Parklands, Holywood Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT4 2PS

Parklands is a six-bay, five-storey apartment building constructed in 1961-62 by Belfast Corporation on the Holywood Road in Belfast. Originally known as Knocknagoney Dale, it was built at the beginning of the 1960s as part of a three-part apartment complex with two adjacent blocks, and is set within mature parkland to the south of Knocknagoney Road, adjacent to Knocknagoney Linear Park.

The building exemplifies the International Style of mid-twentieth century architecture. It is constructed on a rectangular plan with a flat roof featuring overhanging eaves and a painted soffit. A plant room with three stainless steel flues sits on the roof. Painted metal downpipes run along the east and west elevations. A mono-pitch fibre cement slated canopy supported on metal posts covers the ground floor door openings.

The western front elevation displays rustic red brick walls with horizontal bands of curtain walling at first and third floor levels. These bands have a shallow projecting concrete frame forming galleries with plain vertical metal railings. Each of the six bays has an original aluminium framed sliding door with side-lights. The second and fourth floors each have a pair of square-headed windows per bay with aluminium casements and painted cills. Ground floor openings have smooth rendered raised bands; the doors are timber-sheeted with flanking side-lights and tiled steps. A stairwell tower to the south side projects above the main entrance and is built in brown brick. A glazed projection with monopitch roof rises from the flat-roofed canopy over the doorway to third floor level. The entrance canopy extends over the path to the main entrance door and is supported on four square section brown brick piers with a metal-clad fascia bearing 'PARKLANDS' in black lettering.

The east elevation has a recessed ground floor with square-headed window and door openings. Upper floors are supported on red brick piers. First and third floor strip windows have projecting rendered headers with blockwork infill panels below. The stairwell presents as a four-storey block to the east in rustic red brick with square-headed openings to upper floors and a monopitch slated canopy over a ground floor door opening.

The north elevation is of red brick walling with extensive planting attached. The south elevation adjoins the recessed stairwell block.

Throughout the building, square-headed window openings have rendered painted sills. Most windows are replacement uPVC and metal casements, though some original aluminium casements remain. The open-deck access originally serving the apartments has been infilled with metal casement windows and is not considered of special interest.

The building sits within mature parkland with a mature tree boundary hedge to the north, west and south. A steep grass embankment rises to the east. The main entrance is accessed from Knocknagoney Road to the north. Bitumac parking and formal lawns lie to the west. One of three apartments linked by stairwells, Parklands occupies a site that was historically part of the lower end of the Richmond Lodge demesne in the nineteenth century.

The district was largely developed in the post-war years. The flats were likely those referred to in the 1960 street directory as being constructed at the municipal boundary on the Holywood Road. They were first recorded in the 1961-62 Second General Revaluation Records, where ground floor flats were valued at £23 each and those on the remaining four floors at £25 each. In the 1981 street directory, Knocknagoney Dale was listed as vacant. By the 1986 directory, it had been renamed Parkside Apartments under the heading of Knocknagoney Dale. It was listed as Parklands in its own right in the 1991 street directory. The reasons for these changes of name are not documented.

Materials consist of felt and metal painted rain-water goods on the roof, red brick walls, and metal and uPVC casement windows throughout.