260 Antrim Road, Belfast, BT15 2AT

260 Antrim Road is a detached, symmetrical, single-storey former gate lodge built around 1850, most likely to the designs of Sir Charles Lanyon. It is cruciform on plan, facing east, with a later extension to the southwest. The building is finished in painted ruled-and-lined stucco and sits on a corner site between Antrim Road and Brookvale Avenue at the southeast corner of the Waterworks Park, also known as Queen Mary's Gardens.

Architectural Character

Lanyon's signature Baroque Italianate style is clearly evident throughout, and architectural historian J. A. K. Dean has drawn close comparisons with Lanyon's other gate lodges across Ulster. The building has a hipped natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles, lead valleys, and a central rendered profiled chimney stack with a single terracotta pot. Overhanging eaves are supported on decorative paired brackets and fitted with replacement moulded metal guttering and metal downpipes. The painted stucco walling is detailed with painted quoins, a splayed plinth course, and a continuous plat band at impost level.

Window openings throughout are round-headed, with plain raised surrounds, bracketed moulded sills, and either single-pane timber sash windows or timber casement windows fitted with decorative cast-iron grilles. The front elevation features a central advanced entrance porch with a round-headed door opening. The timber panelled door has a steel sheet fixed to its outer face, and is topped by a fanlight. The surround is plain rendered with a scrolled keystone, and is flanked by slender lozenge-shaped sidelights with flat decorative surrounds. To either side of the porch, the cheeks carry round-headed window openings with single-pane timber sash windows and iron grilles. The recessed bays of the front elevation also have slender round-headed window openings with single-pane timber sash windows and iron grilles.

The south side elevation features a Venetian window composition: a round-headed central opening flanked by lower square-headed openings on a continuous sill, all fitted with iron grilles. The central opening is surmounted by a hood cornice carried on oversized scrolled console brackets — a feature Dean identified as distinctively Lanyon's, comparable to his demolished curator's house at Stranmillis and to designs at Muckamore Villa, Dunderave, Moneyglass, and Eglantine. The remainder of the south elevation is abutted by a flat-roofed red brick extension on a rectilinear plan, added by at least 1957. The north side elevation is detailed in the same manner as the south. The single-bay rear west elevation fronts onto an enclosed rear yard and has a single square-headed window opening with a fixed-pane timber window and iron grille. The rear yard is enclosed by a tall red brick wall laid in English Garden Wall bond with a moulded curved brick coping that steps in response to the sloping site.

Setting

The lodge sits at the southeast corner of Waterworks Park, enclosed by elaborate cast-iron railings set on a low sandstone plinth wall, with a matching pedestrian gate hung on square cast-iron piers with scrolled finials. A small garden to the north is enclosed by plain iron railings with a matching pedestrian gate. Immediately to the north is a curved park entrance screen — listed separately as HB26/44/027B — with decorative cast-iron railings matching those at the lodge, and matching iron gates hung on square red brick pillars with moulded concrete capstones dating from around 1930. The historic railings and stone plinth wall continue along the Antrim Road frontage to the park, and the railings and gate screen are considered to have group value with the gate lodge.

Historical Background

The Antrim Road was originally laid out in 1830. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33 records that the land on which the Belfast Waterworks was subsequently built was predominantly rural in character and included a number of dwellings — among them Solitude House — that were demolished to make way for the new reservoirs.

Belfast's earliest piped water supply had been established in 1678 using wooden pipes, and by the 18th century the city drew water from artificial reservoirs, local springs, and barrels delivered by horse-drawn cart. By the early 19th century this supply was wholly inadequate for the rapidly growing population. In 1840 responsibility for the city's water supply was transferred to the Belfast Water Commissioners under the Belfast Water Act, and they set about establishing a new reservoir on the Antrim Road. The reservoir was constructed between 1840 and 1842, fed by springs at Cave Hill and a stream at Carr's Glen. William Dargan, Irish engineer and railway entrepreneur, was appointed engineer for the works. Two ponds were constructed: the middle (town) basin and the upper clearwater basin. The first connected houses received water through cast iron pipes from the Antrim Road reservoir in 1842.

