352 Antrim Road, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT15 5AE

352 Antrim Road, Belfast, is a terraced former house built around 1899, now in use as offices. It is a three-bay, two-storey building with an attic storey, constructed in red brick and arranged as a double-fronted mid-terrace property on the west side of Antrim Road, in the townland of Skegoneill. The architect is not known. The house was originally named 'Dun Conal' and is distinguished from its neighbours by more elaborate sandstone and brick detailing, including a gabled wall-head dormer. It retains all original external fabric, including rear outhouses, stone steps, and boundary walling to the front, as well as much of its original interior fabric, making a marked contribution both to its own historical value and to the architectural quality of the terrace as a whole.

EXTERIOR

The building is irregular on plan, as is typical of this terrace. The pitched roof is finished in natural slate with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles, exposed timber rafter tails, and lead valleys. Rainwater goods are cast iron. A profiled and corbelled red brick chimney stack with clay pots rises from the south party wall. The walls are red brick in Flemish bond with original pointing, moulded red brick and sandstone string courses, and flush sandstone ashlar dressings. The plinth course is rock-faced uncoursed squared sandstone with chamfered red brick trim.

Window openings are square-headed throughout and fitted with original single-pane timber sash windows with slender ogee horns, sandstone ashlar sills, and flush sandstone ashlar lintels with bowtel mouldings.

The three-bay east front elevation is the principal facade. To the right, a full-height canted bay window rises to just below attic level, then steps back to form a gabled dormer with sandstone dressings that include intricate scrolled brackets with foliate carvings. The gabled dormer has paired window openings with pointed-headed blind panels above and geometric brickwork. To the left bay is a wall-head dormer window with a hipped roof, a terracotta finial, exposed rafter feet, and paired square-headed window openings with 2/1-pane timber sash windows. At eaves level there is a diminutive pair of openings sharing a single sill.

The central entrance is shouldered, with a sandstone ashlar lintel bearing foliate and floral carvings. The original timber panelled door has six panels with bolection mouldings and is topped by a plain fanlight. The door opens onto two sandstone steps enclosed by sandstone plinth walls, with an original flagstone-paved footpath. Above the entrance is mounted an Ulster Historical Society blue plaque inscribed with the name of Richard Hayward, writer, actor, and singer, who lived here in the mid-20th century.

The south side elevation is abutted by the adjoining house, No. 350. The west rear elevation has a two-storey red brick return abutted by a red brick chimney stack at the northwest corner. Upper floors have single-pane timber sash windows; ground-floor windows to the rear are boarded up. The north side elevation is abutted by the adjoining building, No. 354.

SETTING

The building sits back from the pavement behind a gravel front garden enclosed by a tooled sandstone plinth wall with iron railings and a matching pedestrian gate. To the rear is a clay-tiled paved yard enclosed by tall red brick walls, with an L-plan range of red brick outhouses having lean-to natural slate roofs and sheeted timber doors.

Together with the adjoining row of four houses to the south known as 'Clonsilla' and the end-of-terrace property to the north formerly named 'Dunmara', each with slight variations, No. 352 forms part of a coherent and distinctive row on the Antrim Road.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Antrim Road was originally laid out in 1830. By the 1850s, as recorded on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, the land north of the Belfast Waterworks and Limestone Road remained predominantly rural. With the rapid growth of Belfast's population and the expansion of its shipbuilding, rope-making, and textile industries, a number of gentlemen's mansions and wealthy merchants' houses were built in Skegoneill during the mid-19th century, making it one of the most affluent areas in Belfast.

Nos. 344–354 Antrim Road were built on the grounds of Hopefield House, a two-storey, six-bay mansion formerly occupied by the Sinclair family. The majority of the grounds were built over during the 1870s. The first four houses in the terrace, Nos. 344–350, known collectively as 'Clonsilla', were constructed in 1877 for Andrew Wright, a local pawnbroker and clerk at the Belfast Loan Office on Ann Street, who resided at No. 3 Cranston Place. These were designed by Young & Mackenzie, an architectural partnership formed between Robert Young and John Mackenzie around 1867. The Dictionary of Irish Architects records the firm as the leading architects for the Presbyterian Church in the north-east and recipients of some of the most important commercial commissions in Belfast. The firm designed a large number of terraced houses across Belfast during the Victorian period.

Nos. 352 and 354 were added in 1899 in a similar style to the earlier four houses, though both lack the third-storey Tudor-style projecting bay that characterises the adjoining terrace. The two later buildings were owned by Mr. William McConnell, a local commission agent. No. 352 was originally valued at £45 and records suggest it remained vacant from 1899 until around 1907. By 1910 it was occupied by the Reverend Robert Walker, rector of St. Barnabas Church in Duncairn Gardens. The 1911 census building return classified No. 352 as a first-class dwelling comprising 16 rooms, with a wash house and coal house among its outbuildings. In the 1920s the house was occupied by William W. Campbell, a commercial traveller, who continued to live there until around 1940.

The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) slightly reduced the property's rateable value to £44, at which it remained into the 1970s. Under the Second Revaluation (1956–72), ownership had passed to a Mr. William Campbell, who leased the house to Mr. R. Hayward — the Richard Hayward commemorated by the Ulster Historical Society blue plaque above the entrance.

Nos. 344–354 Antrim Road were listed in 1987. In 1999, No. 352 was converted to office premises. Renovation works carried out that year included repointing of the red brick chimney stacks, restoration of the roof, installation of cast iron rainwater goods, and refurbishment of the original sliding sash window frames.