549 ORMEAU ROAD

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey with attic, terraced house rendered to the ground floor and red clay 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 an enclosed yard to the rear.

Walls: Painted render to the ground floor and red clay brick to the first laid in Flemish bond. Return is rendered on the gable and red brick to the rear yard.
Roof: Natural Bangor Blue slates to the main house
Windows: 1/1 top hung
RWGs : Cast iron to front

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 1/1top hung uPVC windows. The first floor is separated from the ground floor with a plaster string course and contains two 1/1 windows as the bay below. 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 the right of the dormer and a large clay brick chimney stack set on the ridge to the left – detailed as the front elevation.
Side elevation (S)

Abuts No 551 Ormeau Road - HB26 01 019C

Side elevation (N)
Abuts No 547 Ormeau Road - HB26 01 019A

Rear elevation (W)
Access was not available to the rear yard and this description was taken from the communal lane.
The rear elevation has a lower two storey return to the left hand side and the return of No 551 to the other side of a yard. The main part of the building, which is smooth unpainted lined rendered, has a 1/1 top hung on the right side of the first floor and a smaller similar window on the left - uPVC gutters and down pipe and two large Velux type rooflights in the rear roof slope. The rear return gable is unpainted render as the main house and the side walls are faced in brick. The brick has been painted on the North side. A red clay brick chimney sits on the return’s ridge.
There is a further single storey lean-to shed attached to the return’s gable. The internal yard is separated from an outer yard by a tall brick wall with clay copings – and the outer yard opens into the rear lane through modern timber gates.

The small front grassed garden is separated from the pavement by a large hedge and a modern timber gate. An original clay tiled path, laid in a chequerboard pattern leads to two concrete steps at the front door.

Historical information

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 thereof) 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.549 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: Mrs Lepper c.1889-96, F. Porter (‘partner and director of Ferumite Co.’) c.1896-99, John McMenamin c.1899-1900, and Elizabeth McDonnell c.1900-01. In the 1901 census, Mr. White is recorded as living there with her granddaughter, Mary Moore, and a maid, Ellen Maslin. The next occupant was C. Macauley ('linen business') c.1902-10, followed by John Rusk c.1910-20 referred to in the 1911 census as a ‘fancy linen manufacturer’, who lived there with his wife, Elizabeth; the house itself is noted as a second class dwelling containing nine rooms. The next resident appears to have been James C. May (‘warehouseman’) c.1920-24, C. Macauley (again) c.1925-30, J. Rusk (again) c.1933-40, Dr. John W. Nesbitt c.1942-44, James C. May (again) c.1944-48, Dr. John W. Nesbitt (again) c.1948-63, Wing-Cmdr Culmer c.1963-72, Mrs. Mary Killen c.1973-90 and Kathleen B. Wallace c.1991.

The terrace was listed in 1986.

(For general history of Rosetta area see HB26.01.019A)

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- )

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
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 externally, apart from the top hung windows, 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 – 547 to 563 Ormeau Road – HB26 01 019 A to I.