28 Cadogan Park, Belfast

'Crusheen', 28 Cadogan Park, Belfast

'Crusheen' is a two-and-a-half-storey Edwardian Free Style house designed in 1902 by Belfast architect Vincent Craig for Francis Hunter, a linen manufacturer. It was the first house to be built on a new site in Cadogan Park, and it remains almost entirely intact externally and internally, set within its original grounds. It sits within the Malone Conservation Area in south Belfast, and is of significant architectural and historic interest on account of its high degree of preservation and the reputation of its architect.

Setting and Grounds

The house stands on a raised site off the tree-lined Cadogan Park, where detached dwellings of similar size and scale occupy individual plots of roughly an acre, many in a comparable Arts and Crafts style. The front garden is bounded by a low red-brick retaining wall with spaced pillars and gate piers capped in curved reconstituted stone. A tarmacadam drive leads to the front door and continues to the rear garden, where there is a red-brick double garage with painted timber concertina doors. There are fine lawns to front and rear, mature rose beds and specimen trees in both gardens. The west elevation returns to the front garden via a modern painted metal gate.

Exterior — General Character and Materials

The house is asymmetrically planned with multiple bays clustered around a central hall, and is built in red brick in English Garden Wall bond to most elevations, with roughcast render and faux half-timbering to the projecting front bays. The multi-gabled roof is finished in diminishing Westmoreland green slate with red terracotta ridges and finials to the gables. Gutters are half-round cast-iron supported on deeply projecting painted timber eaves with timber soffits in the Arts and Crafts manner. Tall brick chimneys rise from the centre of the plan and have replacement clay pots. Rainwater goods throughout are painted cast-iron hoppers and downpipes. Windows are generally set in segmental-arched brick openings with square-headed painted timber frames and side-hung metal casements glazed in clear and leaded glass, with reconstituted stone cills. The sweeping rooflines, asymmetrical massing and fashionable Art Nouveau patterns in the leaded lights are characteristic of the Edwardian Free Style.

South (Principal) Elevation

The principal elevation faces Cadogan Park and is arranged asymmetrically across two and a half storeys. The walling is predominantly red brick, except in two projecting bays — one central and one to the right — where brick forms a plinth up to cill level at ground floor, with a reconstituted stone string course marking the change of material to painted roughcast render in the central bay, and continuous glazing to the right-hand bay.

The central projecting porch bay is two storeys tall and has a half-timbered effect to a small gabled roof at first-floor level. It contains a square-headed tripartite window with leaded and stained glass. The front porch has a small window and original front door, both glazed in leaded stained glass. The door itself is an original hardwood panelled door with an oval upper light in leaded stained glass, and the original doorbell remains in situ. Windows not within a bay have reconstituted stone elliptically arched coved hood moulds. Original Arts and Crafts decorative ironmongery is retained on the windows.

The right-hand bay is single-storey and square on plan. It has a small cloakroom window in leaded glass set in a rendered wall, giving way to continuous clear glazing comprising side-hung metal windows within a timber frame, wrapping around the side on to the east elevation. A painted timber corner column supports the slated roof. There is a segmental-arched tripartite window with leaded glass and a small leaded casement window at attic level in the gable. At roof level, adjacent to the chimney, a small flat-roofed dormer with a tripartite squared metal window appears to be a later addition.

Raised floor ventilation grilles at ground-floor level bear the name 'ROBINSON'S PATENT'.

East (Side) Elevation

The east elevation faces the driveway and is composed of four distinct parts: the side of the front single-storey projecting bay; a two-storey section with overhanging eaves; a two-storey gable with overhanging eaves; and a partly infilled yard wall with a stepped parapet capped in bullnosed glazed terracotta. All are in red brick, partly obscured by climbing vegetation. Windows are segmental-arched brick tripartite openings with timber-framed side-hung metal casements, some with leaded lights. A square-headed window with a 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 bearing the partially visible inscription 'BROWN AND CO.......' may indicate where gas or coal originally entered the yard.

North (Rear) Elevation

The rear elevation faces the garden and is in two parts. To the left is a smaller two-storey gabled two-bay section incorporating the former yard and outbuilding wall; to the right is a larger attic-storey gable. Painted plain timber bargeboards with projecting eaves and exposed rafters are in the Arts and Crafts style. Windows are segmental-arched brick with reconstituted stone cills.

The walls that originally enclosed the yard — now partially enclosed by the kitchen extension — are in red brick in English bond, finishing at first-floor level with stepped parapets to east and west capped in bullnosed glazed terracotta, and culminating in a tall squared red-brick chimney, probably originally built to aid extraction from a gas boiler.

Within the yard, a single-storey extension infills most of the space. A one-over-one sliding sash opaque single-glazed window looks into the yard, situated to the left of a small projecting room accessed from the former pantry. An air-raid shelter, roughly one metre square with a flat concrete paving slab as its roof covering, was inserted during the inter-war period; the opening that originally allowed access from the former pantry has since been blocked up.

