34 Windsor Park, Belfast, BT9 6FQ

34 Windsor Park, Belfast

This is a three-storey red brick detached house, built around 1894 to designs by the architect William Batt. Originally known as St. Margaret's, it faces south onto Windsor Park, a tree-lined street running east to west between the Lisburn and Malone Roads, two main arterial routes to the south of Belfast city centre. The house shares group value with the pair of semi-detached houses immediately to its west at Nos. 30 and 32 (known historically as 'Colonsa' and 'Mingala') and the terrace at Nos. 22–28, all designed by William Batt at around the same time and all contributing to the character of the Derryvolgie and Windsor Conservation Area. Together they are eclectic in style and confident in execution, with gabled dormers, exceptional terracotta work and formal fenestration. No. 34 stands out individually, however, because of its unusual proportions: it has a particularly strong vertical emphasis to its principal facade of the kind more commonly found on a terraced house than a detached villa.

Original fabric, layout and detailing are substantially intact. There have been very minor modern interventions, the only significant external change being the roofing over of the formerly open rear yard, which appears to have taken place in the 1970s.

Roofs and Materials

The main block to the front (south) has a natural slate roof with red clay ridge tiles, and is double hipped. A slightly lower block of equal width sits to the rear (north), also double hipped. A single-storey gabled appendage is attached to the rear block, with a mono-pitched roof in profiled metal extending over an attached covered yard and former outhouses, which has polycarbonate rooflights. A gabled wall-head dormer sits to the south of the main block. A tall chimneystack rises from the eaves to the east, with an attached gable and chimney cricket; a second chimney rises between the main and lower blocks to the north. Both chimneys carry several red clay pots. Rainwater goods are cast iron with an ogee profile gutter and a mix of cast iron and uPVC circular-section downpipes. The walls are in red brick laid in Flemish bond. Windows throughout are single-glazed double-hung sliding sashes with 1-over-1 panes and square heads, unless otherwise noted. Two-storey canted bays project to the south and east elevations, and a single-storey canted bay to the west; all have leaded roofs. A projecting brick plinth with a chamfered top edge runs around all four sides of the building.

Front Elevation (South)

The principal façade is asymmetrical. To the left (west) is a round-arched entrance with a single window at first-floor level aligned directly above it. To the right is a two-storey canted bay surmounted by paired round-arched windows set centrally within the gabled wall-head dormer. The eaves are corbelled on brackets formed from three-course brick specials, with a fluted brick string course beneath. Below this runs a frieze of alternating four courses of brick headers and large square terracotta tiles bearing elaborate flower heads, itself sitting on a string course of terracotta beads. This frieze is interrupted by the window heads and by a decorative terracotta roundel at second-floor level, the latter and the window heads framed by soldier-coursed headers with an angled hood running continuously at the windows and around the roundel's perimeter. Sandstone cills appear throughout, with a cavetto-moulded terracotta string course running between the cills on all floors.

At first-floor level, the windows have sandstone lintels supported on scrolled brackets placed side-on to resemble shouldered heads. Between the windows are two string courses of projecting fluted brick separated by two courses of plain brick, with corbelled brick aprons beneath the cills. A further cavetto-moulded string course between ground and first floor is accompanied by a projecting brick stretcher course and dentils below.

At ground-floor level, the window heads are almost identical to those at first floor but executed in terracotta to match the entrance: the lintels are split into blocks with a bead moulding recessed at the base, and cills are set on corbelled brick brackets. Between the heads runs a continuous string course of miniature square terracotta tiles with a flower motif.

The entrance door is six-panelled, timber-framed with bolection moulding and raised panels, and has a plain fanlight. The arched surround is elaborate, with a projecting moulded hood, scrolled and fluted console brackets and a raised keystone, all in terracotta; the keystone and consoles are embellished with foliage and swags. Below the arch are toothed terracotta quoins with a stop-chamfered rounded edge detail.

