8 Bladon Park, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT9 5LH

8 Bladon Park (formerly 128 Malone Road), Belfast — Semi-Detached Victorian Villa, 1877

8 Bladon Park is one of a handsome and imposing pair of semi-detached villas, built in 1877 to designs by William Batt, an architect responsible for several large residences in the Malone and Stranmillis area of Belfast, ranging from large Victorian villas to smaller suburban Edwardian houses. The pair were commonly known as Gretton Villas, a name that may derive from Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton, an English brewing firm that owned several warehouses in Belfast at the time and also owned Bladon Castle in Derbyshire — a connection that, while unconfirmed, lends weight to the street name Bladon Park. The villas were built for and let by Robert Atkinson, who lived at Beaumont, a large house immediately to the north on the Malone Road (now demolished).

The villas are a good example of Batt's preferred High Victorian style, characterised by finialled gables and polychrome brickwork tempered with sandstone dressings. The detailing is not as ornate as originally built: the house suffered severe fire damage on 3 March 1892, after which the elaborate pierced bargeboards visible in a contemporary sketch published in the Irish Builder were replaced with a plainer style. A subsequent insurance claim, lodged with the Alliance Life and Fire Assurance Co., London on 1 April 1892, totalled £868 and documented the destruction of the kitchen, lobby, stairs, study, a large first-floor bedroom, and the east and south-west bedrooms on the second floor, with significant damage throughout the rest of the house. The claim also listed a telescope, a microscope, five violins, two violas, two violoncellos and two pianofortes among the losses. The valuation records assess the house at £73 around 1897, presumably before repairs were complete, rising to £106 around 1906. Despite the fire damage, the pair are well-proportioned and retain a largely original appearance with consistent detailing. No. 8 has received recent glazed additions, designed in a sympathetic style that does not detract from the special architectural interest of the house.

Architecturally, the building is a two-storey gentleman's residence with attic and basement, rectangular on plan. Together with its neighbour at 14–16 Bladon Park, the pair present a symmetrical elevation facing west towards the Malone Road. The south elevation is five windows wide, irregularly arranged. The extreme left bay has a pair of windows aligned directly on each floor. To its right is the entrance bay, in which the primary entrance is contained within a projecting red brick porch surmounted by a glazed conservatory extension at first-floor level. The door opening is shouldered with chamfered brick jambs and a sandstone lintel; the door itself is six-panelled, double-leaf, with brass furniture and an overlight, with a window to each cheek of the porch. Immediately to the right, and closely spaced, is a single window to each floor, and both bays are spanned by a gablet. The two right bays are slightly more subdued in their detailing, with windows diminished in size over three floors; all windows on this elevation are single, with the exception of a paired window to the ground-floor right. The south elevation of the lower two-storey section has two windows on each floor, detailed in the same manner as the rest of the elevation.

The west elevation, facing the Malone Road, has a gabled right bay over a two-storey canted bay and a dormer to the left bay. Windows on this elevation are paired, with the exception of the canted bay, which has the traditional arrangement of three windows to each floor. The north elevation is fully abutted by the adjoining building at 14–16 Bladon Park. The east (rear) elevation is gabled over each bay: the right bay has a pair of plainly detailed windows to the first floor and attic, and a window with floating sidelights to the ground floor. The left bay is abutted by a lower two-storey return with a perpendicular ridge, with margin-paned sashes to the north, south and east elevations; this is further abutted by a contemporary two-storey fully glazed extension. There is also a perpendicular two-storey return to the east.

The steeply pitched gabled roof is clad in natural slate with a rolled lead ridge around a flat central section. Eaves overhang on exposed rafter tails with bargeboards and fascia; rainwater goods are uPVC. Finials are present to the attic gables, and there is an attic dormer to the west with leaded cheeks and a finial. Two substantial red brick chimneystacks feature projecting blue brick banding, moulded copings and four yellow clay pots each (one stack is shared with the adjoining house). A similarly detailed but more slender red brick chimneystack with three yellow clay pots serves the east end of the building.

The walling throughout is Flemish-bonded red clay brick with flush blue clay brick banding at cill and lintel level. A sandstone plaque is set into the first-floor west elevation between nos. 8 and 14–16 Bladon Park, bearing the inscription 'GRETTON VILLAS / 1877.' Window openings are square-headed and shouldered, with chamfered red brick surrounds, chamfered flush sandstone sills and profiled shouldered lintels, with polychromatic brick voussoirs beneath dog-toothed blue brick hood moulds. Principal rooms have paired window openings. All windows are painted timber one-over-one sliding sashes with horns.

The property sits on the east side of the Malone Road, accessed from Bladon Park, within the Malone Conservation Area. It is set back from both roads within a large private manicured garden enclosed by a quarry-faced basalt wall to the Malone Road. The boundary walls to Bladon Park date from around 2000 and are built in a historic style; they also provide access to a contemporary housing development to the east. The entrance to Bladon Park from the Malone Road is flanked by original curved sandstone walls with decorative moulded sandstone piers surmounted by cast-iron urns. The original gate lodge, built at the same time as the villas, is located on the south side of Bladon Park at its corner with the Malone Road and forms part of the group. No. 8 has group value with its neighbour at 14–16 Bladon Park and with 1 Bladon Park, the gate lodge.

The first recorded occupant was Charles Henry Brett, co-founder of the well-regarded Belfast law firm L'Estrange and Brett, who lived at no. 8 (then recorded as no. 1 Bladon Park) from around 1883. The address was subsequently renumbered, appearing variously as 98 Malone Road and, on at least one occasion apparently in error, as 130 Malone Road; it is occasionally referred to as South Gretton. The valuation revisions of 1906–1915 record the presence of a gardener's house on the property, valued at £6 and sub-let to a James Gwynne. Papers of L'Estrange and Brett document a dispute over an increase in rent to £165 per annum, with a Notice to Quit order issued to repossess the property in 1922; this appears to have been resolved, as Sir Charles Brett remained in Gretton Villas until his death in 1926. His daughters, Helen, Lucy and Mary (also recorded as Margaret), are recorded as living at the property as late as 1951.

A planning application lodged on 4 October 2002 was approved for the erection of a triple garage and new boundary wall. A further application lodged on 28 March 2006 was approved for new walls, a gateway and fencing to nos. 128 and 128A. Despite these alterations, the original gate piers flanking the entrance to Bladon Park have been retained. Historically, the villas are representative of the development of prestigious suburbs to the south of Belfast city built to accommodate its wealthiest citizens.