Malone Golf Club, 240 Upper Malone Road, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT17 9LB

Malone Golf Club occupies the former Ballydrain House, a detached, symmetrical three-bay, two-storey country house with attic, built around 1835 to designs by Edward Blore — the architect best known for completing Buckingham Palace, including the design of its iconic façade, following the dismissal of John Nash. The house was extensively altered around 1875–1880 by the well-known local practitioners Thomas Drew and W.H. Lynn, and has been further converted and extended in piecemeal fashion to accommodate its present use as a golf clubhouse over the course of the late 20th century. Substantial alterations — including the removal of the tall Tudor chimneystacks and balustraded parapet in the early 1960s, extensive internal remodelling, and wholesale window replacement — have had a major impact on the character of the building. There is some historic and architectural interest in the outbuildings to the east, the gardener's cottage and walled garden to the south, and the setting of the extensive landscaped grounds of the former Ballydrain demesne.

Architectural Description

The house replaces an earlier building on the site, the original Ballydrain House, which the first edition Ordnance Survey map shows was located to the south-west of the present building. The current house is built in a loose Scots Baronial style, with a rectangular plan and a central full-height canted bay. Modern single- and two-storey extensions have been added to the north, east and south. The roof is pitched natural slate with hog-back ridge tiles and rolled leaded hips over the central bays to the west (over the canted bay) and east (over the staircase). Ashlar dormers have profiled sandstone gables. There are concealed lead-lined parapet gutters, with replacement uPVC hoppers and downpipes rising from raised parapets. Three ashlar sandstone chimneystacks remain, each with moulded copings.

The main walling is coursed quarry-faced basalt with ashlar sandstone quoins and copings. Moulded sandstone finials sit at the gable apexes and corners. The western corner of a single-storey extension is faced in ashlar sandstone, with blind moulded sandstone shields between the window openings; the shield to the north of the west elevation bears the Montgomery family crest. Window openings are largely square-headed with flush chamfered ashlar sandstone block and start surrounds with hood moulds; first-floor openings have quarry-faced basalt relieving arches over them. The windows to the flanking bays at ground floor are set in tripartite canted bays with moulded sandstone mullions. All windows have been replaced throughout with uPVC casements.

The principal elevation faces west. The central two-storey canted bay has a pierced sandstone parapet punctuated by a central dormer. The right and left bays each have a canted bay to the ground floor, with three windows aligned above and a central attic dormer. The north gable is abutted by a contemporary single-storey extension with a pitched slate roof, fully glazed to the west, with a window to the first floor and a smaller window to the attic. The rear elevation is largely obscured by a series of extensions connecting to the stable yard; these have a mix of pitched natural slate and modern flat roofing, generally uPVC rainwater goods, and basalt walling with sandstone dressings. Walling facing onto the internal courtyards in this area is generally of engineering brick.

The south elevation is asymmetrical, with a double-gabled profile. The left section is wider and taller, with a pair of replacement French doors and an overlight to the ground floor, and a window to both the first floor and attic. The right section contains the principal ground-floor entrance, formed by replacement double-leaf timber half-glazed panelled doors with a glazed toplight bearing the crest of Malone Golf Club. At first floor is a sandstone oriel with a corbelled base and offset roof, with an attic window above. To the right of the main gable is a projecting extension of around 1880, spanned by a sandstone balustraded parapet; to its left is a three-centred-arched opening with hoodmould, now infilled with a window, and a large picture window to its right.

Setting

The house is set within the extensive grounds of Malone Golf Club on the east side of the Upper Malone Road, within the former Ballydrain demesne. The entrance from Upper Malone Road is flanked by replacement quarry-faced basalt walls with rubblestone basalt copings and gate piers circular in plan. Two original ashlar sandstone gate piers, square in plan, survive to the east of the modern entrance piers. The building is reached via a long, tree-lined tarmacadam driveway. The principal west elevation overlooks Ballydrain lake. A car park is located to the south-west of the house. The primary entrance is approached via a set of wide sandstone steps leading to a sandstone-flagged platform with moulded sandstone balustrades, with an accessible ramp to the west. A walled garden, now containing a bowling green and abutted by a ruinous gardener's cottage, is located to the south of the house.

