[Extracts from Stormont, by John Kennedy, George Woodman, Belinda Jupp, William Mol and Dawson Stelfox; published by the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society in 1999.]
THE SEARCH FOR PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS
Following the Government of Ireland Act of 1920 Belfast gained
an unexpected status as a provincial capital. It suddenly needed
to acquire such appurtenances of statehood as a parliament house,
headquarters buildings for government departments and a high court
of justice, the first two of which concern us here. The administrative
and parliamentary headquarters had to be sufficiently imposing
to establish the identity of the new administration to the world
outside Northern Ireland and to its own citizens. So an appropriate
building with debating chambers suitable for two houses of parliament,
committee rooms, library and dining rooms had to be supplied.
The City Hall and Assembly's College
It was necessary to find a temporary home for the Parliament quickly.
The inauguration of the Parliament on 22 June 1921 by King George
V and its first full session the following day took place in the
City Hall. Belfast Corporation, long the second municipality in
Ireland and one of the major city governments in the United Kingdom
in a great age of local government, did not welcome what it saw
as a rival to its authority, so the Parliament almost immediately
found other premises. (It was briefly to return to the City Hall
in the autumn of 1932 for the last sessions before the opening
of Parliament Buildings).
From September 1921 until June 1932 Parliament met in Assembly's
College in Botanic Avenue, Belfast (now Union Theological College),
the theological college of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
The Presbyterian Church was the most substantial all-Ireland body
to be centred on Belfast and so one of the few to have buildings
there on the 'national' scale required for a parliament. An annual
rent of £8,000 was paid for use of the College. This period,
during which the Parliament established its character as a legislative
body, was commemorated by the bookplate used by the Parliamentary
Library until the dissolution of Parliament in 1973. The offices
of the new ministries were established in various rented premises
round Belfast city centre.
Choosing the Site
The selection of a permanent site was quickly made. Three sites
in or near the city, at Belfast Castle, Orangefield and Belvoir
Park, were looked at and rejected. Another option available, but
not seriously considered, was the outright purchase of Assembly's
College. At the same time Stormont Castle and its surrounding
demesne came on the market. On 20th September 1921 the Parliament
of Northern Ireland voted its approval of the Stormont Castle
demesne as 'the place where the new Parliament Houses and Ministerial
Buildings shall be erected and as the place to be determined as
the seat of the Government of Northern Ireland as and when suitable
provision has been made therefor'. This approval was necessary
as, under the terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the
seat of Parliament was to be in Belfast unless Parliament chose
differently. At the time Stormont was outside the city boundaries,
although they were later extended to include it. The Commissioners
of Public Works and Buildings of the Imperial Government purchased
the estate and house for £20,334 in December 1921.
Stormont Estate
The present Stormont estate is superimposed upon a modest demesne,
established, as a result of an advantageous marriage and reputedly
ill-gotten gains, by the Rev. John Cleland in the early years
of the nineteenth century. It lay on a well-drained, south-facing
slope, with three deep glens. Cleland did not further his reputation
by gating the road from Belfast to Groomsport, which ran across
his land. Part of the road can still be seen today, near the present
Massey Avenue entrance and delineated by Irish yews.
The 1830 house, Storm Mount, described just after it was built
as a '...large plain house with very little planting about it',
was eventually enhanced by an orchard and a shelter belt of trees
growing to the south-west. Neighbouring properties, including
sizeable Rose Park, were acquired, farmland was developed and
extensive woodland shelter planted as the century progressed.
The Ordnance Survey map of 1860, and photographs taken in the
1890s, show a well-wooded demesne surrounding the house, which
had been enlarged in 1858 for Cleland's grandson and namesake
and had by then assumed the appropriate title of Stormont Castle.
The exterior was re-designed to the fashionable Scottish Baronial
style by the local architect Thomas Turner, possibly based on
earlier plans by one of the leading country-house architects of
the day, William Burn. Cladding of Scrabo stone was added to the
plain house, with crenellations and turrets topped by fearsome
gryphons. This was complemented by a terraced garden, including
a complex lay-out of flower beds. A fine, and surviving, lean-to
glasshouse was backed by bothies, offices and stove house. The
walled kitchen garden has now gone, but the stables remain.
The Cleland family finally left in 1893, preferring to live abroad,
and the demesne was let out. On the departure of the tenant, initial
efforts to sell failed, but fortunately the newly-formed Northern
Ireland Parliament was seeking a site for parliament buildings
and purchased the holding which amounted to 235 acres, including
100 acres of woodland.
Over a period of ninety years the landscape had changed from one
of small farm units to a single well-managed demesne, with ornamental
and productive gardens at the house; fields, woodland and parkland;
and the inevitable wet land at the bottom of the hill.
The house was saved from demolition by pressure of local opinion
and was utilised from 1922 until 1940 as the official residence
of the first Prime Minister, Sir James Craig, and subsequently
as offices for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Office. During
the period of direct rule from Westminster it accommodated the
office of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Unfortunately
the gate lodge, formerly belonging to Rose Park and re-modelled
in c.1860 by Thomas Turner, was demolished in 1962 to make way
for the approach to Dundonald House, a government building erected
in the grounds at that time....
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