26 Windsor Park, Belfast, BT9 6FQ

26 Windsor Park is a mid-terraced, three-storey red brick dwelling with a full attic, built in 1889–90 to designs by architect Robert Watt. It forms the eastern half of a terrace of four houses originally known as 'Victoria Gardens', commissioned by James Hetherington, a linen manufacturer of the Broadway Damask Company, who himself lived in 'Canmore' (since demolished) on the opposite side of Windsor Park. The property sits within the Derryvolgie and Windsor Conservation Area, facing south onto Windsor Park, a tree-lined street running east to west between the Lisburn and Malone Roads in south Belfast.

GROUP VALUE AND SETTING

No. 26 has notable group value with its immediate neighbours. Nos. 22, 24 and 28 Windsor Park complete the original Victoria Gardens terrace; nos. 30 and 32 form a semi-detached pair; and no. 34 is a detached house. Although nos. 30–34 were designed by a different architect, William Batt, all were built in the late 1880s and together form a substantial late Victorian red brick group sharing similar stylistic devices: bold pedimented gabled attics, bay windows, and decorative brick and terracotta detailing. The mature trees within the front gardens significantly enhance the group's character. Each property is of individual merit, and together they make a striking and confident contribution to the conservation area.

PLAN AND STRUCTURE

The building is three bays wide with a three-storey rear return built at half-landing level. This return is conjoined with that of no. 28, forming a wide shared gable, giving both properties an inverted T-shaped plan — a mirror image of nos. 22 and 24 to the left-hand side of the terrace. A single-storey gabled appendage abuts the return, also shared with no. 28, alongside an adjoining flat-roofed enclosure that may originally have been a walled yard.

ROOF AND MATERIALS

The roof is natural slate with terracotta red ridge tiles and finials. The main block has its ridge running east to west, with a full-width gabled dormer to the front (south) elevation. There is a large chimney with multiple pots shared with no. 24, and a second chimney on the gable end of the return. Two modern rooflights are set into the rear slope. A partially enclosed fire escape rises to the full height of the building, abutting the north-east rear of the main block and the east side of the return.

Walls are red brick in Flemish bond with decorative brick and terracotta detailing. Rainwater goods are cast aluminium to the front and plastic to the rear where visible.

WINDOWS

Windows to the front are single-glazed double-hung sliding sashes with 1-over-1 panes. To the rear, original sashes have largely been replaced with timber-framed double-glazed top-hung casements fitted with mock central glazing bars and applied horns to imitate the original 2-over-2 paned sliding sashes, except where otherwise noted.

FRONT (SOUTH) ELEVATION

The front elevation is asymmetrical. A chamfered brick plinth runs along the base with underfloor ventilators. All openings are segmental-headed with brick arches, moulded reveals and sandstone cills.

At ground floor, a rectangular single-storey projecting bay sits to the left (west) of an arched entrance screen leading to a lean-to porch. This porch is shared with no. 28 and springs from a central carved timber column with a sheeted timber privacy screen behind; it is supported at either end by carved sandstone corbels. The entrance door is six-panelled with raised panels and a plain glass overlight, with a tall narrow sidelight to the right fitted with a 1-over-1 sliding sash. The projecting bay has two windows, a raised parapet with sandstone coping and a flat roof behind (not visible from the street). The coping returns onto the face of the building to form a moulded string course and cill to the first floor windows. A continuous gutter runs across the face of the parapet and the eaves of the lean-to porch, further defining the bay.

At first and second floors there are three windows each, diminishing in height. Above the first floor windows, a decorative moulded string course rises to form a hood; below the second floor window cills, raised apron detailing is applied. A further continuous moulded string course runs above the second floor windows. A decorative egg-and-dart and modillion terracotta cornice runs beneath the eaves, broken by a pedimented attic dormer that spans almost the full width of the original house. The dormer has exposed rafter ends and a plain bargeboard supported on three curved timber brackets set on moulded brick corbels. Within the dormer gable, a pair of smaller sash windows share a continuous cill with decorative raised apron detailing.

Between nos. 24 and 26, a carved white marble plaque inscribed 'Victoria Gardens' in dark grey lettering — possibly lead — is set into the wall at first floor level.

REAR (NORTH) ELEVATION

The three-storey gabled return, shared with no. 28, is placed centrally between the two properties. To the right (west) of the return, no. 26 has one window at each of ground, first and second floor levels, and a further single window at attic level above the return. Ground floor windows retain their original 1-over-1 sliding sashes; upper floor windows have been replaced with the casements described above, and are largely obscured by the metal escape stair, which comprises a series of open tread metal stairs and landings partially enclosed by corrugated sheeting.

