45 Old Holywood Road, Belfast

A pair of late-Victorian single-storey houses with attic storeys built in 1881, possibly designed by Thomas Jackson & Son. The two semi-detached properties at 45 Old Holywood Road have been converted into one dwelling. They form part of a larger group of two pairs of semi-detached houses fronting onto Old Holywood Road.

The houses are built to a rectangular plan with a single-storey return and later conservatory to the rear. The walls are constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond, with decorative buff and black brick banding at cill level and a projecting black brick plinth course. A dentilled string course runs at impost level. The principal elevation faces west and displays a symmetrical four-bay frontage. Each bay contains square-headed window openings with flat-arch lintels. The windows are painted timber double-hung sashes with diamond pattern glazing bars to the upper sashes and marginal panes. Window cills are painted and projected.

The outer bays on the principal elevation each contain a square-headed door opening with timber-panelled doors fitted with fanlights. The door opening to the south bay has been blocked on the interior, though the door and fanlight remain visible externally. Both doors are sheltered by slated canopies supported on decorative timber brackets and finished in plain red clay tiles with fishtail banding.

The attic storey features vertical hung red clay tiles with alternating courses of club and fishtail tiling. Gabled dormers project from the front elevation, each containing a canted bay window with timber sashes. The dormer cheeks are clad in vertical tiling laid in alternating courses of club and fishtail red clay tiles. Both dormers are topped with crested ridge tiles and ball finials matching the main roof.

The roof is half-hipped, finished in plain red clay tiles with bonnet hip tiles, decorative bands of club and fishtail tiling, crested ridge tiles and terracotta ball finials. Moulded timber barge boards finish the gable ends. The projecting eaves have exposed rafter ends and are lined with ogee cast iron guttering discharging to rectangular section downpipes. Modern roof lights illuminate the rear slope. Rectangular section red-brick chimney stacks have corbelled coping and red-clay pots.

The south-facing elevation is two bays wide, with two fixed windows to ground floor and a sliding sash window to the first floor. Windows to this elevation lack the diamond pattern to upper sashes but retain their marginal panes. This elevation is abutted to the east by the modern conservatory.

The rear elevation faces east and features a single-storey polygonal timber-framed conservatory to the south-east corner and a single-storey flat-roofed return to the north-east. A large roof light serves the return, which also has a timber casement window. Half-round cast iron guttering finishes the rear, discharging to circular downpipes.

The north elevation comprises the two-bay wide north side of the main house and the two-bay wide north elevation of the extension. The extension has a square-headed door opening with a modern panelled timber door with multi-pane glazing to the upper half, and a multi-pane timber casement window immediately to the west. The main house north elevation has two windows to ground floor and one to first floor. Windows here also lack the diamond pattern to upper sashes but retain marginal panes.

The boundary consists of dwarf red-brick walling topped with moulded stone coping and replacement railings with arrow heads. The walling terminates at two sets of gate pillars, which are square on plan with red-brick bases, dressed sandstone shafts that are moulded and canted at the corners, and octagonal copings with fluted bases, indented roundels and conical tops. Replacement gates, painted black, are supported on square hollow-section metal posts with metal ball finials.

The setting includes a narrow paved pathway around the building, a lawned garden and tarmaced driveway to the front, and a timber deck with lawned garden to the rear.