14 SUNNYSIDE ST.

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey red brick house, built in 1903 and located on Sunnyside Street - a canted busy thoroughfare connecting the Ormeau Road with Annadale Embankment. The main part of the house is rectangular on plan with a single storey L-shaped flat-roofed return. One of a row of 21 terraced houses set on the South side of Sunnyside Street, a main busy thoroughfare on the south side of Belfast, 2 miles from the centre. The area is residential with mainly small terraced houses built at the end of the nineteenth century and some semi detached houses dating from the beginning of the twentieth.

Materials:
Roof: Natural slate
RWG: uPVC
Walls : Smooth red clay brick laid in English Garden Wall bond
Windows: Top hung uPVC windows throughout

Front elevation (N)
The front elevation has a painted timber 4 panel door to the left with a 1/1 top hung uPVC window to the right. The door has a semi-circular head with a moulded architrave and the window has a segmental head also with a moulded architrave. A similar but smaller window is almost centrally positioned on the first floor. Brickwork is laid in English Garden Wall bond with a projecting moulded brick course supporting ogee guttering. Natural slate roof with a replacement red brick chimney stack on the right-hand side with two projecting brick courses.

Rear elevation (S)
The rear elevation of the main house has a flat roofed extension at ground level and at first floor level has a 1/1 top-hung uPVC window to the left and a fixed pane uPVC window to the staircase landing on the right. The flat roofed extension, constructed c2002, is built with rustic red clay brick with uPVC top hung windows and thin concrete sills. There is a narrow rectangular paved yard with a canted corner. Beyond the internal yard and accessed from it through a painted boarded door, set in a 2.4m high brick wall is a side and rear access lane.

Side elevation (E) is blind and adjoins the side lane.

Side elevation (W) abuts No 16 Sunnyside Street - HB26.01.009B

There is a small front garden finished in concrete block paviors, set behind a replacement red brick wall (as rear extension) with robust decorative railings and gate. This boundary treatment was installed along with the new front doors also c1988 as part of an improvement scheme encompassing the whole terrace.

Historical information

Sunnyside Street is shown for the first time on the OS town plan of 1871-73 as a lane stretching from the Ormeau Road to the current junction with Whitehall Parade, the sole development along it a terrace of six houses on the north side marked as ‘Sunnyside’ (present nos.43-53). On Marcus Ward’s 1879 map of Belfast it is designated ‘Sunnyside Street’ (undoubtedly taking its name from the original terrace) and is shown extending slightly further west, just beyond the intersection of the present Rushfield Avenue, but no new developments are marked on this or on the OS town plans of 1883-84 and 1896. On the 1901-03 plan the present nos.14-24 are shown, with greater development on northern side also, and the street itself extended as far as the junction with Walmer Street, with brick fields between this and the River Lagan. The opening of King’s Bridge in 1912 allowed the street to reach its current extent, making it a thoroughfare linking directly through to Ridgeway Street on the other side of the River Lagan.

No.14 This house is part of a long terrace of twenty one dwellings which although virtually identical are of slightly different dates. Nos.14-24 are shown on the OS map of 1903, and recorded in valuation book during that year, with nos.26-42 entered into the same book the following year, and nos.44-52 first noted in the succeeding book during 1910. The developer of nos.14-42 appears to have been Hugh Scott, who is listed as the lessor for all of these particular properties in 1906, but the identity of the architect (if any) is not known. The first occupant of No.14 was Joseph Lewis, followed by Hugh Jelly (listed in the directories as a ‘van driver’), by 1907. The 1911 census records the building as a second-class dwelling containing five rooms, which was occupied by Mr. Jelly (or Jellie), his wife Mary, and their six children. A member of the family was still occupying the house in 1995.

HED records show that a kitchen extension was added to the return in 1993.

References – Primary sources
1 PRONI OS8/30/2/OS town plan of Belfast, 1871-73,
2 Marcus Ward’s ‘Shilling Map of Belfast’, 1879
3 PRONI OS8/30/3/59 1883-84
4 PRONI OS8/30/4/59 1896
5 PRONI VAL12B/43A/34, annual valuation revision book, 1897-1905
6 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [online]
7 PRONI OS8/30/5/59 1903
8 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1903 to 95
9 PRONI VAL12B/43K/4, valuation book, 1906-15
10 HED File relating to HB26.01.009A (c.1986- )

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
Z. Rarity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

2-storey, red-brick terrace built in 1903. Part of a larger terrace of 21 no. Similar houses (HB26/01/009A-U), located on the South side of Sunnyside Street approx. 3 km from Belfast city centre. The house retains its external character, including panelled timber front door, stucco surrounds and slate roof. Despite replacement of the original windows and addition of a flat roofed single-storey extension to the rear, the building has group value with the rest of the terrace. A good example of modest Edwardian urban terraced housing, 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.