28 SUNNYSIDE ST.

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey red-brick terrace house, built in 1904 and located on Sunnyside Street - a canted busy thoroughfare connecting the Ormeau Road with Annadale Embankment, approx. 3 km from Belfast city centre. The main part of the house is rectangular on plan with a single-storey, rectangular shaped, flat-roofed extension to rear. One of a row of 21 no. Terraced houses set on the South side of Sunnyside Street, 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 century.

Materials:
Roof: Natural slate
RWG: Cast metal to front/ uPVC to rear
Walls: Smooth red clay brick laid in English Garden Wall bond
Windows: uPVC top-hung double-glazed to front and rear

Front elevation (N)
The front elevation has a painted timber 4-panel door and overlight (plain glazing) to the left and a uPVC top-hung double-glazed 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 clay ventilation bricks at each level and a blue-brick course and projecting moulded brick course at eaves level, supporting cast metal ogee guttering. Natural slate roof with a red-brick chimney stack on the right-hand side with projecting brick course and clay pots.

Rear elevation (S)
The rear elevation of the main house at ground floor level is painted plaster and has a small top-hung uPVC window to the left-hand side and a single-storey modern flat-roofed kitchen extension to the right-hand side. The extension is rustic red- brick with uPVC windows and rainwater goods. At first floor level is a uPVC top-hung double-glazed window to the left-hand side and a similar smaller staircase window on the right-hand side. There is a clay ventilation brick at first floor level. There is an enclosed yard with original outside toilet attached to extension. It is a small red-brick building with lean-to natural slate roof and original painted timber boarded door. There is a replacement yard wall in red-brick with a square-headed doorway and painted timber boarded door.

Side elevation (E) abuts No 26 Sunnyside Street - HB26.01.009G

Side elevation (W) abuts No 30 Sunnyside Street - HB26.01.009I

There is a small front garden finished in concrete block paviors, set behind a replacement red-brick boundary wall and gateway with painted metal railings and small painted metal arched gate. This boundary treatment was installed along with the new front doors and windows c1988 as part of an improvement scheme encompassing the whole terrace. The rear of the terrace is bounded to south by communal laneway shared with Whitehall Gdns.

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.28 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.28 appears to have been James Gibson, noted in the 1906 street directory as a gardener. By 1910 he had been succeeded by another gardener, Thomas Argue, followed in that or the following year by William Spence, a ‘labourer’. The 1911 census records the building as a second-class dwelling containing five rooms, occupied by Mr. Spence, his wife Ellen, and their four (mostly grown-up) children, and a boarder, John Witherall.
A member of the Spence family was still living at no.28 until at least 1974. The 1980 street directory records J. Douglas as the occupant, and Mary O’Kane in 1990, who was still there in 1995.
The property was listed in 1986.

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 HB26.01.009H (c.1986- )

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

Evaluation

2-storey, red-brick terrace house built in 1904. 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 and its original stairwell internally. Despite replacement of the original windows and front boundary, the building has significant 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.