The Commissioners did not anticipate the scale of population growth during the mid-19th century. By 1852, consultant water engineer John F. Bateman estimated demand at 2 million gallons per day, but the reservoir could supply only a quarter of that by 1855. In that same year, Lanyon — who was County Surveyor for Antrim and had earlier carried out major engineering works including the Antrim Coast Road between Larne and Ballycastle and the Glendun viaduct — provided recommendations to the Water Commissioners on how to increase the Antrim Road supply to over a million gallons. It is possible that he designed the porter's lodge at around this same period.

During the mid-19th century there were conflicts over public access to the waterworks site. The Water Commissioners employed watchmen at the boundary, with police protection, or alternatively used what were described as "twopenny horns" to be blown loudly at trespassers. Access was eventually permitted to anyone willing to sign a visitors' book at the entrance gate and agree to abide by rules posted in the hall of the gate lodge — an arrangement that required two doors: one on the north-facing elevation opening into the park, and one on the east-facing entrance porch opening onto the Antrim Road. This original two-door arrangement is visible in an image in Dean's published gazetteer. The practice of charging for entry was later abolished around 1960.

The lodge first appeared on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, depicted as a T-shaped structure. The Griffith's Valuation of 1859 jointly valued the lodge, together with an ice house and a curator's house (now demolished), at £30. A Mr A. Gilmour was recorded in the Belfast Street Directories as caretaker of the Waterworks and resident of the lodge in 1860. The building's layout remained essentially unchanged over the following century, with later editions of the Ordnance Survey maps from 1901 to 1938 showing no alteration to its original plan.

The Waterworks was superseded as a water source in the late 19th century when fresh water supplies were developed from the Mourne Mountains. Recreational events including aquatic galas, diving, swimming, boating, and model yacht racing were staged at the reservoirs from the 1880s and 1890s onwards, continuing into the 1960s. Following a public meeting in 1897 to consider the future of the now-redundant Waterworks, the Water Commissioners allocated the site for leisure use in 1899, and it has functioned as a public park ever since.

By the time of the 1901 census, the lodge was occupied by John Lindsay, employed as caretaker of the Waterworks and park. The census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of four rooms. In the 1930s a Mr John Ryan was caretaker, and under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the rateable value of the lodge was assessed at £13.

In 1930 plans were implemented to landscape the small area to the north of the clearwater basin at the junction of the Antrim Road and the Cavehill Road, incorporating tennis courts, a playground, a drinking fountain, and a flagpole. The area was opened by the Lady Mayoress on 8th July 1931 and named Queen Mary's Gardens — though notably the month of June is engraved into the ironwork above the gate. During the 1940s, as part of early wartime preparations for scrap metal collection, the railings and gates at Queen Mary's Gardens were lost.

The single-storey extension was added to the west side of the building by at least 1957, when it was depicted on the Ordnance Survey map, giving the lodge its current cruciform plan. The property was transferred to Belfast Corporation on 1st May 1956. From 1958 onwards the Corporation reduced the depth of both reservoirs for safety reasons. In 1966 the Corporation developed an ambitious plan to create a "Pleasure Resort" on the site, incorporating boating and fishing in the upper pond, children's bathing and model yachting in the lower pond, changing accommodation, a waterfall, and a tea garden. The first phase, incorporating the waterfall area, was the only local authority project in the United Kingdom to receive a commendation in the Civic Awards Scheme in 1969. In 1971 the Corporation commissioned a floral clock installed by Edinburgh building contractors James Ritchie and Son; it was subsequently moved to the grounds of City Hall in 1976 after suffering vandalism at the Antrim Road site. A miniature railway had also run along the perimeter of Queen Mary's Gardens and the north boundary of the upper reservoir.

The Commissioners had introduced a key-access system to the parks in the mid-1950s, with keyholders paying an annual subscription. The Belfast Reservoir Anglers' Association held fishing rights to the reservoirs and made day tickets available to the public. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the rateable value of the lodge was combined with all other structures in the park at £320.

The gate lodge was listed in 1987. Between 1990 and 1991 the vacant former porter's lodge was converted into a retail shop and underwent a restoration. By 2003 it was vacant again and underwent an extensive refurbishment converting it into modern office premises. The interior has been substantially altered, but the exterior retains much of its original character. The building is currently in commercial use and continues to address the park, providing an important visual amenity.