555 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 an enclosed L-shaped yard to the rear.

Walls: Painted render to the ground floor and red clay brick to the first, laid in Flemish bond. Rear elevation is render. Return is rendered on the gable and mainly red clay brick to both sides.
Roof: Natural Bangor Blue slates to the main house
Windows : 1/1 top hung uPVC to the front elevation except for the dormer window that is painted timber sliding sash. Rear elevation has 2/2 painted timber window to first floor of main block and 1/1 uPVC windows to first floor of return.
RWGs; uPVC to front and rear.

Front elevation (E)
The front elevation has smooth painted render to the ground floor and red clay brick laid in Flemish Bond to the first, with two rows of blue brick laid underneath a decorative brick cornice. The ground floor has a replacement panelled and glazed door to the right, with a rectangular glazed overlight, 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 window below. A pitched roof dormer sits on the wall head and contains a painted timber 1/1 timber sliding sash window with a semi-circular head. There are Velux type roof-lights 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 – possibly rebuilt as it is not quite the same as the others in the terrace.

Side elevation (S)
Abuts No 557 Ormeau Road - HB26 01 019F

Side elevation (N)
Abuts No 553 Ormeau Road - HB26 01 019D

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 557 to the other side of a yard. The main part of the building, which is smooth lined render, to the first floor and painted to the ground, has a 2/2 painted timber sliding sash window to the right on the first floor and a Velux type window above in the rear roof slope.

The return which is double pitched is rendered on the gable as the main block. The yard wall is painted render to the ground floor and red brick to the first. The first floor contains two 1/1 uPVC windows and all the rain water goods are uPVC.

Beyond and attached to the gable of the return is a single storey structure with a red brick gable and corrugated iron roof.
The rear yard is finished in concrete and separated from the communal lane by a modern timber fence.
The small gravelled front garden is separated from the pavement by a vertical timber fence supported on rebuilt brick pillars. The original quarry tile path laid in chequerboard pattern leads from this gate 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.555 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 Fitzpatrick c.1888-97, William Wills (‘pensioner’) c.1898-1902, Mrs E. Wilson c.1902-07 and Mrs Charlotte S. Thompson, c.1907-15. In the 1901 census, the aforementioned Mr. Wills (a ‘retired prison governor’ from Co. Kildare) is recorded as living there with his wife, Lizzie Josephine, a ‘friend’, Lillie H. Prenter [?or Penter] and a visitor, George Pennefather, whilst in that of 1911 Mrs Thompson was occupying the house with her daughter, Eva Barkley, two granddaughters, a ‘Lady Attender’, Elizabeth Jameson, and a domestic servant, whilst he house itself is noted as a first class dwelling containing 12 rooms. Robert Jamison (‘secretary’), is listed as the house

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 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 from c.1991 until at least 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
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

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 – 547 to 563 Ormeau Road – HB26 01 019 A to I.