42 Fortwilliam Park, Belfast

42 Fortwilliam Park is a detached, asymmetrical, multi-bay, two-storey-with-attic Tudor Revival house, built around 1908 to the designs of Belfast architect Vincent Craig (1869–1925). Known originally as Fairbourne House, it sits within the landscaped grounds of Dominican College Fortwilliam and forms part of a wider complex that includes the listed Walton House. The building is irregular on plan, faces east, and is set back on the north side of Fortwilliam Park. Its elaborate elevations and decorative detailing represent a revivalist style executed in the advanced construction materials of the day, and the use of reconstituted stone is of some technical interest, despite the loss of some original fabric to the exterior.

The roofs are pitched and covered in natural slate with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles. Three profiled reconstituted stone chimneystacks with terracotta pots rise from the roofline. Moulded steel guttering runs to a chamfered reconstituted stone eaves course, with steel box hoppers and downpipes, though some guttering has been replaced in aluminium. Flat-roofed, lead-lined dormer windows appear to both the front and rear pitches. The external walls are of rock-faced reconstituted stone with cement joints. Window openings are square-headed with moulded cement surrounds and sills, fitted with replacement top-hung timber casement windows unless otherwise noted.

The principal elevation faces east and is seven windows wide. It has a central full-height gabled projection with an entrance porch set into the re-entrant angle, and a further full-height gable at the right end bay. The central gable has paired window openings to the attic, while at ground level a shallow circular bay projects forward with three windows on a continuous moulded sill and a lead-lined roof. To the left bay is a corner window that returns onto the south side elevation, with a corner pier.

The entrance porch is square on plan with a lead-lined flat roof. Its basket-handle door opening is framed by decorative dropped panels and corbels rising to a continuous frieze and cornice with a scrolled pediment. Double-leaf decorative panelled doors open onto a cobble-lock platform flanked by raking plinth walls. Slender windows to both cheeks of the porch contain Art Nouveau leaded glazing with top-hung opening timber casements.

The south side elevation is asymmetrical with twin gables and a single-storey canted bay window to the right. The west rear elevation has an advanced symmetrical section to the right with two gables, with the left-hand gable abutted by a square-plan two-storey projection. The recessed section to the north has a further two-storey gable on its left, with a flat-roofed curved entrance bay filling the re-entrant angle. This bay has curved timber casement windows with Art Nouveau leaded coloured glazing and a timber panelled door with a glazed upper half, flanked by fixed-pane leaded windows, opening onto a sunken paved area. The north side elevation is abutted by a single-storey wing added around 1960.

The house was built on land that originally formed part of the Fortwilliam Estate, which was broken up in the mid-19th century. Fortwilliam Park was laid out around 1864 between the Antrim and Shore Roads and quickly became one of Belfast's more prosperous residential streets, with many grand Victorian mansions erected on the former estate during the 1860s and 1870s. The site on which Fairbourne House was built had been part of the grounds of Walton House, itself constructed around 1865. At the turn of the 20th century, Walton House was occupied by Humphrey Barron, a local magistrate and soap and candle manufacturer. In 1908, Barron provided a plot on the eastern side of his holding for a new residence for Lloyd Campbell, a flax spinner employed with Henry Campbell & Co. Ltd. of Royal Avenue. The Irish Builder records that the house was designed by Craig in 1908, with construction carried out by the local building firm of McDowell, Leathern & Frazer.

Vincent Craig was a Belfast-based architect and the younger brother of James Craig, the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. He was apprenticed to W. H. Lynn, spent a year travelling Europe, then established an independent practice in 1891. He was one of the very few early advocates of Art Nouveau in Ulster, and brought a free approach to the design of Fairbourne House, which combines Elizabethan, Baronial, Arts and Crafts, and Art Nouveau features. A 2004 condition survey noted that although rather plain on the outside, the interior contains many examples of Craig's distinctive Art Nouveau detailing.

Annual Revision records set the total rateable value of the house at £188, noting also a now-demolished gate lodge valued at £7. The 1911 Census of Ireland described the building as a first-class dwelling of 21 rooms with a shed as its sole outbuilding. Lloyd Campbell continued to live at Fairbourne House until around 1925, when the property passed to Samuel Boyd, a local magistrate and distiller. Boyd died in 1932, after which the house passed to his widow Annie. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) reduced the rateable value to £150. The house remained in private residential use until 1950, when it was acquired by the adjoining Dominican Convent and converted into classrooms and storage. During the 1980s and 1990s it housed classrooms on the ground floor and storage on the upper floors, at which point it was known as St. Joseph's. Around 2000 it was deemed unsuitable for use by the Department of Education. The building was listed in 1987.

The house is approached along a long, winding tarmacadam avenue through the landscaped grounds of Dominican College Fortwilliam. The avenue opens onto Fortwilliam Park through a pair of decorative iron gates hung on rendered piers, flanked by matching S-curve railings.