1 Sans Souci Lane, Belfast, BT9 5QY

Ingledene, 1 Sans Souci Lane, is one of a pair of three-storey semi-detached houses designed in a flamboyant late Victorian style by the Belfast-based architect Thomas H. McCaul and built in 1899–1900 for John Stott, at a recorded construction cost of £904. It sits in a secluded site off Sans Souci Park in the university area of South Belfast, approximately 2.5 kilometres from the city centre, and is a fine example of late Victorian domestic architecture with good quality detailing both externally and internally. The house shares group value with its attached neighbour, 3 Sans Souci Lane (known as Heathcote), and both properties are located within a conservation area.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The main three-storey block, complete with projecting bays and an entrance porch, is ornately detailed in an eclectic mixture of classical and more typically late Victorian elements. The ground floor is finished in painted channelled render; the upper floors are clad in yellow clay brick with surprisingly fine mortar beds. According to the present owner, this is because the building has an inner skin of thinner red clay brick, with the mortar beds adjusted in size to accommodate this variation. A simpler rendered two-storey return is attached to the rear. The roof is covered in natural Welsh slate with terracotta ridge tiles, and rainwater goods are cast iron. There are three impressive chimney stacks of varying sizes, all in yellow brick with projecting cornices and dentil courses.

South-East (Front) Elevation

The principal south-east elevation has a projecting single-storey entrance porch with double doors set beneath an ogee arch that breaks upward into a pediment above. A fluted string course connects the doors and two flanking windows, which are one-over-one sliding sash with leaded coloured glass in a geometric pattern in the top light. This same detailing is repeated throughout the three-storey section of the house. The roof of the porch is concealed behind a partly balustraded parapet. To the left is an unusual arrangement: a projecting canted bay at ground floor level with painted curved timber struts at the corners, which appear to support a square bay above. The first floor has a square-headed half-over-half sliding sash window, with a fully balustraded parapet over a projecting cornice. At all corners, the brickwork projects to form rusticated quoins. Where the elevation meets the neighbouring house, both projecting bays are surmounted by a projecting gable whose apex is pierced in a floral pattern, with a round-headed window beneath in each house.

North-East (Side) Elevation

The north-east elevation has a rectangular single-storey projecting bay detailed in the same manner as those on the front. Above this, at first floor level, are three square-headed one-over-one sliding sash windows, and in the attic are two round-headed windows. The projecting verge of the half-hipped gable is supported on curved timber brackets in a similar style to those on the front elevation; these brackets continue around the corners to support the projecting eaves. To the right is the two-storey return, finished in ruled and lined smooth painted render, with two one-over-one sliding sash windows to each floor. Attached to the gable of the return is a single-storey mono-pitched block with a further projecting single-storey shed beyond.

South-West (Side) Elevation

The south-west elevation is abutted by the neighbouring property, 3 Sans Souci Lane.

North-West (Rear) Elevation

The north-west boundary of the house is rendered and essentially blank, apart from a timber door leading to the internal yard. At first floor level there is a small window in the return and a larger leaded light serving the staircase in the main block. The internal yard is separated from the neighbouring house by a three-metre-high rendered wall, and part of the yard has been covered with a mono-pitched Perspex roof to form an enclosed internal space, entered through a boarded door with small louvred windows on either side.

SETTING AND ACCESS

Both houses are reached by a narrow lane running at right angles to Sans Souci Park. Ingledene has only pedestrian access from this lane, up eight concrete steps to narrow gardens on the south-east and north-east sides, which contain mature trees, shrubs and flower beds. The front door is reached by a further set of concrete steps. Vehicular access to the rear of the house is provided by a narrow lane to the north-west. The external plasterwork, curved timber brackets, brick quoins, chimney stacks and the innovative brick construction with its fine mortar beds are all of particular note. The house is further enhanced by its mature and secluded setting.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Sans Souci estate — comprising the main Sans Souci Park, Sans Souci Lane and the land fronting Malone Road — was laid out in the late 1890s on the grounds of a house of the same name that had existed before 1832 and was probably built in the 1770s, when the Donegall estate began to subdivide what were formerly known as the Course lands between Malone and Stranmillis and lease them to farmers. The house was rebuilt in 1836–37 and was subsequently occupied by the Purdon, Pim and Lindsay families. It was vacated around 1895, and in 1899 the grounds were broken up and offered as what were described as beautiful villa sites. The old house, by then set within a much-reduced one-acre plot, was initially offered on lease, but within a year or so had been demolished and its former grounds opened for development.

The new principal street was laid out around 1899, with most plots arranged to back onto the looping V-shaped course of the former garden boundary. The first new dwellings — five pairs of semi-detached houses, comprising the present numbers 6–8, 31–33 and 35–37 Sans Souci Park, 1–2 Sans Souci Lane and 60–62 Malone Road — were completed in 1899 or the year following. Numbers 10–12, 26, 28, 34–36, 38–40, 41 and 43–45 followed by 1911, with the majority of the remainder — including a large badminton hall to the east — built in the 1920s, filling land that had been used as allotments in the preceding decade or so. In more recent years, apartment development has taken place in the southern corner of Sans Souci Park, with the site of the sports hall (latterly owned by Queen's University Belfast) replaced by a large apartment block.

Ingledene and its neighbour Heathcote were built for John Stott, who went on to occupy Heathcote. The first occupant of Ingledene was James Morton, of the auctioneers and valuers James Morton and Sons of Wellington Place. In the 1901 census, he is recorded as sharing the property with his wife Annie, their three grown-up children and a domestic servant; the house is described as a first-class dwelling with 13 rooms in use. James Morton died in 1907, and Annie Morton — recorded in the 1911 census as living there with one of her daughters and a servant — retained the property until her death in 1918. Subsequent occupants include Norman Harvey, a timber merchant, listed as resident from at least 1922; Reverend Dr. Thompson from around 1926; Captain Stratford from around 1938; Miss E. Higginson from around 1945 to around 1962; Brendan Austin from around 1963 to around 1968; Frank Sharkey from around 1968 to around 1973; and Professor David Greer from around 1973. The present owner acquired the property in the mid-1980s.