589 ORMEAU ROAD

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two/Three-storey red-brick, late Victorian house located on the Ormeau Road just South of the intersection with the Ravenhill Road, approx. 3 km from Belfast city centre. The main part of the house is rectangular on plan with a two-storey rectangular-shaped return and enclosed yard to rear. One of a row of 7 no. terraced houses set on the West side of the Ormeau Road, this section of the Ormeau Road is residential consisting mainly of red-brick terraced houses built at the end of the nineteenth century and some 20th century housing of varying styles.

Materials:
Roof: Natural slate
RWG : Metal ogee to front/ uPVC to rear
Walls : Smooth red clay brick laid in Flemish bond to front/ English garden wall bond to rear
Windows: uPVC double-glazed top and bottom hung to front/painted timber top-hung to rear

Front elevation (E)
The front elevation has to the right-hand side a white uPVC door with oval-shaped glazed centre panel and glazed overlight (plain glazing) and a uPVC top-hung double-glazed window to the left. The doorway is square-headed with a replacement door surround consisting of a masonry hood supported on red-brick piers. There are 2 no. similar windows at first floor level with bottom hung opening sections. Window openings have smooth painted plaster reveals and are square-headed with soldier course headers. Brickwork is laid in Flemish bond and there is a series of slightly projecting decorative polychromatic brick course at eaves level, painted white. There is a Natural slate roof with metal ogee guttering and a replacement red-brick chimney stack on the left-hand side with red clay pots.

Rear elevation (W)

(The rear yard of the house was not accessible at the time of survey and the following description is based on inspection from the rear laneway)

The rear elevation of the main house at first floor level has on the right-hand side 1 no. square- headed window opening with a painted timber top-hung single-glazed window and soldier course headers. To the left-hand side is the original two-storey return. The rear of the house is red-brick partly painted white and the rear return is finished in smooth render. The S elevation of the return at first floor level is blank. The W gable elevation of the return adjoins a single-storey yard wall which is painted smooth render finish. There is 1no. Square- headed window opening with a painted timber top-hung single-glazed window on the left-hand side of the return gable at first floor level. There is an enclosed yard with square-headed doorway with painted timber boarded door. Walls to the house are red-brick in English Garden Wall bond. Roofs are natural slate. There is a rooflight on the main roof. There are uPVC rwgs and soil stacks to the rear of house.

Side elevation (N) abuts No 587 Ormeau Road - HB26.01.002C

Side elevation (S) abuts No 591 Ormeau Road - HB26.01.002E

There is a small front garden with concrete path, set behind sandstone kerbing and brick walling (painted). Set of replacement painted concrete piers supporting small painted timber gate. The rear of the terrace is bounded by a laneway with long narrow garden extending to W.

Historical information

No.589 This house along with its three matching neighbours to the north (nos.583-87 Ormeau Road – the four originally known as ‘Belvoir Place’) were built sometime between 1858 and c.1864, as they are not shown on the OS map of the former year, but do appear in the 1865 street directory. It is possible they were completed before 1862, as they are recorded as what seem to be original entries (as opposed to subsequent annotations) in the valuation book commencing in that year. That said, they are described as ‘those four new two-storey houses’ in a newspaper advert of March 1866, suggesting they were constructed closer to that date – most likely around 1864. They are described in the same advert as ‘comfortably finished [with] neat gardens in front and rere, and in a most healthy locality, within half an hour’s walk from Belfast and close to the Parish Church and Meeting-House.’ The group were probably developed by Thomas Courtney, who is listed as the immediate lessor in the valuation book and who, in 1871, added the matching house to the south (no.591) and the pair of taller dwellings just beyond (nos. 593-95).

The sequence of occupation of no.589 is as follows: William Courtenay – ‘surveyor’ (c.1867-c.74 – the valuation book say ‘Thomas Courtenay’, i.e. the developer of the whole terrace) ; M. Gilmore – ‘traveller’ (c.1874-c.78), John Jackson (c.1878-c.82); David Corry – ‘book-keeper’ (c.1883-c.88); Mrs. Annie Richie (c.1888-c.93); Sarah Donnan (c.1893-98) and Jane Mercer (c.1900-c.02), who is noted in the 1901 census as a shopkeeper, who was residing there with a domestic servant and two ‘visitors’ (i.e. house guests).

Miss Donnan was succeeded by Mrs. Jane Taylor (c.1902-c.06), followed by John Johnson – ‘linen business’ (c.1906-c.09) and John Owen Bell, who in the 1911 census is recorded as living there with his wife, Jane, and grown-up son, with the house itself a second class dwelling with eight rooms. The Bells were succeeded by Joseph Colgan, a ‘posting master’ (c.1915-24), then Thomas Burns – ‘carter’ (c.1926-c.33), Elizabeth Bell (c.1933-c.40), Thomas Burns (c.1940-c.44), Joseph Colgan (c.1944-c.48), Thomas Burns (c.1948-c.57) and - from c.1957 - Thomas J. McCabe – ‘sheet metalworker’, who was still resident in 1995.

References – Primary sources
1 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1858 to 1996
2 PRONI VAL12B/43A/7, annual valuation revision book, 1862-73
3 Belfast Morning News, 23 March 1866
4 Belfast Telegraph, 7 April 1871
5 PRONI OS8/30/2/OS town plan of Belfast, 1871-73
6 Marcus Ward’s ‘Shilling Map of Belfast’, 1879
7 PRONI VAL12B/43A/18, annual valuation revision book, 1882-96
8 PRONI OS8/30/3/59 1883-84
9 PRONI OS8/30/4/59 1896
10 PRONI VAL12B/43A/34, annual valuation revision book, 1897-1905
11 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [online]
12 PRONI OS8/30/5/59 1903
13 HED File relating to HB26.01.002A (c.1986- )

Secondary sources
1 Royle, Stephen A., ‘Irish Historic Towns Atlas No.17 – Belfast, Part II, 1840 to 1900’ (Irish Royal Academy, 2007)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

2/3-storey, red-brick late Victorian terrace house built c.1860. Part of a terrace of 7 no. similar houses (HB26/01/002A-F), located on the Ormeau Road just South of the intersection with the Ravenhill Road, approx. 3 km from Belfast city centre. The house retains its external character, despite replacement of the original windows, door and front boundary. The house and adjacent houses on the terrace form a distinct group, particularly to the rear, where the yards and original garden allotments are remarkably intact. An example of modest late Victorian urban terraced house, built at a time when Belfast was expanding rapidly from the city centre southwards along the main thoroughfares of the Ormeau, Lisburn and Malone Roads.