14 Carolan Road, Belfast, BT7 3HE

14 Carolan Road, Belfast

This is a two-storey red brick dwelling with a pitched roof and three sets of tall diagonal brick chimneys, built in 1876 to designs by the Belfast architectural partnership of Thomas Jackson and Son. It was originally detached but is now abutted on its east side by a later terrace of dwellings at Nos 4–12 Carolan Road, built in 1904. The house sits on the south side of Carolan Road, off the Ormeau Road in South Belfast, overlooking the Good Shepherd Convent complex to the north. It stands behind a red brick boundary wall with brick piers and a small front garden. A driveway was formed on the west side after 1980, and there is a small enclosed rear yard with original red brick walling, narrow openings and brick coping bounding the rear of the former garden of No. 1 Rosetta Avenue to the south-east.

The house was built as a pair with No. 1 Rosetta Avenue, a larger single-storey-plus-attic cottage-style villa located to the south-east. Together the two houses form a distinctive group that stands out markedly in the locality on account of their striking chimney stacks. They were designed in an eclectic style combining Early Arts and Crafts, Tudor and mid-Victorian elements — a style rooted in the Romantic movement and the Picturesque, and a conscious reaction against industrialisation, mass production and pattern-book housing. This broader movement in domestic architecture, which encompassed Arts and Crafts and Queen Anne Revival styles, flourished across Europe between 1860 and the First World War. It drew inspiration from English medieval, Tudor and Jacobean periods and the vernacular tradition, and characteristically produced houses with exaggerated chimneys and the decorative use of brick, timber and tiles. The two houses at Rosetta are outstanding local examples of this movement, rendered here on an unusually modest scale.

The pair of dwellings were sufficiently striking to merit an article and an illustration of each house in the contemporary architectural journal the Irish Builder, which described them as "just erected" in its issue of 15th December 1876. The journal noted that the two "cottage villas" were built for John Coyle Esquire, of red brick with Scrabo and Drumfries stone "sparingly introduced in cills and keystones &c." Purple and green roof slates were used with "Ashton and Green's fancy ridge tiles" and "Peake's ferro-metallic" terracotta bands in the chimney stacks. The total cost of both houses was approximately £2,500. They were constructed from designs and under the supervision of Thomas Jackson and Son, with Messrs Dixon and Co as contractors. The lithographs reproduced in the journal show the front elevation of the larger house (now 1 Rosetta Avenue) and the rear of the current house, captioned as the "garden front" with the Good Shepherd Convent visible in the background.

The roof is covered in Bangor Blue slates with fishscale banding, a decorative terracotta crested ridge and red clay ridge tiles to the rear return. There are bracketed eaves and a gabled wall-head dormer to the front. The three sets of tall red brick chimney stacks are built on the diagonal — one at each gable end and a smaller one at the rear of the rear return — and all have decorative terracotta tiles. The walling is laid in English garden wall bond. The east gable, which is abutted by No. 12 Carolan Road, has a timber-slatted apex and three tall chimney stacks at the ridge, each with a single clay pot. The west gable is blind, with a timber-slatted apex and four tall decorative chimney stacks at the ridge with four clay pots, and a single tall chimney stack with a single clay pot at the extreme right side of the rear return.

On the front (north) elevation, the entrance door is positioned at the extreme left of the ground floor. It has an original diagonally-panelled timber door with an original brass handle and letterbox, a triple-paned overlight beneath a simple painted stone head flanked by brick corbelling, and a trefoil brick relieving arch above. To the right are paired window openings with arched heads beneath brick voussoirs. At first floor level, a triple set of windows sits at the centre beneath a plain painted head with blunt-arched brick voussoirs below the dormer pitched roof. The wall-head dormer has an exposed timber cross-member with a timber knopp and finial, and corbelled brick eaves at each gable end.

