49 Old Holywood Road, Belfast

49 Old Holywood Road, Belfast, is a late-Victorian single-storey with attic red-brick semi-detached house dating from 1881, possibly designed by Thomas Jackson & Son. It is attached to No. 51 Old Holywood Road and forms part of a group of two pairs of semi-detached houses with Nos. 45 and 47 Old Holywood Road, all fronting onto Old Holywood Road.

The house has a rectangular plan form with a single-storey modern extension to the rear. 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. The moulded timber barge boards and projecting eaves with exposed rafter ends support ogee cast iron guttering discharging to rectangular section downpipes. Rectangular section red-brick chimney stacks are shared with the attached property, featuring corbelled coping and red-clay chimney pots.

The walling is red brick laid to Flemish bond, with a dentilled string course at impost level, buff and black brick banding at cill level, and a projecting black brick plinth course. Vertical hung red clay tiles clad the attic storey, with club and fishtail bands between courses. Window openings are square-headed with flat-arch brick lintels in soldier course. The windows to the original house are painted timber-cilled double-hung sashes with diamond pattern to the upper sash, unless otherwise noted.

The two-bay principal elevation faces west. The south bay contains a square-headed door opening with a timber-panelled door and fanlight, sheltered by a canopy supported on decorative timber brackets and slated in plain red clay tiles with fishtail banding. A gabled dormer to the attic projects from the front wall, featuring a three-sided canted bay window with timber sashes supported on moulded timber brackets. The dormer cheeks are clad in vertical tiling with alternating courses of club and fishtail red clay tiles, crested ridge tiles, and ball finials matching the main roof.

The south elevation contains a ground-floor window and another at first-floor level. The east-facing rear elevation comprises a two-bay wide elevation of the modern extension, with a uPVC double-leaf door opening to the south bay and a uPVC casement window to the north bay. The extension has a flat roof. The north elevation is abutted by No. 51 Old Holywood Road.

The setting comprises narrow paved pathways around the building, a lawned garden shared between the two properties to the front, and a lawned garden to the rear. The site is enclosed by dwarf red-brick walling topped with stone coping and iron railings with arrow rail heads. A plain wooden gate to the west is supported on rectangular section sandstone piers with moulded coping.