7 Walnut Court, Belfast, County Antrim, BT7 1EP

Rose Cottage, 7 Walnut Court

Rose Cottage is a detached, symmetrical, three-bay, one-and-a-half-storey red and yellow brick cottage, completed in November 1862 and sympathetically restored in 1985–86 by Hearth Housing Association. It stands at the heart of a late 20th-century Northern Ireland Housing Executive estate south of Donegall Pass in Belfast city centre, having been saved from the demolition that swept away the majority of buildings in the Coyle's Place area during the 1970s redevelopment of the Donegall Pass neighbourhood. The cottage was originally one of four cottages ornées constructed on the estate of the Earl of Donegall in what was then a rural area south of Belfast; the other three were Cromac Lodge and Cromac Cottage (both erected before 1833) and the contemporary Havelock Cottage (also built around 1860). The once-secluded setting was gradually enveloped as the town expanded southward from around 1870, with additional houses on Coyle's Place constructed between 1873 and 1890. In 1880 an adjoining red-brick dwelling was added to the cottage's southwest gable, and this was subsequently removed during the 1985–86 restoration, which also required complete rebuilding of the rear wall and replacement of many of the roofing slates.

The cottage is rectangular on plan and faces northwest. The roof is pitched natural slate with blue-black angled ridge tiles and tall red-brick chimneystacks with yellow brick detailing, each carrying three tall clay pots. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods run along projecting timber eaves with decorative brackets to the gables. The walling is Flemish-bonded red brick to the front elevation and stretcher-bonded red brick to the rear, with yellow brick quoins and dressings throughout.

The principal northwest-facing elevation is the most architecturally accomplished face of the building. Box bay windows project to either side of the central entrance, each bay carried under a truncated catslide roof. The windows throughout are timber-framed sliding sash with projecting masonry sills; the box bays contain elongated 1-over-1 triple windows. The entrance porch features decorative plasterwork to the soffit. The original entrance door has four raised-and-fielded panels, the upper two of which are round-headed, together with a beaded muntin kickboard and original ironmongery. The door is flanked by round-headed leaded side-lights with panelled aprons, the whole assembly divided by pairs of pilasters and surmounted by an entablature with a pulvinated frieze and cornice. The porch floor is laid with geometric tiles.

The northeast gable has two segmental-headed 2-over-2 windows with flat brick arches at first-floor level, and a 2-over-2 window at the centre of the ground floor. The southeast rear elevation has irregularly arranged fenestration: a timber-sheeted door is positioned to the left of centre with a diminutive 2-over-2 window under the eaves; a 4-over-4 window with side-lights sits to the far left; at first-floor centre there is a 2-over-2 window with side-lights and a further diminutive 2-over-2 window; and to the right at ground-floor level are two additional diminutive 2-over-2 windows. The southwest gable has two round-headed 2-over-2 windows at first-floor level, a 2-over-2 window to the lower right, and a round-headed blind window to the lower left — this gable having been substantially reconstructed during the 1985–86 restoration following demolition of the adjoining 1880 dwelling.

Internally, the simple exterior conceals fine mid-19th-century craftsmanship, with ornately carved plasterwork throughout.

The setting has changed entirely since the cottage was built. It now sits within a late 20th-century housing estate, with a lawned garden to the front enclosed by a low red-brick boundary wall and a path laid with red and black tiles. Paved yards to either side are enclosed by red-brick walls and timber-sheeted gates. A lawned garden to the rear is enclosed by a red-brick wall.

The cottage first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map for Belfast in 1858 (as part of Coyle's Place), though it was not completed and recorded in the Annual Revisions until November 1862, when it was valued at £15. It was then let by a Mr Thomas Ferguson — possibly a trustee of the Earl of Donegall's estate — to John Coyle, a grocer and spirit dealer who operated from premises on the Ormeau Road and who presumably gave his name to Coyle's Place. Coyle is recorded in the Annual Revisions as resident until around 1905, though the Belfast Street Directories indicate he had vacated by 1877, when a Mr David Abernathy, a draper, was in occupation. By 1901 the cottage had passed to Mr William John Gillespie, a Presbyterian bread server, who lived there with his wife and five children; the Census Building Return of that year described it as a second-class dwelling of six rooms. The cottage was vacant in 1908 but by 1910 a Mr Robert Thornberry, a gas stoker, was recorded as occupant, coinciding with a slight reduction in the rateable value to £14. By 1905 the freehold had been purchased by a Mr Charles McManus — likely the publican and horse supplier of that name recorded in the 1901 Belfast Street Directory — who continued to let the property until at least the 1970s. After Thornberry's departure the cottage was sporadically occupied: in 1918 a Mr James Adams was in possession, though both he and his wife Mary Jane Adams had died by 1923, leaving the dwelling vacant again. By 1930 a Mr D. Wilson, employed as a red leader in the Belfast shipyards (a red leader applied red lead oxide paint to ship metal surfaces to prevent rusting), was living there with his family, and they continued in occupation until the 1970s. Wilson's son John, a boilermaker also employed in the shipyards, resided at the cottage until at least 1970. The 1935 general revaluation of property in Northern Ireland raised the rateable value to £18; a further revaluation from 1956 set it at £20. The cottage was briefly occupied in the early 1980s by a Mr Patrick Dunne before falling vacant and passing into the care of Hearth Housing Association, who listed it in 1985 and carried out the extensive renovation completed in 1986. Since that time it has continued in use as a private dwelling.