20 Knockdene Park 'Astolat', Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT5 7AB

Astolat is a large Arts and Crafts style house built in the 1890s by John Milliken, sitting at the junction of Knockdene Park and Knockdene Park South within the Knockdene Conservation Area in east Belfast. It is one-and-a-half storeys, three bays, and well proportioned, with an asymmetrical composition, a proliferation of bay windows, and a variety of window styles that are reminiscent of the work of architects Edward Schroeder Prior and Charles Voysey. The house is oriented east to west, with the main elevation facing west, and sits on a slightly elevated site with an entrance drive sweeping up from the corner of the junction. It is surrounded on all sides by mature garden.

The roofline is complex and characterful, combining hipped, half-hipped, and pitched forms in natural slate, with flat-roofed dormers to the front and a shallow-pitched dormer to the rear. Decorative double-looped terracotta ridge tiles, foliated finials, and tall red-brick chimneystacks with vertical bands of projecting brick headers and short vented terracotta pots all contribute to the richness of the roofscape.

The main west elevation is built in red brick laid in English Garden Wall bond up to a decorative terracotta coping brick with cyma moulding set halfway up the ground floor walls. Above this, the walls are finished in roughcast render with brick quoining to openings and brick special courses at the eaves. Cast-iron rainwater goods with ogee-profile gutters rest on a brick eaves detail. A canted bay to the north has a hipped natural slate roof with lead flashing. Its timber sliding sash windows have smaller upper sashes and segmental arched heads: a 9/1 window to each canted side and a 15/1 window to the main front face. The upper sashes are glazed with obscure glass, the lower with plain glass, and all rest on sandstone cills supported on scrolled brick special courses. A tall, narrow 6/1 timber sliding sash window with a smaller upper sash occupies the central bay, with brick quoining to the opening. The half-hipped gable wall above carries a brick string course, detailing to the window opening, and decorative brickwork at the eaves. An arched opening nearby contains painted side-hung casement windows, with the upper section divided into four lights, all in clear glass. The south bay of the main elevation is stepped back, with a painted timber five-panelled front door set in an exposed gable facing south, with a glazed fanlight above and brass ironmongery; two steps lead up from the drive. A recessed bay to the south has painted timber glazed paired doors opening outwards with a divided overlight of twelve panes of obscure glass, brick quoining to the opening, and a terracotta panel inscribed with the name "Astolat" set in the wall above. Two flat-topped dormers with painted side-hung casements, their upper sections each divided into two lights of clear glass, serve the central and south bays.

The north elevation has brickwork to the window heads and roughcast render above. A rusticated stone plinth is visible at the base of the wall, with a stepped brick plinth rising above it. A projecting brick string course runs at cill level, with brick detailing to the eaves and gable edges. At ground floor level to the west is a 12/1 timber sliding sash window with a smaller upper sash and a segmental arched head. At the centre of the gable wall is a large circular single-storey bow window in red brick, with projecting brick detailing incorporating dentils and cyma mouldings above the window openings, a lead-covered parapet, and painted timber sliding sash windows of the 12/1 pattern with smaller upper sashes, curved glass, and segmental arched heads. A paired timber sash window at first-floor level is centred on the bow bay. The ground floor wall to the east of the circular bay projects forward of the main wall plane and carries a single sliding sash window with a pitched roof above. A yard wall extends beyond the rear elevation with a painted, timber-sheeted door in an arched-headed opening; the lower section of this wall is brick, the upper roughcast render, topped with brick coping.

The east elevation is only partially visible over the yard wall. The upper floor has roughcast render with brick detailing to openings and eaves, and windows of various sizes to the return. A dormer window to the north side of the return has slated cheeks, a brick face, and a slightly pitched roof. The end wall of the return is blank except for a centrally placed chimneystack detailed as elsewhere. Various single-storey outbuildings project from the return at ground floor level, sharing the same detailing as the main house.

The south elevation has a modern timber conservatory to the east, attached to the return at ground floor level. The return walls are brick up to cill height with roughcast render above, with brick detailing as elsewhere. First-floor windows are painted timber, 1/1 and 6/1 sashes with segmental arched heads. A double-storey canted bay to the east bay of the main elevation is all brick, with 6/1 sashes to first-floor level and a blank wall to the front face at ground floor level. At first-floor level in the central bay is a segmental arched opening with a paired double sash window above. To the west is a single-storey red-brick canted bay window with a pitched slated roof and 12/1 timber sliding sash windows as described elsewhere. Single-storey hipped-roof outbuildings are attached to the return to the east.

Historical records show that Astolat first appears as a new entry in the Valuation Revision Book for 1891 to 1897, indicating it was built at a cost of £1,100. A note in the same record observes that the house "would be difficult to let" and had been "built to suit the present owner, worth about £65+", with the house still vacant at the time of the entry, suggesting it was not quite finished internally. Its initial valuation of £48 10s. was reduced to £43 10s. on appeal on 9 September 1897. The house appears on the 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey map of 1902, though unnamed; interestingly, the summer house in its garden is both marked and named on that map. The 1901 census House and Building Return records the property as having ten windows to the front and eight rooms in occupation.

John Milliken was a prominent local figure: Secretary to the Belfast and County Down Railway, churchwarden, and a member of the vestry of St Columba's Church of Ireland on King's Road, a church completed the year before Astolat was built and one for which Milliken appears to have been the driving force. His wife Wilhelmina died at Astolat in 1904. When Milliken moved to Helen's Bay in 1905, he was presented with a case containing a montage of paintings by the artist J. W. Carey, one of which depicted Knockdene Park and Astolat. There is also a memorial window to him in St Columba's Church. After Milliken's departure, the house passed to James P. Brewer, a bank inspector from Liverpool, whose wife died here in 1915. By 1919 it was the residence of John Turner, a businessman, who died in 1940; his widow Alice continued to live at Astolat until her death in 1951. The house appears to have been vacant for some years thereafter, but by the early 1960s it was in the possession of Harold Browne, who remained in residence through to the 1970s.

The name Astolat is that of a mythical British city from Arthurian legend. While the name was adopted by a number of householders across the United Kingdom, this is the only identified instance of its use in Belfast.

The house retains many original external and internal features. It is surrounded by its original mature gardens with hedges and trees to the boundaries, and its elevated corner setting within the Knockdene Conservation Area adds considerable interest.