28 Wellington Park, Belfast, BT9 6DL

28 Wellington Park, Belfast

This is a two-storey with attic semi-detached former dwelling, built in 1866 in the High Victorian style to designs by Robert Young, who later practised as part of the firm Young and Mackenzie. It faces north onto Wellington Park, a tree-lined street running east to west between the Malone and Lisburn Roads, two main arterial routes south of Belfast city centre. The listing extends to the house itself, the boundary walling, the entrance step and the boot-scraper. The building is now used as a dental surgery, having been converted to that use around 2013–2014. It sits within the Malone Conservation Area, at the corner with Wellington Park Terrace, and its rear yard overlooks a row of Grade B1 terraced houses.

Pair and Setting

No. 28 is paired with No. 30 next door, and together the two properties stand out within their surroundings as a very good example of High Victorian domestic architecture, distinguished in particular by their use of multi-coloured brick. Although the principal façade appears symmetrical with gabled ends, the two houses actually interlock in plan: each is roughly L-shaped, with original two-storey mono-pitched returns. No. 28 is the wider of the two at the front (north) and No. 30 is wider to the rear (south). The pair are elevated above pavement level and set apart from the predominantly red brick or rendered housing elsewhere on Wellington Park.

The boundary treatment makes a significant contribution to the character of the setting. Low walling and corner piers in matching grey-white brick, with carved sandstone copings retaining the indent of former railings, enclose the front gardens. A stepped lawn rises on either side of a central path, with three stone steps leading up to the upper level. A decorative cast iron boot-scraper sits on the bull-nosed sandstone entrance step. The rear yard is now a tarmacked car park shared with No. 30, bounded by red brick walling to the west and hit-and-miss timber fencing to the south, with red brick raised planters, concrete paving flags and some gravelled area immediately adjacent to the rear exit.

Roofs

The roof is covered in natural slate (Bangor Blue) with black clay ridge tiles, including the rear return and the gabled dormer. The gabled dormer features fish-scale bands of the same slate. A smaller dormer to the right of the entrance also has a natural slate roof. There is a modern skylight to the rear slope.

There are two grey-white brick chimneys with red brick dressings and octagonal yellow clay pots. The first is centred on the gable of the main roof; its original corbelled cap has been replaced with concrete bricks, and of its original six pots, one has been replaced with a circular red clay pot. The second chimney is centred on the ridge to the right of the entrance; it has a red brick string course and detailing, a corbelled cap in brick specials and three pots.

Eaves and Copings

The projecting painted timber eaves board to the front is supported on corbelled eaves in red brick, composed of two rows of cogging, one row of stretchers and one row of chamfered dentils, all set on a deep zigzag band with blue brick headers at regular intervals. The gable ends have raised sandstone copings terminating in curved sandstone kneelers, painted to match the quoins. The eaves detail to the rear is simpler, in corbelled grey-white brick, comprising one row of stretchers and one row of alternating headers and stretchers.

Materials

The roof is finished in natural slate including the dormers. Rainwater goods are cast iron ogee gutters, with one cast iron rainwater pipe to the north and the remaining rainwater pipes in uPVC. The north-facing walls are in grey-white brick; the south and east elevations are in brownish-red brick. All elevations are laid in Flemish bond with polychromatic detailing. Windows are single-glazed double-hung sliding sash with 1-over-1 panes unless otherwise described.

Front (North) Elevation

The front elevation is formally arranged, with all openings square-headed. At ground floor there is a central entrance with a full-height canted bay to its left, and two equally spaced windows to its right. At first floor there are three windows aligned with the openings below. Some historic glass survives in the ground floor bay windows.

All sandstone dressings are tooled and painted. These include a projecting base plinth with a chamfered top, window cills and lintels — continuous at the bay with a red brick string course between cills — and soldier-coursed red and blue brick heads to the other windows, with stop-chamfered reveals.

The jettied dormer above the canted bay is a defining feature of the building. The timberwork is painted to match the lintel of the bay below, with decorative carved timber pendants below the cantilevered square edges. The dormer window itself is a single-glazed replacement timber window with metal bars fitted across the external reveal. The dormer has projecting eaves and a bargeboard with exposed rafter ends and scrolled purlin ends, all painted.

The entrance door is a square-headed six-panelled timber-framed door with a central bead designed to resemble double doors, fitted with brass ironmongery including a lion-head knocker, letterbox and handles. Above the door is a plain glass over-light recessed within a concentric chamfered brick surround, and a painted stone hood mould with dentils and foliated label stops.

