Merville House
When the Merville Garden
Village was completed in
1949 Merville House was given to the native populace as a community centre
provision. The age-old building was also
the meeting place of the Belfast Rural District Council, precursor of today’s
Newtownabbey Borough Council, from 1952-58.
However
over the years Merville House was steadily feeling the affects of age. Rain and dampness had brought about the
indescribable deterioration of the entire building, particularly at the rear of
the structure, comprising a sizable section of the original house of 1795.
The facility became so badly dilapidated that
Merville Residents’ Association, long-standing caretakers of the property,
finally took decisive action and shut it down in the autumn of 2003 merely on
health and safety grounds.
But
through the assiduous efforts of the Association over £1.2 million was raised
through a special blend of kind funders for the refurbishment and building
operation to get underway.
There is no doubt that Merville
House in the present day is one of the best civic provisions in the British
Isles, as there is little other neighbourhoods that can boast a Georgian manor
house as its community centre, which is the pride and joy of the people of
Merville and surrounding areas.
Merville
Garden Village
The defined genesis of Merville Garden Village
can be identified as being in January 1947.
It was at this time the acreage was legally conferred from the family of
the late Fred C. Robinson, the last private owners of the original Merville
estate, to the ambitious Lurgan property developer Thomas Arlow McGrath
(1896-1988) who had formed Ulster Garden Villages Limited in 1946.
The motivating force of
McGrath’s scheme, to construct unparalleled first-rate homes to take care of Northern Ireland’s pressing post-World War Two
requirements, initially stemmed while serving in France with the British Army during
the Great War, when he observed many distinctive and interesting housing
compositions.
As testimony to the efforts of property developer Thomas
Arlow McGrath, for bringing his mode of ultra-modern housing to Northern
Ireland, and Edward Mawson’s genius for structural and landscape design,
Merville Garden Village was justifiably bestowed the coveted Conservation Area
designation by the Department of the Environment on 23 June 1995, the one and
only locality within the spread-out municipality of Newtownabbey to enjoy the
exclusive classification.
Today the charming setting
of Merville Garden Village,
amid its distinctive mélange of Beaux-Arts Classicism and sprawling leafy
glades, is still a neighbourhood that is profoundly unique and unsurpassed in
the annals of Northern Irish architectural history
Notable names connected to Merville Garden Village
include, amongst others, one of the greatest painters of the 20th
century, the iconic English-born artist Sir Stanley Spencer CBE RA (1891-1959),
and the distinguished Northern Irish artist and scholar John F. Hunter OBE
PPRUA (1893-1951).
Merville Residents’ Association
Merville Residents’
Association is one of the most energetic and well-regarded tenants associations
in Newtownabbey.
Established in the summer
of 1972, it is one of the longest functioning and enthusiastic tenants groups
in Newtownabbey and indeed Northern
Ireland.
The Association is governed
by its charter, which was formally embraced in November 1975. Its Vision Statement avows ‘to maintain the
character of Merville
Garden Village
and to build a community which is attractive, vibrant and inclusive, and in
which everyone has the opportunity to participate.’
The most outstanding
achievement of the Association is the impressive restoration of Merville House,
which was instigated in the spring of 2000 and completed in April 2006.
Today Merville Residents’
Association enthusiastically thrives to work for the general betterment of the
neighbourhood and protect the environs as one of the most picturesque and
historically interesting settings within the bounds of the expanse of Greater
Belfast.
