Merville, originally a private house (the modern-day Merville House), and estate were built in 1795 by the Belfast banker and merchant John Brown (c.1740-1808). It was intended as his country retreat. Other fêted people would come to reside at the sprawling 24-acre shoreline manor.
Between 1849-1887, for example, it was the home of Sir Edward Coey (1805–87), noted as the first and only Liberal Party Mayor of Belfast (1861) and prominent wealthy businessman, who helped make Belfast one of the most prosperous manufacturing centres in the world during the 19th century.
However, between 1947-49 the Garden Village, the first such housing development in Ireland, was constructed. It was the idea of Lurgan-born builder Thomas McGrath who had established his company, Ulster Garden Villages Limited, in January 1946. Merville was designed with a French architectural twist, which initially influenced McGrath when serving in France as a Royal Engineers' soldier in the First World War.
English architect Edward Prentice Mawson, eldest son of the garden designer Thomas Hayton Mawson, became McGrath's architect of choice for the project after being introduced to him by his site manager Jesse Williams who had previously worked with Mawson in England. Mawson was the consultant architect for all of McGrath's ambitious Garden Village schemes in Northern Ireland. Apart from Merville these were at Abbots Cross, Fernagh, Prince's Park, King's Park, Muckamore and Whitehead, all in County Antrim. The Merville development was of 256 apartments, 28 cottage flats, 146 detached and semi-detached houses and a row of 14 shops. The building work was completed in 1949.
Merville Garden Village was designated a conservation area on 23 June 1995 because of its unique architecture and landscape and is the only neighbourhood in the borough of Newtownabbey to have this protection.
