Merville House

The Georgian Merville House at Merville Garden Village, to be found in the district of Whitehouse on the northern shoreline of Belfast Lough, Northern Ireland was constructed in the year 1795 by John Brown (c.1730-1800), a distinguished banker and merchant of Belfast, who leased around 24 acres (97,000 m2) of the ancient townland of Drumnadrough, one of three townlands that formed the village of Whitehouse, the other two being White House and Ballygolan, to construct his own private estate. Brown was a partner in the so-called 'Bank of the Four Johns' that was established in Ann Street in the town in 1787. Other families associated with the original Merville estate would include Blair, Rowan, Coey, McKee, Robinson, and Todd. From 1952 to 1958 Merville House was the meeting place of the Belfast Rural District Council, forerunner of Newtownabbey Urban District Council, Newtownabbey Urban Council, and latterly Newtownabbey Borough Council. Between 1947 and 1949, the grounds of Merville were re-developed by Belfast builder Thomas Arlow McGrath of Ulster Garden Villages to create Merville Garden Village, a French-style housing development consisting of 156 detached and semi-detached houses, 28 cottage flats, 256 apartments, in addition to a row of shops at its entrance and a number of lock-up garages. Merville House was retained as the centrepiece of its layout and which takes its name. It was E. Prentice Mawson (1885-1954), a leading English architect and graduate of the School of Fine Arts in Paris, who was the consultant architect of the new Garden Village project, the first to be constructed in Northern Ireland. Other Garden Villages were constructed that became Abbots Cross and Fernagh, both located near Merville, Whitehead, north of Carrickfergus, and in the grounds of Ballycraigy House in the townland of Muckamore on the edge of Antrim town. In June 1995 Merville Garden Village was awarded Conservation Area status by the Department of the Environment of Northern Ireland because of its unique architectural and landscape design. Today Merville Garden Village is still the sole holder of the title within the borough of Newtownabbey and is second in a North Belfast context after the leafy Somerton Road which boasts many Victorian houses. Merville House has undergone a £1.2m renovation and is now an important part of local Newtownabbey community life. Officially re-opened on 27 April 2006 by the prominent Belfast community activist Baroness Blood, the restoration project was undertaken via Merville House Limited, a company set up in 2001 by the Merville Residents' Association, one of the oldest residents groups in Northern Ireland, to formally garner funding from North Belfast Local Strategy Partnership, Newtownabbey Local Strategy Partnership, Newtownabbey Borough Council, International Fund for Ireland and Ulster Garden Villages Limited, as well as from other sources.