374 Beersbridge Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 5DZ

374 Beersbridge Road is a handsome semi-detached two-storey cottage built in 1880, constructed from rock-faced Scrabo sandstone and most likely designed by the Belfast architectural partnership Young & Mackenzie. It forms part of a row of three pairs of semi-detached cottages on the north side of Beersbridge Road, and sits within the East Belfast townland of Ballyhackamore.

The building has a rectangular plan form facing south, with an entrance canopy on the east side elevation and single-storey returns to the rear. The roof is half-hipped and clad in natural slate, with projecting eaves, exposed rafters to the front elevation, and bracketed ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering with circular cast-iron downpipes. The east side of the roof has exposed purlins, angled red-clay hip-tiles, and a fleur-de-lis shaped clay finial. The original shared red-brick chimneystack survives with corbelled coping and red-clay chimney pots.

The stone walling is laid in un-coursed rock-faced Scrabo sandstone with a stone-cut plinth course and a continuous stone-cut sill at first-floor level. Window openings are flanked by stone dressings on painted sills. The front elevation has two asymmetrical bays, each with a square-headed ground-floor window and a flat-headed lucarne — a dormer built off the face of the wall — with a natural slate roof. The square-headed window openings have a discharging arch over the lintels and contain replacement 1/1 double-hung timber sash windows with chamfered horns. Both ground- and first-floor openings in the west bay consist of paired sash windows.

The entrance is on the east side elevation, recessed and facing east, opening onto two tiled steps. It is sheltered by a projecting canopy with a natural slate hipped roof supported by timber brackets, with half-round cast-iron guttering and circular cast-iron downpipes. The east side elevation also has decorative timber bargeboards. The front door is a replacement half-glazed timber sheeted door, and there is a stone boot scraper built into the wall to the right of the entrance. The square-headed window openings on this elevation also have discharging arches over the lintels and contain 1/1 double-hung timber sash windows with chamfered horns. The east side elevation is abutted by a stone wall of un-coursed rock-faced Scrabo sandstone with a stone-cut plinth course, cut-stone capping, and a square-headed door opening with a sheeted timber door leading to the back yard. The west side elevation adjoins the neighbouring house at No. 372.

To the rear, there is a red-brick single-storey return on the west side with a pitched slate roof and angled red-clay hip-tiles, paired with the return of the adjoining house. The rear elevation has a single dormer window with a natural slate roof and angled red-clay hip-tiles, while a rooflight has replaced the dormer window to the east. Although access to the rear was not granted at the time of survey, a modern single-storey extension and a shed appear to be present to the west.

The site is accessed from the east off Ravenscroft Avenue. A small front garden enclosed by a hedge fronts the building, and a yard to the east side is enclosed by painted metal railings and a gate. The rear is enclosed by a rendered wall.

The cottage was built in 1880 for the Bloomfield Land & Building Co. Ltd., a company formed in 1874 by the landowning Boyd family to secure leases for building projects in the East Belfast townlands of Ballyhackamore and Ballycloughan. Its construction was part of the wider easterly expansion of Belfast during the late Victorian period, as the town centre was progressively redeveloped for commercial use and new residential streets were laid out beyond the former urban boundary. Young & Mackenzie — described by the Dictionary of Irish Architects as the most successful architectural practice in Belfast, the leading architects for the Presbyterian Church in the north-east, and recipients of some of the most important commercial commissions in the city — had already designed five pairs of double cottages for the Bloomfield Land & Building Co. Ltd. along the Beersbridge Road (nos. 382–400) in 1878. The neighbouring nos. 376–380 and nos. 364–374, including No. 374, followed in 1880 and are remarkably similar in design to those earlier cottages, though more impressive, possessing additional dormer windows and being built in Scrabo sandstone rather than red brick.

The building was first recorded in the valuation sources in 1880, when it was given a rateable value of £15 by the Annual Revisions. It was also known as Clandeboye Cottage, and its first recorded occupant was a Mr James Roberts. By 1911, the cottage was occupied by Joseph Kincaid, a caulker in the local shipyards, who described the property in the census building return as a second-class dwelling consisting of six rooms. The rateable value remained at £15 until the cancellation of the Annual Revisions in 1930, after which it rose to £29 in the First Revaluation of 1935, when Elizabeth Kincaid was recorded as owner. Kincaid retained ownership through the Second Revaluation period of 1956 to 1972, during which the dwelling was partially converted into a private medical surgery for Dr Frederick Halliday by 1956, with the rateable value rising to £100 by the end of that revaluation.

The building was listed in 1984, together with the adjoining cottages. By that time it had returned to its original use as a dwelling. In 1986–87 a major renovation was undertaken during which the roof was reslated, the brickwork of the chimney repointed, and the rainwater goods replaced.