The right-hand portion of the rear elevation consists of a larger gable with a single-storey projecting canted bay at ground floor, with curved brick specials to the corners. The drawing room is accessed from this side via a small red quarry-tiled area of the garden. A hardwood painted timber door with a stained glass light to its left leads directly into the drawing room. The projecting bay has a tripartite curved-headed window with side-hung metal casements in the upper lights within a timber frame, featuring a maiden in stained glass. The slated roof to this bay has projecting eaves and cast-iron rainwater goods. At first-floor level, single side-hung casement windows serve each of the bathrooms, and a small leaded light serves what was formerly a separate water closet. The master bedroom window is a tripartite casement with a curved head, though the window opening itself is square-headed. At attic level, a small segmental-arched casement window sits within the gable; a dormer with a double window in metal and a flat felted roof projects to form a bathroom internally, and 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 level only, supported on a projecting reconstituted stone cill and scrolled timber and reconstituted stone brackets. A projecting elliptical bay to the left at ground floor corresponds with the drawing room; the brick bond to its plinth differs from elsewhere and its roof is in felt, suggesting it may be a later addition, possibly dating to the same period as the two dormers inserted at roof level. Windows to this bay are square-headed fixed metal lights with smaller top-hung opening casements. A single timber-framed fixed metal window with an elliptical head sits below the projecting bay at ground-floor level. Painted cast-iron floor vents are present at ground level.

Interior

The house is described in the 1911 census as a first-class dwelling with 18 rooms. The interior retains its original character, with an asymmetrical arrangement of variously shaped rooms clustered around a central hall, a good staircase rising to the upper floors, and Art Nouveau patterns in the leaded lights throughout. A 1943 sale particulars description records an attractive hall with a hardwood floor, a spacious drawing room with a bow window, a dining room, morning room, cloakroom with water closet, a mistress's pantry and a modern pantry, with an enclosed yard containing a wash-house, coalhouse and water closet. The first floor contained four bedrooms, a dressing room, bathroom, water closet and store cupboard, while the top floor had two maids' bedrooms, a bathroom and a boxroom.

Historical Background

Cadogan Park was laid out around 1900 to 1902 along a line that had originally divided two probable early 17th-century strip farms running westward from the high ground of the Malone Ridge to the Bog Meadows — a boundary that had also served as the municipal boundary until 1896. As the suburbanisation of the Malone area gathered pace in the late 19th century, land in the vicinity was acquired from the Shaftesbury (Donegall) estate by Belfast industrialists the Workman brothers in the 1890s. Through their Windsor Building Company (established 1892) and Marlborough Park Company (established around 1900), they began selling plots for development. The street was named after the 5th Earl Cadogan, who was then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Sites within Cadogan Park began to be sold on 10,000-year leaseholds from 1902 onwards; the present nos. 24, 28 and 30–34 were built between that date and 1907, with much of the rest of the street developed in the 1920s and 1930s.

No. 28 — 'Crusheen', presumably named after the village in County Clare — was the first house constructed in the new street, built in 1902–03 for Francis Hunter, a 36-year-old Belfast linen merchant. It appears in the valuation book for the first time in 1903, assessed for rates at the relatively high figure of £75. By the time of the 1911 census it is described as a first-class dwelling with 18 rooms, occupied by Mr Hunter, his Scottish wife Jenny, and their two domestic servants.

In 1917 Hunter sold the lease to the Reverend Robert Workman, a retired Presbyterian minister (who had served the Glastry congregation until 1910) and one of the brothers originally involved in the development of Cadogan Park. He died in 1924 and the house was sold to the Reverend William Colquhoun, Minister of Fitzroy Avenue Presbyterian Congregation. Colquhoun died in 1934 and the property appears to have remained with his relations until 1943, when it was auctioned again. The sale particulars at that time described it as 'pleasantly situated in an elevated position' in a 'select Park a short distance from Malone Road', noting accommodation comprising a porch, attractive hall with a hardwood floor, spacious drawing room with a bow window, dining room, morning room, cloakroom with water closet, mistress's pantry, modern pantry, enclosed yard with wash-house, coalhouse and water closet, a good staircase to the first floor containing four bedrooms, a dressing room, bathroom, water closet and store cupboard, two maids' bedrooms, a bathroom and a boxroom on the top floor, together with a garage and an easily maintained garden.

The house was subsequently acquired by George Rankin, a County Donegal-born timber merchant who founded the firm of George Rankin & Co. of Milewater Street, who lived there until his death in February 1945. After another auction it was sold to Robert McAllister. Mr McAllister died around 1961, and in 1970 the house passed from Rosaleen McAllister to Hugh and Irene Davis. The most recent owner recorded is Mr Samuel R. Carnew.

Alterations and Repairs

A bow window was added to the west elevation at some point before 1943, possibly in the 1930s. The dormers and the enclosure of the attic staircase appear to date from after around 1960; the kitchen extension may also belong to this period. The small flat-roofed projection to the rear of the former pantry served as an air-raid shelter during the Second World War.

The property was listed in 1986, with a grant paid in that year for repairs to the lead valleys, re-fixing of slates and re-pointing of two chimneystacks. In 1988 an application was made for repairs following bomb damage, principally the replacement of some windows and repairs to leaded lights on doors and windows; a subsequent inspection by Historic Buildings reported that the repairs were 'excellent' and 'done exactly as before the bomb'.