30 Windsor Park, Belfast, BT9 6FQ

No. 30 Windsor Park is a substantial semi-detached, two-storey, double-fronted house with a full attic, built around 1894 to designs by the architect William Batt. Originally named 'Colonsa', it sits on the south-facing side of Windsor Park, a tree-lined street running east to west between the Lisburn and Malone Roads, two main arterial routes south of Belfast city centre. The house is a mirror image of its immediate neighbour No. 32 ('Mingala') to the east, and together the pair read as a single, comprehensive and distinctive design. It also has group value with the terrace at Nos. 22–28 and the detached house at No. 34 ('St. Margaret's'), all contemporary in date and sharing similar stylistic devices. Together these properties make a striking contribution to the Derryvolgie and Windsor Conservation Area, eclectic in style and confident in execution.

The building is constructed in red brick laid in English Garden Wall bond, with decorative sandstone, terracotta and brick detailing throughout. The roof is natural slate with red clay ridge tiles, duo-pitched with a platform ridge and gabled projections to the front and rear at the west side. Four brick chimneys are present — two along the party wall with No. 32 and two beside the gabled projections — each fitted with several clay pots. The plan is square, with a three-storey return built at half-landing level to the rear and single-storey appendages. Rainwater goods to the south and west elevations are ogee-profiled metal gutters with square-section metal rainwater pipes; a mix of metal and uPVC serves the north elevation and the return. Windows are, unless otherwise noted, single-glazed painted timber sliding sashes with 1-over-1 panes.

The south (front) elevation facing Windsor Park is asymmetrical. At ground floor level, a central timber panelled door with a semi-circular fanlight is flanked by grey marble columns on brick plinths, their moulded capitals incorporating scrolls and grapes; the capital to the left features a male head and that to the right a female head. The doorway is set within a semi-circular arched opening with a sandstone keystone and some terracotta detailing. To the left of the door is a single-storey canted bay with three windows, topped by a decorative brick corbelled parapet with a lead roof. To the right of the door is a three-storey square bay with two windows. At first-floor level, windows are paired either side of a single central window. To the east, the attic storey is expressed as a large gable with decorative strap work and a finial, aligned with the canted bay below, and lit by two windows at eaves level. To the west, the square bay tapers below the eaves cornice to form a square dormer with a hipped roof and finial, containing one window. The entire façade is heavily enriched with moulded and decorative string courses, chamfered brick reveals to all openings, sandstone window heads and decorative brick window aprons. Of particular note is the heavy eaves cornice, beneath which runs a continuous line of square terracotta plaques decorated with daisy-like flowers.

The west (side) elevation, which faces onto the driveway to the rear, is comparatively plain. One window lights the ground floor at the southern end. Decorative string courses and eaves detailing match those on the front elevation. The west face of the three-storey return has one window at each of the first and second floor half-landings, fitted with plain sandstone lintels and projecting stone sills. A single-storey gabled appendage obscures the ground floor at this point; it is built in matching red brick in English Garden Wall bond with a matching plinth and chamfered cap, a painted timber eaves board and a uPVC half-round gutter. Although its appearance suggests a later date, the brickwork detailing indicates it is likely contemporary with the main house. It contains two equally sized windows with timber-framed double-glazed sliding sashes and concrete sills; the opening nearest the house appears originally to have been a door.

The north (rear) elevation has the three-storey gabled return abutting the centre of the rear wall. To the west side of the return, there is one window each at ground and second floors, surmounted by a large gabled attic with a pair of windows similar in treatment to those on the front. To the east side of the return, the rear wall rises above the eaves line to form a rectangular attic dormer that is joined to the corresponding dormer at No. 32; each side is lit by one window, with one window also at each of the lower floors — the ground-floor window being segmentally arched, and the first-floor window being metal-framed with a tripartite single-glazed casement. The return itself has one window centred on the gable at second-floor level and two windows at first-floor level. At ground floor the return is abutted by a small single-storey gabled brick outhouse, largely obscured by planting, which adjoins original red brick yard walling to the east. A further gabled appendage — as described on the west elevation — has an off-centred ridge and wide glazed double doors opening onto curved steps down to the lawn; brick headers above the right side of this opening suggest it was widened to accommodate the double doors.

