44 FLORENCEVILLE AVENUE

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey mid Victorian sandstone and red brick semi detached house, one of a terrace of three, which together form a palace front. Situated at the end of Florenceville Avenue off the Ormeau Road – c2.5 miles from the centre of Belfast. They are set back from the earlier Victorian building line and have raised front gardens. It was built c1872.

Materials
Roof : Fibre cement slates
Walls: Rock faced ashlar sandstone to the ground floor with a mixture of red clay brick and painted render above
Windows: Mixture of 1/1 and 2/2 painted timber sliding
RWG: Cast iron

The front elevation faces North and has an original painted 4 panel door at the left with a painted single glazed 1/1 sliding sash window to the right. Two similar 2/2 sliding sash windows are on the first floor. The door has a painted architrave with very ornate foliate detailing, possibly in sandstone. The windows have raised decorative architraves with flower motifs – the ground floor sill is supported on ornate brackets. The ground floor is random coursed sandstone ashlar with a semi-rock face finish and the first floor, separated from the ground floor with a painted smooth string course, is built from red clays brick laid in Flemish Bond. The eaves project and are supported on painted timber brackets. The roof is hipped at the side and has two red brick corbelled chimney stacks - one with octagonal clay pots

Attached to the East is No 42 Florenceville Avenue HB26 01 010B which projects slightly forward as the centre of the palace front.

The West elevation has a 1/1 painted timber window on the right of the ground floor and two 2/2 similar windows on the first floor – all positioned close to the corners – the first floor windows have raised architraves as the front elevation - the ground floor one alternating painted quoins. Also on the ground floor and towards the front is a flat roofed and rendered canted bay with three 1/1 windows – detailed as before. The ground floor is semi-rock faced walling and the first floor smooth painted render. The render continues to both floors of the rear elevation (S) of the main house. Beyond the main house, is a red brick two storey return that is now an integral part of the house but was originally a stable block. It is connected to the main house with a flat roofed section. The West elevation facing an enclosed paved yard has a short modern timber clad section with a tall window on the ground floor and a 2/2 sliding sash window above. The rest of the ground floor is fully glazed – almost frameless – with a slightly projecting lead roof. The first floor has a modern painted fully glazed door screened by a shallow glass balcony. The end gable (S) has 2 painted timber sliding sash windows at first floor with some ornate brickwork at the verges and short eaves returns. Below is a timber clad flat roofed extension with two roof lights.

Part of a terrace of three similar, but not identical houses, on the South side of Florenceville Avenue - which connects to the Ormeau Road, c 2.5 miles south of the centre of Belfast. The houses opposite are semi detached - constructed in the early twentieth and those closer to the Ormeau Road are late Victorian red brick terraces. No 44 has a small mainly grassed front garden, bounded by a twentieth century red brick wall with vertical boarding above and a vertical boarded gate. A concrete path leads up two short flights of steps to the front door. There is a paved side and rear yard enclosed to the South by shrubbery with a rendered industrial building beyond. To the West is a rendered and painted mid-twentieth century flat roofed office building.

Historical information

This short ‘terrace’ of three is first recorded in the valuation book in 1872 and is shown on the OS town plan of 1871-73. It is located on land that previously belonged to the garden of Locust Lodge, a house of probable pre-1833 construction and one of the several small semi-rural gentleman's’ residences that characterised the Ormeau and Ravenhill areas before the spread of suburban growth in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. The group itself was developed by William Fitzpatrick a Belfast builder who had acquired Locust Lodge in 1865 and who, as well as embarking on other building projects in the vicinity, donated the plot for and contributed to the building cost of nearby St. Jude’s church (1871-73). The architect responsible for Florenceville (if any) is not known.

For the two decades following the construction of the terrace, the ‘Avenue’ itself served merely as a drive connecting the three houses to the Ormeau Road (then known as ‘Old Ballynafeigh Road’). In the mid-1890s the whole of the south side was developed with the buildings to the north side largely products of the 1920s.

No.44 The original occupant of no.44 seems to have been John McConnell, described in the street directories as a ‘clerk’. John Forsythe, a soap manufacturer became the leaseholder c.1882, followed by Adam Alexander Laughlin, a master mariner, (but later described as a ‘manager’), in c.1886. Mr Laughlin died c.1893, and his widow recorded in the 1901 census as living there with her young niece and a domestic servant, with the house itself a 2nd class dwelling containing somewhere between 7-9 rooms, 4 of which were at that point occupied by the family. John McDowell, a commercial traveller, was in residence by 1908 and is noted in the 1911 census as occupying the house with his wife, Martha, and their two sons. The McDowells remained there until at least 1932, and by 1943 Thomas Burrows is listed as the householder, staying on until the mid-1950s after which the property was sub-divided into flats, continuing as such into the 1980s.

References – Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL12B/43A/7, annual valuation revision book, 1862-73
2 OS town plans of Belfast, 1871-73, 1884, 1896, 1901-03, 1919, 1931
3 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1870 to 95
4 Marcus Ward’s ‘Shilling Map of Belfast’, 1879
5 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [online]

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
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

No 44 is a very fine High Victorian house built c1872. Together with its neighbours No 42 and 42 Florenceville Avenue, also listed, they are set back from the original building line and were designed to form an important group with a palace front. The external detailing, in particular, is of high quality with ornate window architraves and eaves detailing. They form an important group as the earliest and most significant historic houses in Florenceville Avenue and some of the most important in this part of South Belfast.