East Elevation

The east elevation overlooks landscaped amenity space belonging to a modern apartment block. It comprises the main block to the left (south), the lower block to the right, the side face of the gabled appendage, and the enclosed yard walling. The corbelled eaves, deep terracotta frieze, and string courses are all returned from the front elevation. A tall chimneystack rises from the main block to the left. A two-storey canted bay projects from the lower block to the right, with an advanced surround to a round-arched window above that interrupts the frieze; this bay has a slightly higher eaves line and shallower roof pitch than the main block. The canted bay is detailed in the same manner as the south elevation, except that the ground-floor windows here have sandstone heads. The lower block has paired windows at ground-floor level detailed as above, and single windows at first and second floors; the second-floor window is a replacement uPVC sliding sash. The east face of the gabled appendage carries the same string courses as the main block, and has a plain sandstone lintel and cill to a replacement uPVC casement window. The eaves to this face are in projecting two-course stretcher bond brick. The plinth continues along the yard walling; the walling is otherwise blank. A small flat-roofed garage abuts the southern end of the east elevation and is of little historic interest.

Rear Elevation (North)

The main block appears to retain its decorative eaves and frieze, though these are largely concealed by the lower block. The lower block has a chimney offset to the left (east), projecting brick eaves and brick-special dentils below, and is otherwise blank. The single-storey gabled appendage has clipped eaves. Yard walling has been built up in modern red brick to meet the verge flashing at the modern profiled metal roof. A sheeted timber door is offset to the left with a soldier-coursed head, and a smaller opening to the right is presumed to be the original coal hole, now bricked up.

West Elevation

The west elevation is a mirror form of the east, but with different window and door openings to the main and lower blocks, and without chimneys. On the main block, a slightly advanced bay at second-floor level has a corbelled base, twin round-arched windows, simpler eaves and a shallower roof pitch. There is a single window at first-floor level and a six-panelled timber door at ground-floor level with a camber-arched fanlight. On the lower block, there are two windows at second-floor level with plain sandstone lintels, three windows at first-floor level, and a wide canted bay at ground-floor level with two windows, now fitted with replacement uPVC double-glazed sliding sashes. The windows at ground and first-floor level and the door have camber-arched heads formed in brick headers, with projecting moulded terracotta hoods.

Setting

The house is set back from the tree-lined street by a paved front garden enclosed by hedging. The entrance is marked by a pair of brick pillars with terracotta caps that appear to be contemporary with the house; wrought iron gates are presumed to be later additions. Two stone steps lead up to the front entrance. To the rear there is a lawn with planting, concrete-paved paths to the east and west sides, and continuous hedging to the east boundary. Red brick walling encloses the north and part of the east, the latter having a rounded sandstone coping. Off-street parking is available, and there are mature trees to both front and rear gardens.

Historical Background

Windsor Park (originally 'Windsor Park Avenue') was laid out around 1873, following the line of 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 the 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 in turn broken up by the intensive suburban expansion that spread southwards along the Malone Ridge during the late Victorian era. A large number of streets from the later 1800s were created along the boundaries of these former farms and demesnes; in the case of Windsor Park, however, it is the northern and southern boundaries of the building plots on either side of the street that mark the respective limits of the older property. The earliest house 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 since demolished. Much of the southern side of the street was developed within the next two decades, while the 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.

No. 34 — St. Margaret's — together with its similarly styled semi-detached neighbours at Nos. 30–32, was built in 1893–94 to designs by William Batt for James Hetherington, a linen manufacturer with the Broadway Damask Company, who himself lived in Canmore (since demolished) on the opposite side of Windsor Park. The contractor was Messrs. J. and W. Stewart of Belfast. Building materials for this 'commodious villa', including the terracotta panels in the frieze and the upper keystones, were supplied by the Annadale Brick Company, while the terracotta doorcase and some of the lintels came from J.C. Edwards' Works at Ruabon in Wales.

The earliest recorded occupant of No. 34 was Herbert Darbishire, an English-born stock and share broker, who in the 1901 census is recorded as living there with his Belfast-born wife Maria, their grown-up daughter May, two domestic servants, and a house guest, Bertha Marian Murray. The building is recorded in that census as a first-class dwelling with 13 rooms occupied by the family. May Darbishire, along with three domestic servants, was still resident in 1911. By 1918 J.R. Russell, described as a traveller, had taken on the lease, followed by W.O. Hume from around 1920 to around 1947. In the later 1950s and into the 1960s John Brown, a teacher, was the occupant. The current owners acquired the property in 1967.