Lismachan House, 378 Belmont Road, Belfast, County Antrim

Lismachan House is a detached, symmetrical, three-bay, two-storey stucco-fronted Italianate former house, built around 1869–70 to designs by the renowned Belfast architect Thomas Jackson (1807–1890). It stands in the townland of Ballymaghan, on a large mature site to the east of Glenmachan Road and to the north of Belmont Road, at 378 Belmont Road, Belfast. The building was originally constructed for James Shaw, a local landlord, and was acquired in 1872 by Thomas Malcomson Greeves, a flax manufacturer who, along with his brother John, established the flax spinning firm J. & T. M. Greeves Ltd. and set up a large spinning mill off the Falls Road in 1862. Although Thomas Greeves himself resided at Tweskard House on the opposite side of Belmont Road, his brother John leased and occupied Lismachan House until his death in 1917, after which John's daughter Lillian took over the property and continued to live there until her own death in 1963. The house remained in Greeves family occupation until at least the 1970s and was listed in 1980.

According to the Irish Builder, the house as originally built comprised four sitting rooms and eight bedrooms, and was erected at an estimated cost of £4,998 (recorded under the Belfast Revaluation of 1900). The 1911 census described it as a first-class dwelling with 22 rooms, two stables, and a cow house among its outbuildings. The Annual Revisions note that the house was originally valued at £190, rising to £218 following construction of the gate lodge in 1872. Its value was later raised to £250 under the Belfast Revaluation of 1900, then to £219 under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935, and subsequently reduced to £100 under the Second Revaluation of 1956–72. The third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1902 depicts Lismachan House in its current rectangular layout, indicating that few major structural changes have been made over the past century. In 2002 the roof was repaired, and in 2013 the chimneystack was entirely rebuilt. The interior has been remodelled into six self-contained flats with modern fittings and features installed throughout, though despite this change of use the exterior retains its original late-Victorian character.

Lismachan House forms part of a wider collection of former gentlemen's residences designed by Thomas Jackson in the Belmont and Sydenham area, alongside Craigavon House and Glenmachan House and Tower. Jackson was primarily a domestic architect, though he worked across commercial, industrial, educational, and ecclesiastical building types. He had earlier been responsible for a suburban development scheme in North Belfast from the 1830s, taking inspiration — including the name Cliftonville — from Bristol's Clifton suburb, where he had trained. As Belfast industrialised from the 1860s onwards, Jackson became the preferred architect of the merchant elite, designing a number of suburban villas and mansions in East Belfast during the 1860s and 1870s.

The building is irregular on plan, facing south, with a single-storey annexe to the southeast and a two-storey wing to the northeast, enclosing an internal yard to the east. The hipped roofs are covered in natural slate with rolled lead ridges and several tall rendered profiled chimneystacks with corbelled caps (chimney pots have been removed). The roofs are set behind deep moulded corbelled cornices, with painted iron downpipes breaking through them. The walls are finished in textured cement-covered stucco with a moulded plinth course, some channel rustication, and rusticated rendered quoins.

Window openings to the first floor are camber-headed with kneed architrave surrounds. Ground floor openings are round-headed with moulded archivolts rising from pilasters, a continuous sill course, and apron panels. Diamond-faced keystones appear throughout, and all windows are single-pane timber sash with slender ogee horns set on continuous sill courses.

The symmetrical three-bay south front elevation is dominated by a central three-storey square-plan entrance tower, with 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. The entrance tower has a balustraded parapet wall with corner piers and paired window openings to the second floor with a blind balustrade framed by paired pilasters. The first floor has a single window opening with kneed architrave surrounds and a corbelled cornice. The ground floor features a round-headed principal entrance with deep archivolt moulding and a diamond-faced keystone rising from impost mouldings. The original diamond-panelled timber door retains its brass furniture and is accompanied by a plain fanlight; it opens onto a concrete platform approached by 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 diamond-faced six-panel timber door, with plain fanlight, opens onto a concrete platform enclosed by decorative iron railing on a plinth wall, with two nosed steps. The southeast annexe has a central breakfront with four slender round-headed window openings featuring archivolt mouldings and diamond keystones rising from continuous impost mouldings and colonettes on a continuous sill course.

The symmetrical three-bay west garden elevation features 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. This porch has 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 enclosing a central courtyard.

The house is set in a large mature landscape with extensive lawns and a pool. Nearby stands an early 20th century garden pavilion — a single-storey timber-clad structure with a veranda, 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. The site is accessed via two bitmac avenues: one running along the east of the site and opening onto Belmont Road, and another winding through the gardens to the southeast, opening onto Glenmachan Road and passing the original Italianate gate lodge before reaching the road through replacement brick piers. The site boundaries to both roads are formed by replacement red brick walls.