30 Wellington Park, Belfast, BT9 6DL

30 Wellington Park is a two-storey with attic semi-detached former dwelling, built in 1866 to designs by Robert Young, later of the practice Young and Mackenzie. It faces north onto Wellington Park, a tree-lined street running east to west between the Malone and Lisburn Roads, two main arterial routes south of Belfast city centre. The building is listed together with its pair, No. 28, and the two stand apart within the Malone Conservation Area as a very good example of High Victorian architecture. The listing extends to the house itself, the boundary walling, entrance step, boot-scraper and yard walling.

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER AND EXTERIOR

Together, Nos. 28 and 30 appear symmetrical and well proportioned, but their plans interlock: each is roughly L-shaped with original two-storey returns, No. 28 being wider to the front (north) and No. 30 wider to the rear (south). The principal façade is built in distinctive grey-white brick, embellished with polychromatic brick detailing and vermiculated toothed sandstone quoins, now painted. The gable ends and rear elevation are faced in brick more commonly found in Belfast — red on the west gable and brownish-red variegated brick to the rear — with the polychromatic detailing confined largely to the main front. The pair are particularly characterised by jettied dormers, vaguely Tudor in style, set over two-storey canted bays at each end; this device appears on other Young and Mackenzie houses in the city.

The roof is covered in natural slate (Bangor Blue) with black clay ridge tiles, including the rear return and gabled dormer; the dormer gable has fish-scale bands of the same slate. A natural slate hip-roofed dormer with boxed eaves and a modern skylight sits to the rear slope. There are three grey-white brick chimneys with octagonal yellow clay pots: one centred on the gable of the main roof, with a red brick string course and detailing, a corbelled cap in brick specials and four pots; a second centred on the ridge to the left of the entrance with three pots; and a third on a tapered red brick base rising from the eaves at the rear elevation, also with three pots.

The projecting painted timber eaves board to the front is carried on corbelled eaves in red brick, made up of two rows of cogging, one row of stretchers and one row of chamfered dentils, all on a deep zigzag band with blue brick headers at regular intervals. The gable end has raised sandstone copings terminating in curved sandstone kneelers, painted to match the quoins. The eaves detail to the rear is simpler, in corbelled grey brick comprising one row of stretchers and one row of alternating headers and stretchers, except at the chimney. Cast iron ogee gutters are in place to the front; the rainwater pipes are uPVC. All walling is laid in Flemish bond.

FRONT (NORTH) ELEVATION

The front elevation is formally arranged with all square-headed openings. A full-height canted bay rises to the right, and the entrance is to the left with a single window aligned directly above. The tooled sandstone dressings are all painted and include a projecting base plinth with chamfered top, window cills and lintels — continuous across the bay with a red brick string course between cills — and soldier-coursed red and blue brick heads to the other windows, with stop-chamfered reveals.

The timberwork to the dormer is painted to match the lintel at the second-floor bay windows, with a decorative carved timber pendant below the cantilevered square edges. A single replacement timber window is centred on the dormer, with metal bars fitted across the external reveal. The projecting eaves and bargeboard have exposed rafter and scrolled purlin ends, all painted.

The entrance has a square-headed six-panelled timber-framed door with a central bead to resemble double doors and brass ironmongery including a lion-head knocker, letterbox and handles. A plain glass over-light is recessed in a concentric chamfered brick surround, beneath a painted stone hood mould with dentils and foliated label stops.

GABLE (WEST) ELEVATION

The west gable is plainly detailed compared to the front. It is in red brick laid in Flemish bond, with the raised stone copings, carved kneelers, toothed quoins, stone plinth and brick soldier-coursed window head string courses all continued from the front elevation — the string courses changing to grey-white brick at this point. The openings are less formally arranged: two windows are offset to the right at both ground and first floor levels, and two further windows sit at attic level, one on each side of the central chimney stack. A blue brick accent in a lozenge motif fills the blank wall space at ground and first floor levels.

The gable is abutted to the south by the original red brick boundary wall, which has a rounded terracotta cap and a quarter-round curve at the drop in height. Within this wall is a single timber-framed casement window with a polychrome head and painted stone cill, suggesting the opening is original.

The west face of the two-storey return is in brownish-red variegated brick matching the rear elevation. The ground floor is concealed by a single-storey lean-to, the upper floor openings have been bricked up, and the eaves are clipped.

REAR (SOUTH) ELEVATION

The rear elevation is three bays wide, with a two-storey shallow return built at half-landing level and centrally placed. There is one opening each at ground and first floor to the right, and the left side is blank except for a chimney. The brickwork is brownish-red variegated with some red returned from the gable, and the grey-white brick corbelled eaves run as described above.

