547 ORMEAU ROAD

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey with attic terraced house rendered to the ground floor and red brick to the first. One of a terrace of 9 houses built in 1887 on the upper Ormeau Road in a mainly residential area c 4km from the centre of Belfast. House is rectangular on plan with two storey return and a small garden to the front and rear.

Materials
Walls: Painted render to the ground floor and red clay brick to the first. Return is wholly rendered.
Roof : Natural Bangor Blue slates to the main house and fibre cement to the return.
Windows: 1/1 painted timber single glazed sliding sash to the front elevation and 2/2 painted timber sliding sash to the rear with replacement sash windows in the return and hopper windows in the single storey return.
RWGs: Cast iron

Front elevation (E)
The front elevation has smooth painted render to the ground floor and red lay brick laid in Flemish Bond, with two rows of blue brick laid underneath a decorative brick cornice. The ground floor has the original 4 panelled door to the right set under a hood which is supported on ornate brackets. To the left is a canted bay with 1/1painted timber sliding. The first floor is separated from the ground floor with a plaster string course and contains two 1/1 painted timber sliding sash windows. A pitched roof dormer sits on the wall head and has a replacement top hung window with a fixed semi-circular light above. There is a Velux type roof-light to either side of the dormer and a large clay brick chimney stack set on the ridge to the left – detailed as the front elevation. The right-hand side of the first floor is separated from an adjacent terrace by cement alternating quoins

Side elevation (S)
Abuts No 549 Ormeau Road - HB26 01 019B

Side elevation (N)
Abuts No 545 Ormeau Road

Rear elevation (W)
The rear elevation has a lower two storey return to the left hand side and the return of No 549 to the other side of a yard. The main part of the building, which is smooth rendered, has an original margined pane window on the ground floor, a 2/2 painted timber sliding sash window above and a PVC clad double pitched dormer in the attic – with side hung windows. The return has new French doors to the right, replacement sliding sash windows to the ground floor and mainly 2/2 sliding sash windows to the first floor. Beyond the two storey return is a single storey return which has been converted from outbuildings.. It has a smooth rendered wall to the yard containing hopper windows and the original red brick walls on the other two facades.

The yard is separated from a small back garden which now contains a substantial garden house constructed of lightweight materials and beyond is a communal alley on the other side of a timber fence.
The small front garden is separated from the pavement by a modern dwarf rendered wall and painted steel railings and gate. The original quarry tile path leads from this gate to a concrete landing at the front door. A U-shaped access ramp takes up most of the rest of the garden alongside a recently planted tree and shrubs.

Historical information

GENERAL BACKGROUND Prior to the early 1800s, the southern stretch of the present Ormeau Road around Rosetta was a long-established continuation of what is now Ravenhill Road, the main route from Belfast - via Ballymacarrett and Newtownbreda - to Saintfield. In the late Georgian period several (generally small) country villas with attendant demesnes were created off this road, including, Anna’s Cottage, Annadale, Cherry Vale, Hay Park, Lagan Vale, Locust Lodge, Ormeau, Raven Hill, as well as Rosetta House itself, built prior to 1807 probably by the Coulson family.

In 1809 a new bridge, (replaced 1812-14), was built on the site of the present Ormeau Bridge to carry a more direct route from growing town of Belfast to link to the existing road, merging at the point where the latter passed the grounds of Rosetta. Originally variously known as the ‘New Ballynafoy Road’ or the ‘Road to Newtownbreda’, this new highway remained largely rural for much of the 19th century, however, the opening of the former Ormeau demesne in 1871 as Belfast’s first public park marked the beginning of a period of intensive development along the route, and the gradual carving up of the small estates within the vicinity. The main road close to Rosetta house had witnessed haphazard small-scale building work before long before this date, with a small hamlet of sorts in place before 1833, a settlement that included the still extant ‘Rosetta Cottages’ (nos.513-29 Ormeau Road). But this accelerated in an increasingly more suburban manner in the latter decades of the century, with Belvoir Place (present nos.583-95 Ormeau Road) built in c.1863 and extended in 1871, the semidetached dwellings constructed along what was to become Rosetta Avenue up by 1873, the terrace to the immediate south of this, ‘Marguerita Terrace’, (nos.531-45 Ormeau Road), completed by 1882, and its southern neighbour, ‘Rosetta Terrace’, (nos.537-63 Ormeau Rd), following in 1886-87. Building along what we now know as Knockbreda Road began c.1889, by which time development had commenced in Rosetta Park (1887). The last of these streets effectively surrounded Rosetta House itself at close quarters. The old house itself survived into the late 20th century.

Nos.547-63 Ormeau Road - This row, originally known as ‘Rosetta Terrace’ appears in the valuation book in two stages, the four southernmost dwellings (present nos.557-63) completed in 1886 and nos.547-55 the following year. The developer appears to have been one H. Scott, who occupied what is now no.557 and who is noted in the earliest valuations as the immediate lessor. He is listed in contemporary directories as a pawnbroker with premises at 117 Shankill Road, and is presumably the Hugh Scott (or a close relation of) who developed much of the south-eastern end of Sunnyside Street in the early 1900s [see HB26.01.009A-U]. The identity of the architect is not known. A letting advert of October 1886 describes one of the properties finished in that year as a ‘large house’ with ‘three reception, five bedrooms, hot and cold water, with all modern improvements; warm, healthy situation, with gardens; trams pass door’, with a subsequent advert of July 1887, relating to the five dwellings finished in that year referring to, ‘those new houses; well finished; two reception rooms on ground floor [and] six bedrooms’.

No.547 From the evidence provided by the annual Belfast and Province of Ulster Directories, the valuation books and the 1901 and 1911 census returns, the sequence of occupation of this property is as follows: William R. Cranston ('clerk', later described as a 'bank official') c.1889-96, Mrs. Greer c.1896-99, Thomas Scott ('commercial agent’), c.1899-1900 and John White ('pawnbroker') c.1900-47. In the 1901 census, Mr. White is recorded as living there with his wife, Sara, their three children and a domestic servant, with five children (and no servant) referred to in that of 1911, and the house itself noted as a second class dwelling containing nine rooms.

Mrs. White (presumably Sara) is listed as the householder from the later 1940s until c.1964, followed by David Scott c.1964-69, Ella Scott c.1969-72, Garry Sage c.1972-77, Patrick McElhinney c.1977-93, and Muir Graham c.1993-?. The property is currently [Feb. 2017] in the hands of a charitable organisation who have adapted the building for multiple occupation.

The whole terrace was listed in 1986. Minor alterations were carried out to the property in 2013 in order to facilitate disabled access.

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 VAL12B/43A/18, annual valuation revision book, 1882-96
4 PRONI OS8/30/3/59 1883-84
5 Belfast Telegraph, 16 October 1886, 29 July 1887
6 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1890 to 96
7 PRONI OS8/30/4/59 1896
8 PRONI VAL12B/43A/34, annual valuation revision book, 1897-1905
9 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [online]
10 PRONI OS8/30/5/59 1903
11 HED File relating to HB26.01.019A (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
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
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Two storey with attic terraced house rendered to the ground floor and red brick to the first. One of a terrace of 9 houses built in 1887 on the upper Ormeau Road in a mainly residential area c 4km from the centre of Belfast. This house is well detailed both internally and externally with a wealth of Victorian architectural interest and was 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.. It has group value with the other houses in this listed terrace – 549 to 563 Ormeau Road – HB26 01 019 A to I.