The east elevation of the main building is abutted by No. 32. The east face of the return is detailed similarly to the west face, with one window at first-floor level (with reeded glass to the lower sash), two windows at ground floor and a door. The ground-floor windows have been replaced with painted timber double-glazed sliding sashes with 1-over-1 panes. The door is four-panelled with bolection moulding, glazed upper panels and an authentic cast iron knocker and handle. The single-storey outhouse at this elevation has a uPVC window with a concrete sill. All walls within the yard are painted white at ground-floor level.

The house is set back from the tree-lined street behind a mature hedge and trees to the front garden, with a parking area in modern brick pavers. The stone entrance steps to the front are curved and bull-nosed, and are likely original. To the rear, the garden is mainly grassed with a path, planting and mature trees to the east; a red brick boundary wall to the north; and timber hit-and-miss fencing with further planted beds and trees to the west. Authentic red brick walling encloses the yard to the east of the return, incorporating a matching coal store; the same walling, capped with rounded sandstone coping, separates the garden from the bin store to the west. The original fabric, plan form and interior detailing are substantially intact.

Windsor Park — originally 'Windsor Park Avenue' — was laid out around 1873, its line following a path that had previously run through a large nursery belonging to 'Laurel Bank' (later renamed 'Bellevue'), a house that stood to the east close to Malone Road. Laurel Bank had been built around 1835 within one of the long-established strip farms that originally stretched from the high ground of the Malone Ridge westwards to the Bog Meadows. Many of these farms were converted into small semi-rural demesnes in the mid-19th century, before being broken up by the more intensive suburban expansion that gradually spread southwards along the Malone Ridge during the late Victorian era. A large number of the streets created in the later 1800s were laid out along the boundaries of these former farms and demesnes; in the case of Windsor Park, it is the northern and southern boundaries of the building plots on either side of the street that mark the respective limits of the earlier landholding. The earliest houses on the new street were developed from 1873 onwards, though several of those early properties have since been demolished. Much of the southern side of the street was developed within the following two decades, while the land to the north was retained as a nursery into the mid-1890s, when it too began to be built up with a mixture of large detached, semi-detached and terraced dwellings.

No. 30, along with its attached neighbour No. 32 ('Mingala') and the similar freestanding house at No. 34 ('St. Margaret's'), was built in 1893–94 to designs by William Batt for James Hetherington, a linen manufacturer of the Broadway Damask Company, who himself lived in 'Canmore' (since demolished) on the opposite side of Windsor Park. The contractor was Messrs. J. and W. Stewart of Belfast. Much of the building material for this 'superior villa', including the 'terracotta panels in frieze and upper keystones', was supplied by the Annadale Brick Company, as recorded in the Belfast News-Letter of 4 March 1893 and the Irish Builder of October and December 1893.

The earliest available street directory, that for 1895, records James Davidson, described as a 'tea planter', as the occupant. In the 1901 census, Mr. Davidson — possibly a relation of Samuel Cleland Davidson, the engineer, inventor and founder of Belfast's Sirocco Works — was living there with his wife Alice Maude Mary, three grown-up children, a niece and three domestic servants; the house was noted as a first-class dwelling with 13 rooms in use. By 1911 the household had reduced to Mr. Davidson and one of his daughters, along with two servants. By 1918 a James M. Lowenthall was in residence, followed around 1921 by E. S. Murphy, a lawyer and later High Court judge, who remained until around 1946. James T. Bryson is recorded as occupant in 1951. Around 1955 the Reverend M. Roycroft became resident and stayed until the early 1970s, when he was succeeded by the Reverend W. H. Lendrum, who remained until around 1983 — a succession of clerical occupants that suggests the property may have been used as a rectory or manse during this period. By 1987 Charles Douglas is recorded as living there, with Alan J. Douglas listed as occupant in 1995.