On the rear (south) elevation, the main façade is abutted on its left side by the pitched-roof rear return. To the right is an asymmetrical arrangement of window openings: a large one-over-one sash window on the left side of the ground floor, a diminutive one-over-one window to the right, and a door opening on the extreme right with a timber glazed door. At half-landing level there is a large margin-paned window with original coloured glass beneath blunt-arched voussoirs, and a margin-paned window on the left side of the first floor beneath a gablet with timber cross-members. The east facade of the rear return has, at ground floor level, a timber-sheeted door with trefoil ventilation holes on the extreme left leading to a passageway, two small one-over-one windows towards the centre, and a timber and glazed back door on the extreme right that is skewed inwards to form an angled rear step. At first floor level there is a single margin-paned window with a shallow-arched head on the left and a diminutive one-over-one window on the extreme right. The rear facade of the return has a one-over-one window at first floor level with blunt-arched brick voussoirs, and a stepped brick parapet rising towards the tall chimney stack on the left side. All windows appear to be original timber sliding sash with single glazing and painted stone cills, and most retain their original glazing panes. All rainwater goods appear to be painted metal.

The house incorporates architectural details ranging from the neo-Tudor extravagance of the chimneys to a Scottish-influenced crow-stepped gable to the whimsical trefoil relieving arch above the front doorway, with the trefoil motif echoed in the woodwork elsewhere. Unusually for a dwelling of this period, the rear return has been designed with as much detail as the front elevation. The elaboration of the design at times exceeds even the larger house at No. 1 Rosetta Avenue, particularly in the triple and quadruple chimney stacks (the chimneys at No. 1 Rosetta Avenue are mostly double stacks with a grouped quadruple stack to the rear). Despite this richness of ornament, the house is modest in size, with a conventional Victorian plan form of two adjacent main rooms and a scullery to the rear.

Of particular note internally are the craftsmanship of the brick detailing to the chimneys, the retention of original timber sliding sash windows, the etching of the first resident's signature — "John Jackson" — scratched into an upper windowpane of the bathroom (formerly a bedroom), which confirms that at least some of the glass to the front of the house is original to 1876, and the presence of a secondary staircase, which is unusual in a house of this size. The 1934 revaluation records note that the porch was at that time open, that the kitchen was originally in what is now the dining room with a scullery and pantry to the rear, and that the bathroom — which had hot and cold water and a WC — was entered through a bedroom at the back of the house, which may account for the secondary staircase. The house was lit by gas at that date. The house had nine rooms at the time of the 1911 census.

The rear boundary wall is original, with narrow openings and brick coping. The front boundary wall was built after 1980 by the architect Dara O'Malley, who then owned the house, replicating the design of the original rear boundary wall. A photograph taken in 1980 confirms that no boundary wall existed to the front at that date. This later addition enhances the architectural interest and setting of the house.

The architects were the partnership of Thomas Jackson and Son, comprising the celebrated Belfast architect Thomas Jackson and his younger son, William Ridgeway Jackson (his older son Anthony Thomas was also briefly involved in the firm). The practice was active between approximately 1865 and 1884 and designed a number of notable buildings, including several commercial premises in Belfast, several Ulster Bank branches, the hospital for sick children in Queen Street, and the Throne convalescent home. Thomas Jackson himself is considered primarily a domestic architect and was the celebrated designer of several elegant Belfast terraces, including Royal Terrace, University Square and Queen's Elms, as well as individual villas in Belfast and beyond. The lithographs of the two houses published in the Irish Builder bear the subtitle "Thomas Jackson and Son, Architects." Also perceptible on the image of the larger house, however, are the initials F W L, identified as those of Frederick William Lockwood — a Suffolk-born architect and engineer active in Belfast from the 1860s to the 1900s. Lockwood was a member of the Society of Friends, as was Thomas Jackson, and it was likely this connection that brought him to Belfast after an apprenticeship at Darlington, initially as Thomas Jackson's assistant, and later working with Anthony Thomas Jackson before entering his own partnership with John Russell in the 1890s. In January 1876, around the time the current house was being designed, Lockwood lectured to the Belfast Architectural Association on "The arrangement of materials in construction to produce satisfactory colour effects." The two houses at Rosetta, which amply demonstrate the use of colour through brick, woodwork and slates, may be an illustration of this philosophy. The extent of Lockwood's contribution to the design remains unclear.