East (Gable) Elevation

The east gable elevation is plainly detailed compared to the front, faced in brownish-red variegated brick in Flemish bond. The raised stone copings and carved kneelers are as described above, and the toothed quoins from the north elevation are returned here. The gable face is otherwise blank. The east face of the two-storey return uses the same brick as the gable, with clipped eaves, soldier-coursed heads and tooled stone cills to two first-floor windows, both fitted with translucent glass, and a flush painted door at ground floor near the re-entrant corner.

Rear (South) Elevation

The rear elevation is two bays wide. A two-storey shallow return is built at half-landing level to the left, and there is one window at each floor to the right side. The same brownish-red brick as the gable is used here, with grey-white brick corbelled eaves as described above. The south face of the return is blank except for a former window opening at ground floor that has been filled with newer red brick; a thin concrete cill remains. Above the return there is a single opening fitted with a uPVC double-glazed casement, with a deep timber lintel and a tooled stone cill thought to be original despite the replacement window. To the right of the return, the sliding sash windows have soldier-coursed heads and tooled stone cills: the first-floor window has 2-over-2 panes and the ground-floor window has 8-over-8 panes, with painted metal bars fixed to the external reveal of the latter. Mechanical equipment is surface-mounted to the rear elevation.

West Elevation

No. 30 abuts the west elevation of the main building. The west face of the return is detailed in the same manner as the east face. There are two windows at first floor, one larger than the other. Evidence of a former single-storey lean-to, now gone, remains as marks in the brickwork at ground floor. The original yard boundary wall with a curved terracotta cap abuts the return and has been built up in later smooth red brick.

Exterior Details: Brick and Ornamentation

The most distinctive external feature is the use of grey-white brick on the principal north façade, embellished with polychromatic detailing and dressed sandstone (now painted). The gable ends and rear elevation are faced in bricks of the brownish-red type more commonly found in Belfast. The vermiculated toothed stone quoins are a notable ornamental feature. The jettied dormers on the two-storey canted bays, vaguely Tudor in character, are a design device also employed by Young and Mackenzie on other houses in the city.

Interior

Although the building has been converted to a dental surgery, the interior layout and detailing of No. 28 remain largely intact.

Historical Background

Wellington Park was the earliest of the public thoroughfares to be laid out across the Malone ridge between the present Lisburn and Malone Roads, with development commencing around 1852. It marked the beginning of the suburbanisation of this part of south Belfast, as the extensive semi-rural grounds of early 19th century and earlier villas and gentrified farmhouses along the ridge were gradually opened up as the business and professional classes moved out from the crowded town centre. Building work was initially confined to the southern side of the new street: Nos. 14–16 date from 1852–53; Nos. 4–12 and 18–22 followed in 1854–56; and Nos. 24 and 26 were built in 1863 and 1865 respectively.

Nos. 28 and 30 were designed in 1866 by Robert Young for Thomas Fraser, on a plot Fraser had taken on lease from George Tate, the developer who gave his name to nearby Tate's Avenue. Fraser was the manager of the Ferguslie (Paisley) Fireclay Works depot at Queen's Quay, a firm described in the 1866 Belfast directory as a manufacturer of white fire bricks for facing buildings. It is therefore highly likely that Fraser supplied the largely white bricks used on the polychrome front façade, making the building of particular note for its connection with local brick manufacturing. The houses, and especially the jettied half-dormers, are similar in character to near-contemporary dwellings by Young and Mackenzie at Nos. 5–6 College Park East (built 1868–69) and Nos. 344–350 Antrim Road (built 1877).

Occupation History of No. 28

The first recorded occupant may have been a Mrs Reid, named in the 1870 street directory. By 1877 Thomas Salmond, a civil engineer, was in residence, followed by James Hetherington, described as a linen warehouseman, by 1880, and William Montgomery, an auctioneer with premises in Royal Avenue, around 1882. Thomas McKnight, editor of the Northern Whig, occupied the property from around 1890 to 1899, after which the building appears to have remained vacant for several years and is not recorded in the 1901 census. James P. Gillespie, a commercial traveller, had taken up the tenancy by 1907, and was succeeded around 1911 by James M. Dickson, a linen merchant. The 1911 census records Dickson, his wife Mary, three grown-up children (Mary, Anne and Charles), a niece Jane Miller and a domestic servant Martha McCallum living in the house, which was described as a first-class dwelling of nine rooms occupied by the family. John Napier, a spirit merchant, is listed as householder in 1920, and appears to have died in the later 1960s, after which Mrs Mary Napier, presumably his widow, is noted as occupant. A relative, R. P. Napier, held neighbouring No. 30 in the 1960s. In the later 1970s the property was acquired by B. McAlister, a chartered accountant, who was running his business from the premises from at least 1990 until at least 1996. The building was converted to its present use as a dental surgery around 2013.