591 ORMEAU ROAD

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

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 an attic level and 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 : Cast metal to front/ uPVC to rear
Walls : Smooth red clay brick laid in Flemish bond
Windows : 2/2 single-glazed sliding-sash painted timber with margin panes to front and rear

Front elevation (E)
The front elevation has a painted timber 6-panel door and overlight (plain glazing) to the right and a 2/2 single-glazed painted timber sliding-sash window with margin panes to the left. The door has a painted timber canopy with flat lead covered roof, supported on painted timber scrolled brackets carved in foliate detail. It has a moulded painted timber architrave. There are 2 no. similar windows at first floor level. Window openings have smooth painted plaster reveals and are square-headed with soldier course headers. Brickwork is laid in Flemish bond with clay ventilation bricks at first floor level and a series of slightly projecting polychromatic brick course at eaves level. There is a Natural slate roof with metal guttering and is a red-brick chimney stack on the right-hand side which appears to have upper half replaced with red-brick courses and replacement red clay pots.

Rear elevation (W)
The rear elevation of the main house has at the right-hand side on each floor level, 1 no. 2/2 single-glazed painted timber sliding-sash windows with margin panes. To the left-hand side is the original two-storey red-brick return. Both the rear return and part of the rear wall are painted. On the S elevation of the return on the right-hand side at ground level there is a replacement painted timber door with glazed upper panel and a replacement painted timber casement window. On the left-hand side there are 2 no. openings one arched (fuel store) and one square headed (outside toilet/workshop). The W gable elevation on the return has 1no. Small rectangular painted timber window at ground level and 1 no. 2/2 single-glazed painted timber sliding-sash windows with margin panes at first floor level. The N elevation on the return is blank. There is an enclosed yard with original yard wall in red-brick with canted brick coping and a square-headed doorway with painted timber boarded door; uPVC rwgs to rear of house.

Side elevation (N) abuts No 589 Ormeau Road - HB26.01.002D

Side elevation (S) abuts No 593 Ormeau Road - HB26.01.002F

There is a small front garden finished with lawn and concrete path, set behind sandstone kerbstones with a hedge above and painted timber boarded gate. The rear of the terrace is bounded by a laneway with long narrow garden extending to W. Boundary between laneway and garden consists of a modern timber board fence and gate.

Historical information

No.591 This house was built in or just prior to 1871 as an addition to the short terrace of four matching dwellings to the north (nos.583-89 Ormeau Road - originally known as ‘Belvoir Place’), which were constructed c.1864. The whole group was probably developed by Thomas Courtney, who is listed as the immediate lessor in the valuation book and who, also in 1871, added the pair of taller dwellings to the south (nos. 593-95). These new builds are referred to in the advert of May 1871 as the ‘new two-storey houses, with good attics, situate in Ballynafeigh...neatly and comfortably finished...good gardens front and rere...in the most healthy locality, with a dry soil and mild, salubrious air.’

The sequence of occupation of no.591 is as follows: William Shaw (1871-c.74); John Walker – ‘traveller’ (c.1874-c.78); James Montgomery (c.1881-c.90); Mrs. Sarah McDaid (c.1890-c.93), and Mary Gibson (c.1893-96). In c.1898 the property became a post office (‘Rosetta Post Office’), with Robert Harrison the postmaster. This role was short-lived, the local post office moving to a property in Marguerite Terrace (present 531-45 Ormeau Rd), and in the 1901 census Mr. Harrison is simply noted as a ‘commercial traveller’, who was residing at no.591 with his wife, Margaret, their six children and an elderly boarder, Janet Moore. J. O’Brien, another ‘commercial traveller’ took up the lease of the property in c.1902, followed by William Meade, a sub-postmaster, in c.1905, at which point part of the building was serving as the local post office once again. In the 1911 census Mr. Meade is noted as occupying four rooms in the house with Seamus and Maire Cerligh (fellow post office employees) living within the remaining four. The property seems to have continued as a post office up until the late 1940s after which Mr Cerligh remained on as householder until the later 1950s. John Smiley, a bus conductor, is named as the occupant in the 1967 street directory, followed at some point in the 1980s by Laurence Wood (or Woods), who was still living there in 1995.

References – Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL12B/43A/7, annual valuation revision book, 1862-73
2 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1870 to 1996
3 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 2 May 1871
4 PRONI OS8/30/2/OS town plan of Belfast, 1871-73
5 Marcus Ward’s ‘Shilling Map of Belfast’, 1879
6 PRONI VAL12B/43A/18, annual valuation revision book, 1882-96
7 PRONI OS8/30/3/59 1883-84
8 PRONI OS8/30/4/59 1896
9 PRONI VAL12B/43A/34, annual valuation revision book, 1897-1905
10 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [online]
11 PRONI OS8/30/5/59 1903
12 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
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
Z. Rarity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

3-storey, red-brick late Victorian terrace house built 1871. 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 is almost completely intact externally and internally and retains an original enclosed rear yard and outhouses. 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 excellent 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.