The two houses were built for John Coyle, a grocer and wine and spirit merchant with premises at 25 Ormeau Road. Coyle lived in the larger house, then known as Rosetta Cottage (and later "The Bungalow"), and the current dwelling, originally named Convent Cottage, was let. The house was initially rented to John Jackson — most probably the proprietor of the Red Lion Inn in Ballynafeigh — whose name is scratched into the window glass as noted above. Both houses entered valuation records in 1876, with Rosetta Cottage valued at £42 and Convent Cottage at £21. John Coyle died in April 1879, and by 1887 the lands he had owned were ordered to be sold by the Court of Chancery. The two houses were purchased at auction in 1890 by Robert Lynas, proprietor of the Ulster China Warehouse, for a total of £1,025.

The surrounding area was largely rural in character at the time of construction, dotted with farms and the mansions of wealthy merchants, with the village of Ballynafeigh to the north, but was developed in the closing decades of the 19th century and became a suburb of the rapidly expanding city. The two houses were built on an empty plot, as shown on large-scale maps of 1853 and 1873, adjacent to a row of early 19th-century vernacular shops and dwellings lining the former turnpike road. The road on which the house stands was known by several names in this period — most often Convent Avenue or Convent Lane following construction of the nearby convent in the late 1860s — and also as Carolan's Street or Lane, before being formally designated Carolan Road from 1901. The name Carolan derives from the family of residents of Annadale Cottage at the end of the lane.

The brickworks that formerly stood at the end of Carolan Road are closely connected to the story of the two houses, as the bricks used to build them were most likely produced on this site. The brickfield is thought to have been originally established by James Carolan Senior by 1860 on a two-acre site. It passed through several hands following his death in 1867, growing to four acres by 1881 under Nicholas Carolan and then to William Fitzpatrick, who expanded operations. By 1884 it was known as the Annadale Brickworks. By 1888 it was trading as a limited company covering over fourteen acres and valued at £360, and by 1892 a large circular Hoffman kiln costing £6,500 had been built on the site. At its peak, the works produced 6.6 million bricks in 1897, though by 1917 it was recorded as "at rest" and the kiln had been partially demolished by 1919.

The house was also directly associated with the brickworks through its occupants: a resident identified as HR Vaughan, manager of the Annadale Brickworks, is recorded as living there in 1895–6. A purpose-built manager's house for the brickworks was subsequently constructed at No. 16 Carolan Road, known as Carleton House, entering valuation records in 1897, after which Convent Cottage stood empty for a time, being unoccupied at the 1901 census. From approximately 1900 until at least the 1970s the house was known as Eden Lodge. Among subsequent residents were Adam Reid, a painter, recorded in 1902; Mrs Kertland from 1906 to approximately 1910; Annie Kerr, a 43-year-old Presbyterian, recorded in the 1911 census as living there with six children; Joseph Eagleson, a retired former sergeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary based at Mountpottinger Barracks, who lived in the house from 1914 with his wife Helen until his death in 1947 (his wife died shortly afterwards in 1948); and E T Sullivan of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, who lived in the house from after 1948 until 1987. The house was subsequently taken over by the architect Dara O'Malley in the early 1990s.

The connection between John Coyle and the architects Thomas Jackson and Son may have predated the commission for the two houses. Coyle donated a group of marble statuary by the Italian artist Giovanni Maria Benzoni and an altar to St Malachy's Church in memory of his daughter Margaret, who died in 1869. The plans and details for the installation and placement of the statues and altar were by Thomas Jackson and Son — Thomas Jackson having been the original architect for the church — and the works were carried out in 1871. It is also possible that Coyle's former home, Rose Cottage (now at Walnut Court, Donegall Pass, formerly facing onto Coyle's Place), may have had a bearing on the design. Rose Cottage, constructed around 1862, is strikingly similar in form and some detailing to No. 1 Rosetta Avenue, which raises the possibility that either Thomas Jackson's practice was involved in designing Rose Cottage, or that John Coyle instructed Thomas Jackson and Son to base their new design upon it.

No significant changes have been made to the rear of the house since its construction, though a door and archway that formerly connected the two houses has been blocked up and a wall internal to the back yard has been removed. Field inspection suggests that the front elevation also remains substantially unchanged. The house retains much of its original historic character both externally and internally, and the juxtaposition of a highly elaborated architectural style with a middle-sized dwelling house remains an unusual and significant presence within the Rosetta area.