The south face of the return has two small timber-framed casement windows with thin concrete cills and lintels at first floor level, and a wide opening at ground floor concealed by a metal roller shutter with a surface-mounted shutter-box. There is a single opening above the return with a uPVC double-glazed casement, a thin concrete lintel and a stone cill; this opening is thought to be original despite the replacement window. The hipped roof dormer has replacement uPVC windows.

At first floor, the main rear wall has soldier-coursed heads and tooled stone cills to a uPVC top-hung casement window. The ground floor opening below has the same head type, and its width matches that of the corresponding opening at No. 28; it is filled with two courses of newer red brick and the remainder concealed by a roller shutter.

EAST ELEVATION

No. 30 abuts the east elevation of the main building. The east face of the return is detailed as the south elevation, with soldier-coursed heads and tooled stone cills remaining at two first floor windows — one larger than the other, both uPVC replacements — and the ground floor opening concealed by a roller shutter.

The east face of the single-storey lean-to has clipped eaves, a simple timber lintel over a sheeted timber door and window, and a deep stone cill below the window. A similar lean-to structure with roughcast rendered walling and no openings is retained by walling with a rounded terracotta cap along its south face.

INTERIOR

Although the building has been converted to offices, the interior plan form and a good deal of historic detailing appear largely intact.

SETTING

The building is elevated above pavement level and stands apart from the predominantly red brick or rendered housing on Wellington Park. The front gardens are bound by matching grey-white brick low walling and corner piers with carved sandstone copings that retain the indent of former railings. A stepped lawn runs either side of a central path, with three stone steps rising to the upper level and a decorative cast iron boot-scraper set on a bull-nosed sandstone entrance step. The rear yard is a tarmacked car park, shared with No. 28 and bound by red brick walling to the west and hit-and-miss timber fencing to the south, with red brick raised planters, concrete paving flags and some gravelled area immediately adjacent to the rear exit. The site sits at the corner with Wellington Park Terrace, and the rear yard overlooks a row of Grade B1 terraced houses.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Wellington Park was the earliest of the public thoroughfares laid out across the Malone ridge between the present Lisburn and Malone Roads, commencing around 1852. It marked the beginning of the suburbanisation of south Belfast, with the extensive semi-rural grounds of the early 19th century villas and gentrified farmhouses along the ridge gradually opened up for development as the business and professional classes moved out from the crowded town centre. Building work was initially confined to the southern side of the street: Nos. 14–16 date from 1852–53, Nos. 4–12 and 18–22 followed in 1854–56, and Nos. 24 and 26 in 1863 and 1865 respectively.

Nos. 28–30, another pair of semis, were designed in 1866 by Robert Young for Thomas Fraser. Fraser was the manager of the Ferguslie (Paisley) Fireclay Works depot at Queen's Quay, a firm described in the 1866 Belfast directory as a manufacturer of white fire bricks for facing buildings, making it highly likely that he supplied the largely white bricks used on the polychrome front façade. The design of the houses, and particularly the jettied half-dormers, is similar to near-contemporary houses by Young and Mackenzie at Nos. 5–6 College Park East (built 1868–69) and Nos. 344–350 Antrim Road (built 1877).

Thomas Fraser himself occupied No. 30 until sometime between 1887 and 1890, when a Mrs Cargin became resident, followed in around 1898 by John Megaw. The 1901 census records the house as a first-class dwelling with 13 rooms, occupied by Mr Megaw (a retired merchant), his wife Jane, a visitor Elizabeth Scott, and a domestic servant Rebecca Gallaher. By 1907 the Reverend R. Crawford Johnson, a Methodist minister, is recorded as householder; the 1911 census lists him there with his wife Susanna Rosamund, their grown-up son Alfred William, a relative Wesley Johnston, a visitor Annie Crone, and two domestic servants. John Graham, described as Inspector of Ulster Bank Ltd., is named as occupant in the 1914 directory and remained until around 1933, by which time he had risen to the position of Director of the bank. By 1935 the property had become a nursing home run by a Miss Strickland, continuing as such until the early 1950s. Miss Strickland was still in residence in 1960, though the building appears to have reverted to a private residence by that point. R. P. Napier, an estate agent, acquired No. 30 between 1960 and 1964 and was still in occupation in 1969, but by 1974 the property had become vacant. J. McCammon appears to have been the last private resident, moving in at some point before 1980 and staying on until at least 1986. No. 30 does not appear in the street directories of the 1990s, so the building was neither absorbed into the accountancy firm B. J. McAlister and Co., noted at that time at No. 28, nor into the architects and engineering firm W.D.R. and R.T. Taggart, listed at Nos. 32–34. By 2008 the building was in use as an office for Christian Aid, but appears to have been vacant, or occupied only on very short-term leases, since at least mid-2012.