Fernhill House (Former People's Museum), Glencairn Park, Glencairn Road, Belfast, BT13 3PT

Fernhill House is a detached three-bay, two-storey rendered Classical Revival villa built in 1864, with a two-bay two-storey wing extending to the south-west added around 1910, a single-storey entrance porch to the east, and a series of single-storey and two-storey extensions to the north. It stands in an elevated position to the east of Glencairn Park, approached from the south by a tree-lined avenue leading from Glencairn Road, and commands extensive views over the surrounding parkland.

The building is of considerable architectural and historical significance, associated with the 19th-century Belfast merchants John Smith and Samuel Cunningham. Cunningham was a wealthy stockbroker, Chairman of the Northern Whig, and a leading member of both the Ulster Unionist Council and the Ulster Provisional Government from 1911. The building was possibly designed by the prolific Belfast architect Robert Young, though this connection remains unconfirmed.

Architectural Overview

The hipped slate roof is finished with clay ridge tiles and overhanging eaves carried on scrolled brackets set on a smooth rendered eaves course with ovolo moulding. There are two smooth rendered chimneys, each with a string course and moulded cornice with painted pots. Rainwater goods are uPVC ogee-moulded guttering discharging to uPVC circular downpipes. Windows throughout are segment-headed unless otherwise noted.

The front elevation faces east and is symmetrical, featuring a single-storey Greek Classical-style entrance portico. The ground floor is rusticated with a raised render band string course, and there are paired rendered bands at the north-east and south-east corners. Window openings have moulded surrounds with raised keystones; those at first-floor level have cornices above, with moulded painted sills throughout. A projecting stone plinth runs along the base.

The entrance porch has a flat roof with a projecting cornice, a raised parapet with balustrade and moulded cornice, and rusticated rendered walls with paired vertical rendered bands at the corners. The square-headed doorway has a moulded surround with a projecting cornice carried on scrolled fluted brackets. The entrance door itself is timber-panelled with a fanlight above, approached by a series of stone steps with raised stringers.

The south elevation has a single-storey advanced bay with a flat roof, projecting cornice, and raised cornice piers. An extension to the south-east has a hipped pyramidal slate roof and rendered walls, with a single-storey canted bay with its own hipped roof. The north elevation has one window at ground floor and a pair of windows at first floor, with a single-storey flat-roofed extension extending northward. The west elevation was not surveyed.

The original timber sliding sash windows (one-over-one pane configuration) survive throughout. Walls are smooth render. Much of the original internal decoration also survives, including ornate cornices, ceiling roses, and shutters, all of which contribute to the building's historic and architectural value.

Historical Context

Mid-19th-century Ordnance Survey maps show the Fernhill site as unoccupied and surrounded largely by open countryside. In the early 1860s, a wealthy Belfast merchant, John Smith, built a house here. The Valuation Revision Book from 1863 includes an entry for the property — not yet named Fernhill — in Smith's possession, with the house and outbuildings valued at £65. By 1865 it appears in the Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory as "Fernhill, Ballygomartin", listed as the residence of John Smith, whose business was J. & T. Smith, butter and general merchants, of Tomb Street. Smith died on 16 November 1874, aged 71, and was buried in Belfast City Cemetery; his address in the burial register is given as "Fernhill, Forth River". The house remained in the Smith family's possession until 1898.

The name of the original architect is not definitively known. A bye-law submission dated 17 June 1864 records an application for a gate lodge at Fernhill by an architect named H. Young, though it has not been possible to identify this individual with certainty. If the initial "H." is in fact "R.", it is possible that Robert Young — a prolific Belfast architect — was involved in the design of the house itself. The gate lodge was of cruciform plan with a part-gabled, part-hipped roof and a porch to the western side. It was entered in the Valuation Revision Book in 1870 and was demolished at some point after 1964.

In 1898 the house was acquired by Samuel Cunningham, a wealthy stockbroker whose family occupied a prominent position in Belfast commercial life. He was the youngest of three sons of Josias Cunningham (died 1895), who had acquired the neighbouring Glencairn estate in 1855. The Ordnance Survey map of 1901 shows the house as a roughly square block with no apparent additions or extensions, and the House and Building return of the 1901 census records seven windows in the front elevation and fourteen rooms in occupation. A description from 1909 notes that the house occupied "a commanding site 300 feet above the level of the sea, affording splendid views of the Mourne Mountains to the south and the coast of Scotland to the north-east." A photograph from that period shows a series of central chimney stacks that are no longer visible.

In 1910 the Irish Builder reported that architect Thomas William Henry had designed additions at Fernhill for the Cunninghams, executed by the contractor H. Laverty and Sons. This work comprised a library to the rear on the south side of the house — the two-bay south-west wing. The Cunninghams were leading figures in Unionist politics during the third Home Rule crisis, and in 1914 the original Ulster Volunteer Force drilled in the grounds of Fernhill and Glencairn.

Fernhill remained in the possession of the Cunninghams until the 1960s, when it was taken over by Belfast Corporation. From 1975 to 1990 it housed the city's Parks Department. In more recent times, Fernhill was the location of the announcement of the Loyalist ceasefire in 1994. In 1996 it opened as a community museum, which closed around 2008, leaving the building vacant.

Setting and Group Value

The building is approached by a series of rendered steps leading up to the entrance portico and sits in an elevated position overlooking Glencairn Park. A range of outbuildings is located to the north, and the complex is enclosed by a stone boundary wall to the west and north, with metal fencing to the east and south. Together, the house and yard retain their original tree-lined avenue approach and form an important group with the associated outbuildings, with which the house has group value.