Wynard House, Kensington Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT5 6NF

Wynard House is a well-proportioned mid to late nineteenth-century house that retains its original form and character. Built around 1870 by Hamilton Cuming, a wealthy Belfast merchant, it exemplifies the suburban villas erected during the period when the edge of Belfast was becoming a popular residential district for local businessmen. Although of some interest as part of this wave of villa development, there are better examples and the building is not considered of special architectural or historic interest.

The house is a detached three-bay two-storey structure with attic, rendered in a symmetrical Italianate style. It features a two-storey rear return to the south with walls forming a courtyard to the south-west, and a single-storey glazed conservatory to the west. The building is set within its own grounds to the east of Kensington Road, approached from the west by a tarmac tree-lined driveway and surrounded by residential developments to the north, east and south.

The roof is pitched slate with half-gabled dormers to north and south, stone ridge tiles, painted decorative bargeboards, and overhanging eaves with exposed purlins and painted timber sheeted soffit. Painted cast-iron ogee moulded guttering discharges to circular downpipes. A pair of two-stage smooth rendered chimneys with projecting cornices and terracotta pots stand to east and west. The walls are smooth rendered with a projecting plinth. Window openings are square-headed with moulded surrounds, fitted throughout with one-over-one timber sliding sash windows unless otherwise stated.

The north-facing front elevation comprises three bays with a pair of single-storey canted bays flanking the entrance and a gabled half-dormer to attic level. The canted bays have flat leaded roofs with raised parapets and projecting cornices on scrolled brackets with a dentil course beneath. A glazed mono-pitch roof covers the conservatory, with glazed walls on a rendered plinth. The front elevation displays smooth rendered walls with a plinth, raised vermiculated quoins to the ground floor and raised smooth quoins to the first floor. Moulded sill courses run at ground, first and second floor levels, with an ornamental frieze to the second floor. Flanking pilasters frame openings to the canted bays. A round-headed opening to the second floor features a pyramidal keystone. The round-headed entrance opening has a moulded surround with pyramidal keystone on pilasters, and a square-headed entrance door opening with a moulded transom and round-headed fanlight above.

The west elevation contains a pair of round-headed window openings at attic level. A smooth rendered boundary wall extends south with painted stone coping and a two-stage pier at the south-west corner with projecting cornice. The rear return has square-headed openings. The south elevation features a gabled half-dormer to attic level with a round-headed opening. A pitched roof covers the rear return with a chimney and a blank gable; the boundary wall extends west with painted stone coping and a square-headed opening. The east elevation has a pair of round-headed window openings at attic level to the main house and a square-headed door opening to the rear return.

The setting comprises grounds with lawns to north and west, hedge and fence boundaries to south and east, and a garage to the north-east. The entrance is approached by a tree-lined avenue from the west, flanked by a pair of squared roughcast rendered piers with moulded coping and smooth plinth, connected by a wall on a semi-circular plan, with a cast-iron metal gateway between the piers.

Materials include slate roofing, cast-iron rainwater goods, rendered walls, and one-over-one timber sliding sash windows. The interior features plasterwork of particular merit.

Mid-nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey maps show the site as unoccupied and surrounded largely by open countryside. In the early 1870s, Hamilton Cuming acquired a plot of ground from Sir Thomas McClure on which he built Wynard House. The building appears in the Valuation Revision Book of 1880–87 with a rateable valuation of £50. Originally named Cumingstown House, it appeared in the Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory of 1884 as Kensington Villa, a name confirmed on the 1902 Ordnance Survey map. Hamilton Cuming died on 2 June 1888, leaving an estate valued at £6,565. He was the fourth son of Hamilton Cuming senior of Ballymagarrick (died 1872) and was buried in Drumbo Church of Ireland graveyard. He appears not to have been married.

Valuation Revision Books record the property passing to Hamilton Carse by 1891 and to Richard Webb, a linen manufacturer, by 1896. Webb and his family appear in the 1901 census when the street address was Knock Avenue. The 1904 street directory lists Mrs Letitia Carse as the occupier, marking a change in the house's name to Wynard. By 1911 it was the home of George Jamison, a book-keeper. Matthew Marshall occupied Wynard in the 1920s, and by 1937 it was the home of Hugh Brown, who remained in possession until his death in 1962.