553 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 at the end of the nineteenth century 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 smooth render to the ground floor and red clay brick to the first. laid in Flemish bond. Return is rendered on the gable and red clay brick on the two sides.
Roof: Natural Bangor Blue slates to the main house.
Windows: 1/1 painted timber top hung to the front ground floor and 1/1 uPVC to the front and rear first floor.
RWGs : Cast iron to front and uPVC to rear.

Front elevation (E)
The front elevation has smooth painted render to the ground floor and red lay brick laid in Flemish Bond to the first floor, with two rows of blue brick laid underneath a decorative brick cornice. The ground floor has the original 4 panelled door to the right with a glazed overlight, set under a hood supported on ornate brackets. To the left is a canted bay with 1/1top hung painted timber windows. The first floor is separated from the ground floor with a plaster string course and contains two 1/1 uPVC top hung windows. A pitched roof dormer sits on the wall head and has a replacement top hung timber 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.

Side elevation (S)
Abuts No 555 Ormeau Road - HB26 01 019E

Side elevation (N)
Abuts No 551 Ormeau Road - HB26 01 019C

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 555 to the other side of a yard. The main part of the building, which is smooth unpainted lined render, has a1/1 uPVC window to the left on the first floor (the other side and ground floor could not be viewed) – and two Velux type roof lights in the rear roof slope. The return’s gable is rendered as the main house and both sides have the original clay red brick exposed. There is a window on the return’s North side at the first floor landing and two 1/1 uPVC windows on the first floor yard side. There is possibly also a door at this level.
The rear yard is separated from a small rear garden by a tall red clay brick wall with clay copings. This garden’s boundary to the rear lane is a timber fence and tall hedge.
The small front garden contains mature shrubs and is separated from the pavement by a replacement timber fence stretching between brick pillars. The original clay tiled path laid in 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.553 The original occupant appears to have been John Keenan, who is listed in the directories as ‘commercial agent’ and later a ‘commission agent’. In the 1901 census, Mr. Keenan (‘drapery agent’) is recorded as living there with his wife, Sarah, and their five (mainly grown-up) children. By 1911 four of the children were still there, along with two grandchildren, with the house itself noted as a second class dwelling containing nine rooms. The Keenan family retained the property until c.1963 after which a Eugene Killen (‘bank official’) is noted as resident. Mr. Killen was still occupying the house at the time of the publication of the last Belfast street directory in 1996.

The building 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 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 at the end of the ninteenth century on the upper Ormeau Road in a mainly residential area c 4km from the centre of Belfast. This house is well detailed externally with a wealth of Victorian interest, including a projecting bay to the front and a decorative brick cornice 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.