Charleville, 39 Manse Road, BELFAST, County Antrim, BT8 6SA

Charleville is a large Victorian house built around 1890 on the north side of Manse Road, between Rock Road and Church Road, approximately two miles south-east of Belfast. It replaced an earlier house on the same site dating from the late 18th century, and despite its Victorian construction date, its proportions and overall character echo that earlier period. The house sits within a well-maintained setting that contributes positively to its character, though a modern single-storey rear extension and some other alterations reduce its overall architectural and historic interest.

The building is two storeys with an attic and follows a roughly square plan, with the modern single-storey extension added to the rear around 2010. The roof is hipped and covered in natural slate with leaded hips, overhanging eaves, timber-sheeted soffits, and moulded timber fascia boards. Rainwater goods are ogee-moulded cast iron. The tall chimneystacks are finished with moulded plaster cornices and clay pots. External walls are finished in ruled-and-lined painted render with a projected plinth.

The windows are replacement double-glazed one-over-one timber sliding sash windows with horns, though the original frames survive at first-floor level. All windows have moulded surrounds and masonry cills. The front door is a timber door with four bolection-moulded panels, flanked by side lights and a square-headed overlight, all framed by fluted Corinthian columns with replacement cast-iron capitals dating from around 2005, and a dentilled entablature. Brass ironmongery is fitted throughout.

The front elevation faces west and is symmetrically arranged, with the front door centrally placed and flanked by two ground-floor windows on each side. Five first-floor windows sit directly above the ground-floor openings. The left elevation is asymmetrically arranged, with paired ground-floor windows to the right, a single small window centrally placed below the landing window, and a single first-floor window to the left above the modern single-storey flat-roofed extension, which replaced a former single-storey pantry and scullery. The rear elevation faces east and is also asymmetrically arranged, with uniformly placed ground- and first-floor windows to the centre and right bays, and two glazed doors to the left with a single first-floor window above. The right elevation is symmetrical, with a uniform arrangement of ground- and first-floor windows across four bays.

The house is screened from the road to the south by planting. The entrance gate comprises robust piers surmounted by moulded concave pyramidal cappings, with curved walls largely repaired, and wrought-iron gates restored around 2005. To the north of the house is an enclosed yard containing a two-storey brick coach house and stable block surviving from the earlier 18th-century dwelling, beyond which stand later corrugated metal agricultural units. Well-maintained gardens to the east were laid out around 1960. To the north-east there is a modern single-storey summer house and a walled garden, which may be the earliest surviving structure on the site and was possibly formerly used as an animal pound.

The history of the site is richly documented. The original house was built around 1790 by an ancestor of Charles Brett, the solicitor, architectural historian, and author of numerous important works on the built heritage of Northern Ireland. This Charles Brett was a wine merchant who constructed the house as a summer home and gave the property the name Charleville. The lease is recorded in Lord Downshire's 1801 rental book for Castlereagh, with a yearly rent of £15 18s 6d for over 16 acres of land. The Brett family lived in considerable style: family letters describe wallpaper imported from France depicting views of the Isle of Elba, with shipping, docks, castles, planting, and figures — described as so immersive that one almost felt in the open air. The house also contained an upright piano by Stodart and a Broadwood grand. A family story records that Charles Brett's son Wills was hidden under a hedge by a nursemaid in 1798 to protect him from the United Irishmen. The harp music collector and organist Edward Bunting was a visitor, as were his protégés the Irish harpers. After his retirement in 1827, Charles Brett lived at Charleville year-round and died there in 1829. The house then passed to his son, the Reverend Wills Hill Brett, who served as impropriate curate of Greyabbey from 1822 to 1843.

A house is shown on the plot on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 and is named Charleville on the second edition of 1858, but this earlier structure had a U-shaped plan quite different from the present building. The Townland Valuation describes the property as a house, offices, and threshing mill, valued at £19 7s and occupied by the Reverend Mr Brett. It was a substantial establishment comprising a house of one and a half storeys with a porch and substantial returns, along with outbuildings including a coach house, piggery, an overground wine cellar, a dairy, cow house, and wash house. The house was sold shortly after the valuation and by Griffith's Valuation of 1860 was the residence of David McConnell, held under lease from the Marquess of Downshire. The valuation stood at £25 for buildings, situated in over 19 acres. The valuer noted it as a very neat concern, though too close to the road, with the house stone-finished and painted. The threshing mill was no longer in evidence by this date.

In 1880 the house was taken over by Eliza Miller, and in 1890 by John Robb Junior, who appears to have rebuilt the house that same year, as indicated by a rise in valuation to £48, subsequently reduced to £40 on appeal. The new two-storey house of roughly square plan first appears on the Ordnance Survey map edition of 1901–2. John Robb described his profession in census returns variously as General Merchant and Draper. His company, John Robb & Co., is listed in street directories as wholesale and retail woollen drapers, silk mercers, and general warehousemen, with premises in Castle Place and shops operating under names including the Magazine of Fashions, Economic Drapery, North Street Drapery House, and Northern Boot and Shoe Shop. The Robbs also ran a Young Men's Residence in Telfair Street, apparently a lodging house for shop workers. By 1890, John Robb had moved from King Street in Belfast out to Charleville, and other family members appear to have followed suit, with Charles Robb at Ballyhackamore House in Dundela Avenue and F. G. Robb, barrister-at-law, at Lisnabreeny House.

In 1901, John Robb lived at Charleville with his wife and six young children, with a domestic staff of three — a housemaid, cook, and nurse. The house is recorded as having 11 windows to the front façade and 18 rooms, placing it in the first class. Fourteen outbuildings were also noted, including stables, coach houses, piggeries, a cow house, a harness room, a fowl house, a boiling house, a turf house, and a laundry. By 1911 the family had added a seventh child, though some older children were away at the time of the census and domestic staff had reduced to two. In 1913, John Robb became the owner in fee of the property. By 1923 it had passed to Henry Walker, with John Robb dying in 1926. Thomas Morrow followed that same year, and in 1928 a motor house was added, bringing the valuation back up to £48. The house continues in use as a private dwelling.