28 Cadogan Park, Belfast

Crusheen, 28 Cadogan Park

This two-and-a-half-storey Edwardian Freestyle red-brick house was built in 1902 to designs by Vincent Craig for Francis Hunter, a linen manufacturer. It was the first detached dwelling built on a new site in Cadogan Park by the Workman family. The house stands on a raised site off the tree-lined Cadogan Park in South Belfast, within the Malone Conservation Area, where detached dwellings of similar size and scale occupy individual plots of roughly an acre, many in a comparable Arts and Crafts style.

The asymmetrically planned, multi-bay house sits behind a low red-brick retaining wall with spaced pillars and gateposts capped in curved reconstituted stone. A tarmacadam drive leads to the front door and continues to the rear garden, which contains a red-brick double garage with painted timber concertina doors. Fine lawns lie to front and rear, with mature rose beds and specimen trees in both gardens.

The roof is pitched and multi-gabled with diminishing Westmoreland green slates and felted dormers. Red terracotta ridges and finials finish the gables. Half-round cast-iron gutters are supported on deeply projecting painted timber eaves and timber soffits in Arts and Crafts style. Tall brick chimneys rise from the centre of the plan with replacement clay pots. Walling is exposed red brick in English Garden wall bond to all elevations except the front projecting bay, which is roughcast rendered with faux half-timbering to the gable. Windows are generally set in segmental-arched brick openings with square-headed painted timber frames. Most are side-hung casements with metal frames glazed in clear and leaded glass. Cills are generally reconstituted stone. Rainwater goods consist of hoppers and downpipes in painted cast iron.

Front (South) Elevation

The principal elevation faces Cadogan Park in an asymmetrical arrangement over two and a half storeys. It is red brick except in two projecting bays (centre and right), where brick acts as a plinth to cill level at ground floor with a string course of reconstituted stone cill marking the change to painted roughcast render in the central bay, and continuous glazing in the right-hand bay. Square-headed timber-framed windows with painted metal casements sit within these bays, retaining original Arts and Crafts decorative window ironmongery. The front projecting porch has a small window and front door glazed in leaded stained glass. The front door is an original hardwood panelled door with an oval upper light in leaded stained glass and an original doorbell in situ. Reconstituted stone elliptically arched coved hood moulds top windows not set within bays.

The central projecting porch bay is two-storey with a half-timbered effect to the small gabled roof at first floor level. It features a square-headed tri-partite window with leaded and stained glass. The right-hand bay is single-storey, square on plan, with a small cloakroom window in leaded glass set in a rendered wall. This gives way to continuous clear glazing comprising side-hung metal windows within timber frames, wrapped round to the east elevation with a painted timber corner column supporting the slated roof. Original cast-iron rainwater goods remain throughout. Raised floor vents take the form of metal grilles bearing the name 'ROBINSON'S PATENT' at ground floor level. A segmental-arched tri-partite window with leaded glass and a small casement attic window, also in leaded glass, occupy the gable. At roof level, adjacent to the chimney, a small dormer tri-partite squared metal window to the attic appears to be later than the original build and has a flat felt roof.

East (Side) Elevation

The east elevation faces onto the driveway and consists of four parts: the side of the front south projecting single-storey timber-framed bay, a two-storey section with overhanging eaves, a two-storey gable with overhanging eaves, and the now partly infilled yard wall with stepped parapet capped with bullnosed glazed terracotta. All sections are in red brick, partly obscured by climbing vegetation. Windows are segmental-arched brick with tri-partite timber-framed metal side-hung casements as elsewhere, some with leaded lights. A square-headed window with reconstituted stone straight head has been inserted into the yard wall at the time of the kitchen extension. A hardwood sheeted and painted timber door leads into the yard. A cast-iron opening with partially visible insignia 'BROWN AND CO .......' may indicate where gas or coal originally entered the yard. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods and hoppers are present.

North (Rear) Elevation

The rear elevation faces onto the garden and is in two parts: a small two-storey gabled two-bay section to the left-hand side, with the former yard and outbuilding wall making up the left-hand portion, and a larger attic-storey gable making up the right-hand side. Painted plain timber bargeboards with projecting eaves and exposed rafters in Arts and Crafts style finish the roofline. Windows are segmental-arched brick with reconstituted stone cills. Walls which surrounded the former yard (now partially enclosed by the kitchen) are red brick in English bond, finishing at first floor level with a stepped parapet to east and west capped with bullnose glazed terracotta, culminating in a tall squared red-brick chimney, probably to aid extraction originally from the gas boiler.

Within the yard, the rear elevation has a single-storey extension infilling most of the former yard. A one-over-one sliding sash opaque single-glazed window looks onto the yard, situated to the left of a projecting 'room' accessed from the former pantry in plan. Here, an air raid shelter roughly one metre square with a flat concrete pavior roof covering was inserted during the interwar period. The walls are red brick and the opening which allowed access from the former pantry has since been blocked up.

The right-hand side of this north elevation consists of a larger gable with a single-storey projecting canted bay at ground floor featuring curved brick 'specials' to corners. Here, the drawing room is accessed from a small red quarry-tiled area of the garden. A hardwood timber painted door with stained glass light to the left-hand side leads directly into the drawing room. The projecting bay has a tri-partite curved-headed window with side-hung casement metal windows in timber-framed upper lights featuring a maiden in stained glass. The roof to the bay is slated with projecting eaves as elsewhere and cast-iron rainwater goods. At first floor level, single side-hung casement windows look into each of the bathrooms and a small leaded light looks into what was the formerly separate water closet. The window pertaining to the master bedroom is a tri-partite casement with a curved head, though the window itself is square-headed. At attic level, a small segmental-arched casement window sits within the gable. A dormer window with a double window in metal and flat felted roof projects to form the bathroom internally; this dormer was probably added at a later date. Decorative wall vents suggest cavity wall construction.

West (Side) Elevation

The west elevation has two parts: a two-storey section with continuous projecting eaves and a small bay with a slightly projecting decorative faux half-timbered gable at first floor only, supported on projecting reconstituted stone cill and timber and reconstituted stone scrolled brackets. A projecting elliptical bay to the left-hand side at ground floor corresponds with the drawing room and may be of a later date, as the brick bond to the plinth differs from elsewhere and the roof is felt—this may correspond with the time of insertion of the two dormers at roof level. Windows to this bay are square-headed metal fixed panes with smaller top-hung openings. A single timber-framed fixed metal window with elliptical head sits below the projecting bay at ground floor. Painted cast-iron floor vents are present at ground level. The west elevation returns to the front garden via a modern painted metal gate.