24 Hawthornden Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT4 3JU

24 Hawthornden Road is one of a pair of semi-detached Arts and Crafts style cottages built in 1900, forming part of what was originally known as Ormiston Villas. It sits on a level corner site at the junction of Hawthornden Road and Knocklofty Park in east Belfast, and is attached on its north side to number 22 (recorded separately). The building has an almost T-shaped plan, comprising a main north-south block with returns to the east.

The walls are constructed in Flemish bond red brick to the lower ground floor, topped with a projecting string course and brick special coping with a cyma moulding. Above ground floor cill level the walls are finished in pebble-dash, with a terracotta string course below the first floor window and a half-timber effect to the apex of the gable. The roof is hipped and gabled, clad in rosemary clay tiles with decorated terracotta ridges, ball finials to the gable ends, and smooth rolled terracotta tiles to the hips. Exposed rafter ends are visible on the west elevation. The central red brick chimneystack has been rebuilt using a combination of reclaimed and modern brick and carries three clay pots. Rainwater goods are cast iron throughout. Timber bargeboards are fitted throughout.

The principal elevation faces east and is composed of an entrance door set within a single-storey lean-to, set back from a one-and-a-half-storey gabled return, which in turn projects proud of the remaining shared wall. The entrance door is painted timber, set within a shallow arched head with smooth render surround. The ground floor window in the gable is a tripartite painted timber sash: the central light is six-over-one, and the two flanking lights are four-over-one, all with a painted cill flush with the wall. To the south bay is a painted paired six-over-one sash window. The upper floor of the central bay features an oriel window with a top-hung timber frame divided into two sections, each with upper portions subdivided into six panes. A small flat-roofed dormer with a single casement window, shared with the neighbouring property, sits over the south bay. Brick corbelled detailing appears at both corners of the central bay between ground and first floor level on the canted corner wall.

The west elevation retains original walls to a former yard to the north, which sit forward of the main house and are topped with stone coping. A new section of wall has been inserted behind. An inverted arch coping detail sits over a door opening, which is fitted with a painted timber sheeted door-and-a-half and a lantern light to the flat roof behind. The remainder of the west elevation is single storey, with two painted timber six-over-one sash windows — one to the centre and one to the north — and a flat-roofed dormer in three sections to the central hip, fitted with side-hung casements.

The south elevation is attached to number 22. The north elevation comprises two bays: to the east is a porch with a lean-to roof, and to the west is the gabled end of the main north-south block. The walls are finished as elsewhere. Windows include a centrally placed six-over-one timber sliding sash with a decorative vent above in the apex of the gable, and a smaller six-over-one window to the east.

The building is set behind a modern low brick wall, with a garden to the front on the east side and a pedestrian gate to the east boundary. To the rear, in the north-west corner of the site, is a timber garage, with vehicular access from the north boundary.

Early to mid 19th century maps show this part of east Belfast as open countryside, with the road later named Hawthornden Road already in existence but almost entirely undeveloped. The area began to attract residential development in the latter part of the 19th century, becoming a favoured district for Belfast's business and commercial classes. In the mid-1860s, a mansion named Ormiston was built on the west side of Hawthornden Road for James Combe, a Scottish-born businessman. It later passed to the shipbuilder Edward Harland and subsequently to William Pirrie, a major figure in the firm of Harland and Wolff, who was responsible for commissioning numbers 22 and 24 Hawthornden Road. The Valuation Revision Book for 1897 to 1905 confirms that this pair of semi-detached houses was built in 1900, each assessed at a valuation of £11. The 1900 Belfast street directory records the first occupants as William Childerley and James Castle, both coachmen, and gives the pair of dwellings the name Ormiston Villas. The 1901 census House and Building Return records that each house had three windows to the front and seven rooms in occupation. The houses appear on the 1:2,500 scale Ordnance Survey map of 1902, where their ground plan matches the footprint visible in present-day aerial photographs. At that time Knocklofty Park had not yet been laid out, and the 1902 map shows a path running from the houses towards Ormiston itself. By the time of the 1913 street directory, one dwelling was recorded as The Nook and the other as The Bungalow. The 1935 street directory is the first to list them under their current addresses of 22 and 24 Hawthornden Road, at which point they were the homes of J. B. Louden, an agent, and W. M. Knight respectively. Louden died that year, but his widow Nora remained in the house until the 1960s. W. M. Knight, a high court official, died in 1962. Valuation books from the 1930s onwards show that the immediate lessor of number 22 was Harland and Wolff, while the lessor of number 24 was the occupier of number 22.

Although the building exhibits some character, it is not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest and is recorded only.