ogee horns on continuous sill courses. Diamond-faced keystones appear throughout.

The entrance tower features a balustraded parapet wall with corner piers and paired window openings to the second floor with blind balustrade framed by paired pilasters. The first floor has a single window opening with kneed architrave surrounds and corbelled cornice. The round-headed principal entrance at ground floor level has deep archivolt moulding and a diamond-faced keystone rising from impost mouldings. The original entrance door is diamond-panelled timber with brass furniture and a plain fanlight, opening onto a concrete platform with four nosed steps enclosed by low plinth walls. Ground floor windows are arranged in pairs rising from pilasters set on a stepped sill course with apron panels.

The secondary entrance porch has round-headed window and door openings with archivolt mouldings and continuous impost mouldings. The original door is a diamond-faced six-panel timber door with a plain fanlight, opening onto a concrete platform enclosed by decorative iron railing on a plinth wall with two nosed steps.

The southeast annexe features a central breakfront with four slender round-headed window openings with archivolt mouldings and diamond keystones rising from continuous impost mouldings and colonettes on a continuous sill course.

The symmetrical three-bay west garden elevation has two full-height three-sided canted bay windows with 2/2 timber sash windows to the first floor and a paired window opening to the centre. The north rear elevation is five windows wide with a central single-storey square-plan entrance porch and paired windows to either end. The entrance porch features an iron balustrade with French doors to the left cheek opening onto timber steps. The northeast return has square-headed window openings with 2/2 timber sash windows. The east side elevation is abutted by two returns with a central courtyard.

The setting comprises extensive lawns with a pool and a large single-storey timber-clad pavilion with veranda. The pavilion appears to be early 20th-century in date, rectilinear in plan with a pitched natural slate roof sprocketed at the eaves and decorative metalwork at the ridge. It is supported on decorative cast iron posts, open at the south end with a painted boarded timber soffit, and enclosed at the north end with painted timber panelling and half-height round-headed glazing panels.

Two bitumac avenues serve the property. One runs along the east of the site opening onto Belmont Road, while the other winds through the gardens opening onto Glenmachan Road to the southeast, passing the original gate lodge and opening onto the road via replacement brick piers. The site is bounded by replacement red brick walls facing both roads.