587 Antrim Road, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT15 4DX

587 Antrim Road is a semi-detached, asymmetrical, gabled, three-bay, two-storey house with attic, built in red brick around 1865 to designs by Robert Young. It is one of a pair known as Fortwilliam Villas, its neighbour being 585 Antrim Road next door. The house is a confident and well-proportioned example of the High Victorian eclectic style, notable for its polychromatic brickwork, elaborate pierced timber bargeboards, and foliate stone carvings. Together the two houses reflect the wealth and suburban ambitions of mid-to-late 19th-century Belfast.

Architectural Description

The house is square on plan, faces east, and sits back from the east side of Antrim Road on an elevated front lawn, reached by a shared tarmac avenue. The roofs are pitched and hipped, covered in natural slate with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles, lead valleys, and triangular dormer windows. Three tall, profiled polychromatic brick chimneystacks rise above, each topped with tall octagonal clay pots. Rainwater goods are moulded cast iron, with guttering supported on a painted angled brick eaves course to the north section and on overhanging sheeted eaves with exposed rafter feet and purlins to the south section; downpipes are also cast iron.

The walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond with original pointing, with painted stone quoins and chamfered stone trim to a projecting brick plinth course. Window openings are square-headed with stop-chamfered reveals and lintels, painted stone sills, and original single-pane timber sash windows with slender ogee horns.

The three-bay front elevation is arranged around a central entrance bay, with a three-sided canted bay window to the left surmounted by a gabled attic-storey oriel featuring polychromatic brick panels and a replacement window at attic level. The right-hand bay has paired windows on both floors. The entrance has a basket-handle-headed opening with a stop-chamfered painted stone surround decorated with foliate carvings and surmounted by a hood moulding with bird label stops. The original double-leaf timber panelled doors have bolection mouldings and brass furniture, with a plain glazed overlight above. The doorstep is a terrazzo platform with two steps, enclosed by a low plinth wall opening onto a concrete paved footpath.

The two-bay south side elevation features a slightly advanced three-storey gable to the left with a single-storey bay window. The gable has deep overhanging eaves with an elaborate pierced timber bargeboard supported on decorative brackets, triple pointed-arched windows at first-floor level, and an enlarged window opening at attic level. The remainder of this elevation has a paired ground-floor window opening with a flush polychromatic brick relieving arch and a polychromatic brick panel above, with slender first-floor window openings fitted with 6-pane timber casement windows. The west elevation is abutted by the adjoining house at 585. The north elevation has randomly placed window openings and is abutted on the left by a tall chimneystack with polychromatic brick detailing. A flat-roofed extension abuts the right-hand side of this elevation, with a rear entrance opening onto a raised platform.

Historical Background

The house was built in the townland of Skegoneill on land formerly belonging to the Fortwilliam House estate, which was broken up in the mid-19th century. According to architectural historian Paul Larmour, a large number of mansions and villas were erected on the former estate during the 1860s and 1870s, though only a few now survive.

The architect, Robert Young (1822–1917), had established his independent practice in Belfast in 1852. He designed Fortwilliam Villas shortly before entering into partnership around 1867 with his former pupil John Mackenzie to form Young and Mackenzie, which became the most successful architectural practice in Belfast by the end of the 19th century.

The buildings first appear in the Annual Revisions book covering 1862–66, without an exact construction date recorded, and are first noted in the Belfast Street Directories of 1865, suggesting a construction date of around 1865. The two houses were initially valued at £66 each and were leased to tenants by Robert Young himself. The first recorded occupant of 585 was a Ms Catherine McKay, who lived there until around 1910, when the house passed to Garrett Nagle, a resident magistrate at Belfast's courts. By the time of the 1901 census, both 585 and 587 Antrim Road were described as first-class dwellings, each comprising 13 rooms, and both appear on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1901–02.

Nagle remained at 585 until the 1920s, when Henry H. Graham, a local magistrate and partner in the property and insurance agency Graham and Carson, took possession. Graham lived there until the Second World War, when the building was converted into offices for the National Fire Service Report Centre in 1944. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) raised the value of the house to £85 and noted that Mary Hunter, the occupant of the adjoining house, purchased both 585 and 587 Antrim Road outright in 1946. Number 587 returned to domestic use after the war and was occupied by Herbert E. A. Addy between 1948 and 1968. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the house was occupied by a Dr J. C. Crossin and had been slightly reduced in value to £80.

In 2000, both houses were included within the Somerton Road Conservation Area, designated on the basis that the Somerton area exhibits a very high standard of townscape character, with many period Victorian and Edwardian properties contributing to the special quality of its suburban setting.

Setting

The house is set within a private, mature landscaped site shared with the adjoining 585 Antrim Road and a further late-20th-century dwelling, accessed via a long tarmac driveway on the east side of Antrim Road.