Historical Background

The house and lands were formerly owned by the Stewart family and were purchased around 1835 by Hugh Montgomery, a director of the Northern Bank and son of one of the bank's founders. Montgomery demolished the original house and employed Edward Blore to design the present one. The Montgomery family moved to Ballydrain from a house on Royal Avenue — later to become the Royal Hotel and now the site of Queen's Arcade.

Contemporary maps and a photograph dated to before 1876 show that Blore's original house comprised a primary block with an M-profiled pitched roof to the west, with an L-shaped rear return extending east to form a small enclosed courtyard. While relatively plain in massing, the house was distinguished by a wide array of tall Tudor chimneystacks, a balustraded parapet, dormers to the principal west elevation, and a decorative canted oriel over the segmental pointed-arched entrance to the south elevation. Blore also designed a gate lodge at the head of the long avenue leading from the Upper Malone Road.

The house passed to Hugh's son Thomas and then to Thomas's son Captain John Ferguson, who died in a racing accident around 1867. It then passed to Captain Ferguson's brother, Thomas Montgomery — another director of the Northern Bank — who moved to Ballydrain with his wife Isabella Montgomery (née Walker) and their four daughters from a house called Maryville on the Malone Road. Finding Ballydrain House too compact for his family's needs, Thomas had the house extended around 1880. The courtyard was filled in by a new two-storey gabled block containing a billiard room at ground floor and a bedroom at first floor. A new entrance was provided, including an arcaded sandstone porch with a moulded stone bearing the Montgomery coat of arms. A bathroom was also added at this time, as the house had previously had none — bathing facilities having consisted of manually filled tin baths and wash basins. A new conservatory, described as reminiscent of the Palm House in the Botanic Gardens, was added to the east.

There is some uncertainty over the attribution of these alterations. A note on a photograph dated after 1876 attributes the work to Thomas Drew, while a set of drawings from the same period are clearly signed by W.H. Lynn. Since Lynn's drawings include detailed plans of the new conservatory, it has been suggested that Drew carried out the alterations to the house itself while Lynn designed the conservatory. Unrealised plans by Lynn for a new gate lodge on a site that was eventually occupied by a gate lodge designed by Drew lends further weight to the idea that both architects were involved. This is reinforced by the fact that Drew worked in the office of Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon.

A walled garden was established to the south of the house for cultivating fruit, vegetables and flowers. The garden walls were abutted to the north-east by a single-storey gardener's cottage. Isabella Montgomery later established a flower garden to the south-west of the house — described as "an oval shaped piece of ground laid out in formal beds" — apparently on the site of the original Ballydrain House.

Thomas Montgomery died in 1909, leaving the house to his wife Isabella. When Isabella died in 1917, it passed to Thomas's nephew, Captain Hugh Montgomery, who sold it for £18,000, ending almost a century of Montgomery family ownership. Valuation revisions of 1919 record the occupier as a John B. Morrison. The house remained in private ownership until 1961, when it was purchased by Malone Golf Club for £90,000 from a Maynard Morrison, possibly a relative of John Morrison.

Malone Golf Club was established in 1895, originally located in Stranmillis. The club subsequently moved to the Harberton estate around 1915 — possibly the current location of Balmoral Golf Club. Following a fire in the clubhouse in the late 1950s, the decision was made to relocate to the Ballydrain estate. Shortly after the purchase, as recorded in a club history written around 1976, the distinctive tall Tudor chimneystacks and the balustraded parapet to the west elevation were removed. The two gate lodges — one by Blore of around 1835 and one by Drew of around 1880 — were also demolished around this time. Isabella's flower garden became the site of the club's car park, and the interior of the walled garden was converted to tennis courts, later to a bowling green.

In 1972 an IRA bomb caused significant damage to the clubhouse, resulting in the demolition of the billiard room block added around 1880. This has since been replaced by a single-storey, flat-roofed extension. The arcaded entrance block survives, though its openings are now glazed and the primary entrance has been moved back to its original position beneath the canted oriel window, albeit considerably widened and more plainly detailed than Blore's original segmental pointed-arched opening. A series of large extensions in sympathetic materials now connect the house to the stable yard to the east. A less sympathetic extension in stone, glass and painted render was added to the north around 2003.