Factory ('Morelli's Ice Cream')

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small, plain, single storey curved (Belfast Truss) roof building of perhaps c.1900, possibly originally an outbuilding belonging to the neighbouring house, now an ice cream factory. The property is set on the SE side of the narrow Eglinton Lane, to the rear of no.4 (Dunluce Avenue), close to Portrush town centre.

The building is an odd, roughly L-shape, with the curved roof covering a long, narrow rectangular section which measures roughly 23m x 6.5. To the NW a smaller roughly triangular shaped [?]flat roofed section branches off from this, thus creating the rough L-shape.

Because of the shape of the building only the right hand half of the NW elevation and the NE gable of the Belfast Truss roofed section is visible. These are both finished in painted roughcast. The gable is blank but the NW elevation has three windows of varying size (all with modern frames) and a doorway with timber sheeted pedestrian door, and, to far right, a vehicle doorway with modern ‘up & over’ metal door. There is a deep timber sheeted eaves course.

The curved rood is covered in felt.

Historical information

This building may date from c.1900 and may originally have been an outbuilding associated with the house to the southeast.

The Belfast truss was developed in the mid-nineteenth century to meet the demand for efficient, lightweight and long span roofs brought about by the industrial revolution. A detailed description of the historical development of the Belfast truss is included in the record for HB18/08/139. In brief, the first known reference to a curved wooden felted roof structure supported by bowstring girders is in an advertisement in the Dublin Builder for 1866 by the Belfast firm of felt-makers, McTear & Co. McTear’s continued making trusses until they went out of business in 1908.

A second Belfast felt supplier, Anderson & Co., began to produce trusses, to a slightly different design, in 1886. In 1896, Anderson’s launched their Mk II version; promoted as maximising long spans whilst maintaining light weight. This model was subsequently used by other companies, and is referred to by historians as the Belfast truss, although this term is widely used to apply to all timber bowstring trusses where the internal bracing members meet not on the bottom of the truss as was the convention but on the top curved member.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Small, plain, single storey curved (Belfast Truss) roof building of perhaps c.1900, possibly originally an outbuilding belonging to the neighbouring house, now an ice cream factory. This building has been much altered over the years and it appears that not all of the Belfast Trusses have survived.

General comments

Surveyed as part of the Belfast Roof Truss survey.