86 Sandown Road, Belfast, BT5 6GY

Asymmetric single storey over part basement dwelling house, located on the eastern side of Sandown Road on sloping ground. The building was constructed in two phases: the rendered rear portion was built in 1890-91 as a gate lodge for the now demolished Sandown House, with the red brick front section added around 1898. It represents late Victorian suburban architecture, though loss of fabric and character have reduced its architectural and historic interest.

The building has an irregular and sprawling footprint. The northern side comprises the later red brick addition, roughly square in plan but with canted bays to the north-east and west. This section has a partly flat roof to the west and pitched, part-hipped roof to the eastern half. To the south is the older rendered section, L-shaped and gable-ended, with a small, odd, part gabled, part hipped roof projection to the east. This abuts a smaller, hipped roof rendered block that appears to have been a shed, possibly originally freestanding, but later extended southwards with a covered yard to the west side.

Window openings vary in both size and shape, including examples with flat-arch brick lintels, flat-headed openings in rendered walls, segmental-headed openings in brick, and a slightly Tudoresque tripartite example. Most window frames are uniform uPVC replacements. Wall finishes include red clay facing brick, plain render, and ruled and lined render. The roof comprises hips, gables and flat sections. Pitched sections are slated with blue-black natural slate; ridges include red fireclay batten-roll style with fireclay finials and plain fireclay ridge tiles. Ridges to hips are formed in lead sheet over batten rolls. Rainwater goods are mainly replacement uPVC. Two squat rendered pot-less chimneystacks rise through the ridge on the south side.

The front northern façade is asymmetric. To the left of centre is the main entrance, a uPVC door with sidelights and overlight, immediately left of which is a canted bay with hipped roof. The right side, covering over half the elevation, consists of plain red brick walling with no openings. The east elevation is informal with three advancing bays to the left side. The bay to the far left belongs to the former shed section, whilst the two others plus the rest of the elevation belong to the circa 1898 extension. The second and third advancing bays each have a single window, whilst the first bay has two windows. To the right of the third bay is another relatively large window. The second bay is gabled and topped with a rectangular box containing a water cistern. The south elevation is much obscured by vegetation. It exposes a basement level due to ground fall and consists of the south side of the original dwelling with the gable end to far right, and between these a wall enclosing a covered yard. The two south-facing gables are blind, but set back to the left side are two windows to the upper level and one to the lower level. The west elevation has a canted bay to the far left, then a short flat-roofed section with a relatively large window. To the right is the gable of the original section with a tripartite window arrangement, the centre light raised, surmounted by a stone drip moulding. Set well back is a wide upper floor window and one narrow lower level window.

To the south-west of the building, next to Sandown Road, stands a high coursed rubble wall with rough coping enclosing a rectangular yard, with a gateway containing a corrugated-metal sheeted gate to the western side.

Historical context

The plot originally formed part of the garden of Sandown House, the large two-storey villa to the north-east, recently renovated. Sandown House was built by Robert Corry and first appears in valuation books in 1891. The initial valuation includes a 'gate lodge' corresponding with the older rear section of the present building. The gate lodge did not serve this purpose for long. By 1899 the building is recorded in street directories under its own name, 'Ivy Lodge', occupied by Tighe H. Rea, an accountant and secretary to the Lagan Navigation Company, and after 1907, Argentine Consul. The name appears also in sources relating to an Isaac William Corry property in Newry in the 1840s and 1850s. This suggests the building was upgraded around this period, supported by map evidence: the town plan of 1896 shows the L-shaped rear section as it then stood, while the 1901-03 plan shows it substantially as it is today.

Mr. Rea occupied Ivy Lodge until 1910, when Thomas McEwen, listed as a foreign correspondent, became resident. He was followed around 1921 by Miss Orr, then Jackson Totten (1928), Miss L. Totten (1930), Charles Henry Stanley (1931), Captain William McFerran (1938), and David L. McFerran (1943). Around 1946-47, John Innes Mackintosh Stewart, a lecturer at QUB from 1946 to 1948, became occupant. Stewart, under his pen name Michael Innes, published nearly fifty crime novels and short story collections between 1936 and 1986. Between 1949 and 1979 the property was occupied by Mr. Rupert S. Sutcliffe, with Mrs. S. Quigg succeeding him in 1980. Ruby Waterman became resident after 1986, followed by Mark R. Waterman from 1992.

A small building set between this house and the railway line appears to have been occupied as a dwelling, 'Railway Cottage', from 1931 until 1974, when it was demolished.