The rear gable wall of the return is symmetrical and surmounted by a wide brick chimney (eight plain brick pots with no corbel), with sandstone coping at the verge. There are four window openings — two each at first and second floor — all positioned towards the outer edge of the wall, beyond the chimney flues, which are not expressed externally. On no. 26's side (right/west), there is an original sliding sash at first floor and a replacement window at second floor. A single-storey gabled appendage abuts the ground floor, blank-walled with clipped eaves, joined to a flat-roofed enclosure.

WEST ELEVATION OF THE RETURN

The west face of the three-storey return is informally arranged. All openings are plain with square heads, brick arches and sandstone cills. At ground floor, running from south to north, there is a replacement timber-framed door fitted with Georgian wired glass, followed by five equally sized windows (all within original openings with cills and heads retained). At first and second floors there is a fire door and two windows each. The east face of the gabled appendage has three windows as described above. The flat-roofed enclosure has modern double-glazed doors painted white, with a precast concrete lintel and a ramped entrance.

SETTING

The building is set back from the tree-lined street by a front garden, the boundary of which is not formally defined. A large mature tree dominates the front lawn, shared with no. 28. A tarmacked drive to the east is aligned with hedging and some timber fencing to the rear, and a tarmacked path leads to the entrance with three modern tiled steps spanning the porches of nos. 26 and 28. The large rear garden is now gravelled and used as a shared car park for the two properties. An intact, substantial boundary wall approximately eight feet high in red brick with stone saddleback coping runs along the north boundary. A modern concrete block wall marks the western boundary with no. 24, apart from a short length of red brick wall with moulded brick coping adjacent to the main building.

INTERIOR AND CONVERSION

The property has been subdivided to form self-contained apartments, with four units to the front and two in the upper floors of the shared return. This internal conversion has resulted in some loss of original plan form.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Windsor Park — originally known as Windsor Park Avenue — was laid out around 1873, its line following a path that had previously run through a large nursery belonging to 'Laurel Bank' (later renamed 'Bellevue'), a house that stood to the east close to Malone Road. Laurel Bank itself was built around 1835 within one of the long-established strip farms that originally stretched from the high ground of the Malone Ridge westwards to the Bog Meadows. Many of these farms were converted into small semi-rural demesnes in the mid-19th century and were subsequently broken up by the more intensive suburban expansion that gradually spread southwards along the Malone Ridge in the late Victorian era. A large number of the streets created in the later 1800s followed the boundaries of these former farms and demesnes, but in the case of Windsor Park it is the northern and southern boundaries of the building plots on either side of the street that mark the limits of the older properties. The earliest house to be developed along the new thoroughfare was no. 33 in 1873, followed by nos. 42–44 in 1874 and nos. 11–13 a year later, all of which have since been demolished. Much of the southern side of the street was developed within the following two decades, but land to the north was retained as a nursery into the mid-1890s before it too began to be built up with a mixture of large detached, semi-detached and terraced dwellings.

Victoria Gardens — the terrace that includes no. 26 — was built in 1889–90. Although the terrace and its eastern neighbours were completed by late 1890, the group does not appear on the 1896 Ordnance Survey town plan, though it is shown on the 1903 edition. Early letting advertisements described each house as having 'three reception rooms and seven bedrooms, cloakroom, lavatory etc.; all fittings first quality; garden in front; also garden and conservatory in rear.'

The first recorded occupant of no. 26 (originally 3 Victoria Gardens) was Mrs. John Arnott Taylor. By 1899 John Corbett of Brown, Corbett & Co., wine merchants, had taken residence. The 1901 census records Mr. Corbett, his wife Mary, daughter Kathleen, and two domestic servants living in a first-class dwelling with 10 rooms in use. By 1908 G. Gregory Smith, Professor of English at Queen's University Belfast, had become resident; the 1911 census records him there with two domestic servants. Professor Smith vacated the property around 1919, and by 1924 W. R. Dawson, Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Home Affairs Northern Ireland, is listed as resident, remaining until around 1931. A chemist, James Dundee, is recorded as occupant from at least 1943. By the later 1950s the property had been split into three flats, one of which Mr. Dundee continued to occupy into the 1970s. By 1980 the property contained four flats, though by 1990 it had returned to single occupation under Irene E. Ringland, who remained in residence as late as 1995.

Despite the loss of some original plan form through conversion and the detraction caused by replacement windows to the rear return, no. 26 remains largely intact in terms of its fabric and stands as a very good example of late Victorian domestic architecture in Belfast.