54 Sunnyside Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey red-brick Edwardian end terrace house, built in 1909 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. 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: Painted timber 2/2 sliding-sash single-glazed to front/ painted-timber top-hung casement to rear

Front elevation (N)
The front elevation has a painted timber 4-panel door and overlight (plain glazing) to the right and 2 no painted timber narrow 2/2 sliding-sash windows to the left. There are 3 no. Similar windows on the first floor, positioned in line with the ground floor openings. All openings are square-headed with red-brick soldier course headers. Brickwork is laid in English Garden Wall bond with a projecting moulded brick course at eaves level, supporting cast metal ogee guttering. Natural slate roof with a replacement red-brick chimney stack on the left-hand side with projecting brick course and clay pots.

Rear elevation (S)
The rear elevation of the main house at first floor level is red-brick and has a painted timber top-hung casement window to the right and a similar smaller window to the left. There is a rectangular enclosed rear yard area accessed from the kitchen. The kitchen door is fully glazed uPVC and the large picture window to units left is painted timber with top-hung opening lights. An original flat roofed return has a painted vertically sheeted timber door and a 2/2 painted timber sliding sash window both opening into the yard.
Original yard wall in red-brick with a square-headed yard doorway to the right-hand side with a concrete head and painted timber boarded door. Narrow laneway to rear of yard wall shared with nos. 44-52, bounded to S with corrugated tin fence enclosing an industrial yard. Large group of red-brick single and two-storey industrial outbuildings S of industrial yard.

Side elevation (E) abuts No 52 Sunnyside Street - HB26.01.009T

Side elevation (W)
Approximately a quarter of this building was demolished between the First Survey in 1984 and 2017 and only the foundations of a canted bay remain. The outline of the ground floor has recently been exposed following the demolition of a partially rendered brick wall. The gable now has a roughcast render on the ground floor. At both levels the gable wall is slightly canted along the final 1/3 of its length. The first floor is cement rendered with 1 no painted timber top-hung casement window slightly off centre towards the right. There is a large rectangular shaped portrait sign mounted to the left marked ‘Ormeau Road Boxing Club’ and a small house number sign marked ‘no. 54a’. Gable verges are clipped.

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.

No 54a Sunnyside Street abuts No 52 to the rear and West. It was not accessible at the time of the survey. This single storey, flat roofed work-shed is rendered brick with a door to the West and a double door to the South. Its East elevation opens into No 52's yard. To the W of no. 54a is a communal access lane.

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.54 This house, originally a dwelling and dairy of larger footprint than present structure, was built in 1909. It was probably developed by John McBride, the man who appears to have been responsible for the building of part of the neighbouring terrace (nos.44-52) during the same year. The identity of the architect (if any) is not known. The
The first occupant of No.54 appears to have been Ferris Dennison, who is duly noted in the street directories as a dairyman. The 1911 census records the building as a second-class dwelling containing eight rooms, along with (mainly within a large plot to the rear) the dairy, stable, two cow houses, a boiling house, shed and store, with the dwelling which occupied by Mr. Dennison, his wife, Maggie, their five children and a servant, John Kyle. By 1918 Mr. R. Stevenson had taken on the business, and by 1924 it is noted in the directory as the home of M. Gordon, who is described as a ‘cattle dealer’ as opposed to a dairyman. Mr. Gordon was still there in 1932, but the property is recorded as vacant in 1935. By 1943 it appears to have been solely used as a private dwelling, occupied by an S.H. Hull, but by 1951 the western third and the rear outbuildings was a separate concern – no.54a - premises of Craig & Houston, Oil and Paint Merchants. The 1970 street directory records no.54 as the home of F.C. Hanvey, with no.54a ‘Radiator Services (NI)’, with a W. Gourley the sole occupant in 1980. Maureen Snoddy and building contractors Cousins & Russell are recorded as the occupants in 1990, with the latter the sole occupant in 1995.
Photographic evidence dating from 1984 shows the original longer front elevation with five windows to the first floor and what seems to have been a shop front to the ground floor. The western third of the building, which was part of no.54a, was demolished at some point after 1984 [?early 2000s]. Currently no.54 remains a private dwelling with no.54a consisting solely of the rear outbuildings, which are now in use as a boxing club.

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 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 first survey slides for HB26.01.009, dated 1984

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

2-storey, red-brick end-terrace house built 1909. 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 some external character, including panelled timber door, sliding sash windows and slate roof. An 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. The right-hand side bay was removed in the later 20th century and there are alterations to the front boundary and enclosed yard area to W. Although the building has group value with the rest of the terrace, it has been significantly altered and is not considered to be of special interest.