3 Sans Souci Lane, Belfast, BT9 5QY

Heathcote, 3 Sans Souci Lane, is one of a pair of three-storey semi-detached houses designed in a flamboyant late Victorian style by Belfast-based architect Thomas H. McCaul in 1899–1900, and built for John Stott at a recorded construction cost of £904. It sits in a secluded site off Sans Souci Park in the university area of South Belfast, approximately 2.5 kilometres from the city centre. The house is listed together with its original ornate cast iron entrance gate, which retains its name plate.

ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW

The main three-storey block, complete with projecting bays and entrance porch, is ornately detailed in an eclectic mixture of classical and more typically late Victorian motifs. The ground floor is finished in painted channelled render, with yellow clay brick above. Unusually, the brickwork incorporates an inner skin of thinner red clay brick, meaning the mortar bed sizes vary between the two skins to accommodate the difference in thickness — the result being that the exterior joints appear surprisingly fine for brickwork of this period. Brick quoins project at all corners to form a rusticated effect. A simpler rendered two-storey return is attached to the rear.

Materials: walls of painted channelled render to the ground floor and yellow clay brick above; painted single-glazed windows in a mixture of glazing patterns, many with leaded coloured glass in the top lights; natural Welsh slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles; cast iron rainwater goods.

PRINCIPAL (SOUTH-EAST) ELEVATION

The south-east elevation features a projecting single-storey entrance porch with double doors set under an ogee arch that breaks into a pediment above. A fluted string course connects the door surround to two flanking windows, which are 1-over-1 sliding sashes with leaded coloured glass in geometric patterns in the top lights — a detail repeated consistently across the three-storey portion of the house. The porch roof is concealed behind a partly balustraded parapet.

To the right of the porch is an unusual arrangement: a projecting canted bay at ground floor level, with painted curved timber struts at the corners that appear to support a square bay above. The first floor of this square bay has a square-headed half-over-half sliding sash window, a projecting cornice, and a fully balustraded parapet over. Three impressive chimney stacks of varying sizes rise from the roofline, all in yellow brick with projecting cornices and dentil courses.

To the right, this elevation is mirrored in the neighbouring house, Ingledene (1 Sans Souci Lane). Both projecting bays are surmounted by a projecting gable with an apex pierced in a floral pattern, and each house has a round-headed window below this gable.

SOUTH-WEST ELEVATION

The south-west elevation has a rectangular single-storey projecting bay, detailed in the same manner as elsewhere on the building. Above this, the first floor has three square-headed 1-over-1 windows, and the attic has two round-headed windows. The projecting verge of the half-hipped gable is supported on curved timber brackets matching those on the south-east elevation, which continue around the corners to support the projecting eaves. Further to the left is the two-storey rendered return, with two 1-over-1 sliding sash windows on each floor. A single-storey mono-pitched block is attached to the gable end of the return.

NORTH-EAST ELEVATION

The north-east elevation is abutted by the neighbouring property, 1 Sans Souci Lane.

REAR (NORTH-WEST) ELEVATION

The north-west boundary wall is rendered and largely blank, with only a timber door opening onto an internal yard. This rendered wall extends south-west to enclose the garden on that side. At first floor level there is a small window in the return and a larger leaded light to the staircase in the main block. The internal yard is separated from the neighbouring house by a rendered wall approximately 3 metres high, and part of the yard has been modernised.

SETTING AND GROUNDS

Both Heathcote and its neighbour Ingledene are accessed by a narrow lane running at right angles to Sans Souci Park. Heathcote has a separate pedestrian entrance through the original ornate cast iron gate bearing its name plate, as well as a vehicular access. A substantial garden to the south-west extends around to the south-east, mainly grassed with some shrubs and flower beds. The garden contains a single-storey rendered dwelling constructed in the late 20th century, originally used as a play school, which replaced an earlier coach house that served both Heathcote and Ingledene. A narrow lane to the north-west provides vehicular access to the rear of the house.

The house has group value with its neighbour Ingledene, and its mature, secluded setting enhances both properties.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Sans Souci — comprising Sans Souci Park, Sans Souci Lane, and the area fronting onto Malone Road — was laid out in the late 1890s on grounds formerly belonging to a house of the same name, probably built in the 1770s when the Donegall estate began subdividing land known as the 'Course' lands between Malone and Stranmillis and leasing plots to farmers. The original house was rebuilt in 1836–37 and subsequently occupied by the Purdon, Pim and Lindsay families. It was vacated around 1895, and in 1899 the grounds were broken up and offered for sale as villa sites. The old house, by then sitting on a much-reduced plot of approximately one acre, was initially offered for lease but was soon demolished, and its former grounds were fully opened for development.

The new principal street was laid out around 1899. The first new dwellings — five pairs of semi-detached houses, now numbered 6–8 and 31–33 and 35–37 Sans Souci Park, 1–2 Sans Souci Lane, and 60–62 Malone Road — were completed in 1899 or 1900. Further properties at nos. 10–12, 26, 28, 34–36, 38–40, 41 and 43–45 were in place by 1911, and most of the remainder followed in the 1920s, filling land that in the preceding decade had been used as allotments. A large badminton hall was also constructed to the east during this period. In more recent years, apartment development has taken place in the southern corner of Sans Souci Park, with one large apartment block now occupying the site of the former sports hall, latterly owned by Queen's University Belfast.

OCCUPANCY HISTORY

Heathcote and Ingledene were built in 1899–1900 for John Stott, who was also the first occupant. In the 1901 census, Stott — an English-born secretary of a limited company in the linen trade — was recorded living there with his wife Jemima and their two adult daughters. The house was noted as a first-class dwelling with 13 rooms in use. The Stotts left around 1909 and were succeeded by Thomas Magean, recorded in the 1911 census as occupying the house with his wife Susan, a relative named Jeannie Fawcett, and a domestic servant. J. B. Aicken of Gunning & Campbell's Ltd. is listed as resident in 1918, remaining until around 1923, when he was followed by J. C. Taylor in 1924. Taylor was succeeded around 1938 by Geoffrey Bowley, who is later recorded with the rank of Major, presumably following the outbreak of the Second World War.

In 1943 the house was requisitioned by the British government for use by the Radio Security Service (RSS), an organisation established by MI5 to intercept illegal radio transmissions from enemy agents operating within the United Kingdom and to oversee communications sent by double agents, forwarding intercepted material to Bletchley Park for decoding. Heathcote served as the RSS headquarters in Northern Ireland. The RSS vacated the property in 1946.

A Mrs Major is recorded as resident from at least 1951 to around 1962, followed by R. P. Phoenix, described as a director, from around 1963 to around 1983. E. V. Hickey is listed as occupant in 1985, but from at least 1990 the property does not appear in street directories, making later ownership and occupancy difficult to trace.