Woodvale Park, Gate Piers, Gates and Railings, Woodvale Road, Belfast

Woodvale Park's main entrance gates, gate piers, and railings are a Gothic Revival composition dating from 1887, designed by Josiah Corbett Bretland (1846–1921), Belfast's city surveyor and an English architect who had moved to Belfast in 1867. They stand at the west side of Woodvale Road and form the principal gateway to the park. A second gateway in limestone fronts onto Ballygomartin Road to the north, and two further gates serve entrances to the east and south.

The main gateway on Woodvale Road consists of four identical gate piers of regular-coursed sandstone: rock-faced red Corsehill sandstone with plain Giffnock sandstone quoins and dressings. Each pier is square in section with engaged colonettes at the corners and a moulded plinth course. The pyramidal stone pier caps carry lancet gablets to each face and are topped by stone finials — described by the architectural historian Dean as "proud poppy finials to gableted cappings." The piers support the original wrought iron gates: a central double gate for vehicular access flanked by a narrower pedestrian gate on each side. The gates have twisted railings with decorated top and bottom rails featuring a flower motif, and ball railing heads. The railings along Woodvale Road are similarly twisted, with a plain rectangular-section top rail, flower motif, and ball railing heads, supported on swan-neck dog-leg brackets fixed to rectangular-section standards topped with ball finials. The stone gate piers and enclosing railings were constructed at a cost of £295.

The northern gateway on Ballygomartin Road, dating from around 1900, consists of four identical gate piers of ashlar Portland limestone. These are square in section, panelled to their north and south faces, with moulded plinth courses and caps. They support the original iron gates in the same arrangement as the main entrance — a central double vehicular gate flanked by narrower pedestrian gates on each side — with rectangular-section railings on a dwarf wall with saddle-back coping.

To the south, fronting onto Woodvale Avenue, is a modern double metal gate supported on metal posts, with plain rectangular-section railings with curved railing heads on a dwarf wall with moulded coping. To the east, also fronting onto Ballygomartin Road, is a pedestrian iron gate supported on square-section cast iron posts.

The park itself is of irregular plan form, laid out mainly in grass with a number of facilities including a playground, football pitches, bowling greens, a pavilion, an outdoor gym, and a community garden. A bandstand dating from around 1900 is located to the south-east of the main gateway.

The park is bounded by Ballygomartin Road to the north, Woodvale Road to the east, and Woodvale Avenue to the south-east, with trees and hedges forming the boundary to a neighbouring industrial estate to the west. A two-storey pitched-roof brick-built gate lodge fronting onto Woodvale Avenue and situated to the south-east of the main gateway is thought to date from the late 1900s. Dean described it as "a square two-storey house in redbrick. Double gabled front elevation. Good brick specials form label mouldings and ornament the chimney stacks."

Historical Background

In the early 19th century the Woodvale Road area was predominantly rural, but the growth of the linen industry led to rapid urbanisation. There were bleachworks, beetling mills, bleach greens, and at least ten bleaching complexes in the west Belfast area in the opening decades of the century, the majority using the waters of the Farset and Forth rivers. By the 1850s rows of workers' houses had been built, and by the mid-Victorian period the area had become a thriving residential suburb.

Woodvale Park was laid out in 1887 under the Public Parks Act of 1869, which required towns of a certain size to establish public parks for the recreational use of the working classes. Belfast Corporation acquired the grounds of Woodville Park after advertising for land in the north-west of the town in 1886. The site comprised all of the land that had made up the grounds of Woodville House, as recorded on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858. In 1887, twenty-four acres were purchased in fee from the Reverend Octavius Glover, the last occupant of Woodville, at a yearly cost of £217 13s 2d. The park was originally to have been named Shankill Park.

Bretland, who as city surveyor was involved in major improvements to the city during a period of rapid expansion, was responsible for the layout of the park and most likely designed the Gothic Revival sandstone gate piers and railings. Immediately prior to designing Woodvale Park he had designed the Albert Bridge following the collapse of the previous structure, and had also laid out Alexandra Park around 1887. The Belfast Parks Committee minutes record that on 24 August 1887 the city surveyor submitted sketch plans of the new park and reported that the entrance gates and the lengths of railing on the Shankill Road would cost about £400.

The current entrance to Woodvale Park occupies the same location as the original entrance to Woodville House. A gate lodge had stood on the site in the 1850s but was demolished in 1888 and a replacement lodge erected at the south-east corner of the park in 1891.

The park was scheduled to be opened on 18 August 1888 by the Mayor of Belfast and the Chairman of the Public Parks Committee. A large crowd gathered outside the gates but neither the Mayor nor the Chairman arrived, and the park was ultimately opened by a local councillor who cautioned the assembled crowd. Notably, Alexandra Park had been closed soon after its own opening in 1887 due to excessive vandalism.

Woodvale Park was considered too small for the number of local residents using it, and in 1900 it was enlarged by a quarter of an acre. Subsequent additions to the initially featureless park included a pond on the east side (now filled in and replaced with a children's playground), a greenhouse added in 1899, and a bandstand. The limestone gate piers at the northern entrance were most likely added during this late Victorian or Edwardian period of alterations.

Woodvale Park was first listed in 1987. The sandstone gate piers were repaired between 2008 and 2009 as part of a £350,000 restoration project that included cleaning the original rails between Woodvale and Ballygomartin Roads, the like-for-like replacement of sandstone that had been displaced or eroded from the gate piers, and the repointing of some sandstone blocks. In 2013 the park was reopened following a £2 million reorganisation of the grounds; this renovation does not appear to have included any work to the gate piers and railings.