Roden House, 1 Park Street, Hillsborough, Co. Down, BT26 6AL

Roden House is a detached three-bay two-storey rendered house built around 1850, constructed on the site of an earlier dwelling. It is accompanied by a redbrick two-storey rear block built around 1890. The main house is rectangular in plan, facing north, with a screen wall and lean-to wing to the east, and an L-plan range of two-storey outbuildings behind a gated entrance to the west. The property fronts directly onto Park Street on its south side and features a large rear walled garden.

The roofs are laid with double-pile natural slate and a central valley, finished with black clay ridge tiles, parged cement verges, and four rendered redbrick profiled chimneystacks rising from each gable with clay pots. Cast-iron guttering with convex moulded eaves courses returning to the gables and cast-iron downpipes serve the drainage.

The front and side elevations are rendered with ruled and lined cement, while the rear elevation is redbrick laid in English garden wall bond. Window openings are square-headed, containing original 2/2 timber sash windows (some with cylinder glass) set in stone sills. The symmetrical north-facing front elevation is five windows wide, with a continuous painted stone sill course to the first floor and moulded architrave surrounds to the ground floor windows.

The central entrance comprises a three-centred arched door opening with a raised and fielded timber panelled door and brass furniture, flanked by a pair of plain sidelights over raised and fielded panels. Slender pilasters with Greek key incision support a lintel cornice and a textured glazed fanlight with central glazing bar and moulded archivolt. The door opens onto a single granite step to the street, with a cobbled front area enclosed by granite bollards supporting iron chains.

A tall rendered screen wall with terracotta coping runs flush to the façade and continues east behind a lean-to wing. The east side elevation is M-profile and abutted by a lean-to extension to the front block with ruled and lined cement rendered walling; the rear block is set back slightly. A round-headed stairhall window to the front block contains a 2/2 timber sash window with an incorporated plain fanlight.

The later rear redbrick block is narrower than the front block and features a single-storey three-sided canted bay with a stone cornice to the lead-lined parapet wall and continuous stone sill course. The left ground floor bay was enlarged around 1990 with a concrete lintel and a pair of glazed hardwood French doors opening onto concrete-paved steps to the garden.

The west elevation comprises two gables, the rear stepped back behind the front block, with a lean-to rubble stone wing to the ground floor having a natural slate roof and providing rear access into a courtyard. Slender window openings to the right of both gables contain 2/2 timber sash windows, while the lean-to has an early 8/4 timber sash window and a glazed timber door with a four-pane window and redbrick surrounds. The front block has an additional lean-to glazed conservatory or porch.

The property is set directly on Park Street, terminating the north end of Park Lane. A rubble stone screen wall to the west opens into a paved courtyard via a pair of replacement timber sheeted gates mounted on tall redbrick piers. The yard is enclosed to the west by a single-storey rubble stone outbuilding with a natural slate roof and four redbrick carriage arches, three of which have vertically-sheeted double timber doors. The south end of the yard is enclosed by a two-storey rubble stone former coach house, now converted into a self-contained unit, featuring a single redbrick carriage arch, a further square-headed garage opening, a hipped artificial slate roof, and enlarged window openings with uPVC windows. A large rear walled garden with rubble stone walling completes the setting.