12 Lower Crescent

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Relatively large but relatively plain three storey rendered town house of 1877-78, built as an addition to a regency style terrace of 1852 and now converted to a public house and integrated with the neighbouring property to the east. The terrace to which this is attached, ‘Lower Crescent’, is set to the E of University Road and faces, over a small public park, Upper Crescent- a similar styled development of 1846 which unlike its counterpart is actually arranged in true crescent form. The property is set close to the east end of the terrace.

The front elevation is asymmetrical and faces roughly S. To the right on the ground floor is the entrance, which consists of a panelled timber door with rectangular fanlight. To the left of the doorway are two tall plain sash windows with Georgian panes (6/6). These windows, and the rest of the windows to the front, have simple moulded surrounds. To the first floor are three similar sized windows with recent frames (made to resemble sash). To the second floor are three segmental headed windows with frames as first floor.

The front façade is finished in plain painted render. There is a prominent moulded eaves course.

To the rear of the property there is a large two storey gabled return, (with basement), which is not original (the original return was much smaller). To E this return merges with a two storey flat roofed extension at the rear of no.13. The gable of the return is blank. To the basement level of the return there is a small flat roofed projection with an open doorway (which leads to a taxi waiting room) to its E end. The W face of the return could not be seen.

The writers were only able to see a small second floor level section of the rear façade of the main portion of the building. This section is in brick and has a window, with recent frame, to right.

The main roof is hipped (to the E side only) and slated. The return roof appears to be covered in an artificial tile.

Historical information

Upper and Lower Crescent
The selling off of much of Lord Donegall’s Belfast estate in the early to mid 19th century opened up large areas of land around the town for development. The lands to the south, along the Malone Ridge, were particularly attractive to developers and lead to the building of many the many fine late Georgian style terraces from the mid 1830s onwards, a trend accelerated by the establishment of the prestigious Queen’s College in the area in the later 1840s. These new grand terraces were occupied by Belfast’s professional and business classes, leaving their older residences in the centre of the town, which in turn were gradually turned into shops and offices.

Upper Crescent was perhaps the grandest terrace development undertaken to the south of the town, an elegantly curving row of three storey dwellings in a late regency style built in 1846 by timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry. The authorship is uncertain, but Dr Paul Larmour has suggested that the hand of Charles Lanyon may have been involved. Corry himself undertook the building work and took up residence in the house to the east end, and, for the first few years of its existence, the row was known as ‘Corry’s Crescent’.

To the immediate south of the Crescent, where the church and small park now are, there was a large lawn which Corry held as a garden. Shortly after this garden was laid out, however, Corry had it ploughed up and used for the cultivation of vegetables for relief of local workers suffering as a result of the Great Famine. To the north of this ran an old water course (which flowed northwards into the ‘Basin’- a reservoir east of the Dublin Road), to the east some smaller gardens (belonging to other occupants of the Crescent) and further to the east and to the north-east, ran Albion Lane, a narrow semi-rural laneway stretching from the north end of Bradbury Place to the east end of the present University Terrace.

In 1852 Corry built another terrace to the north of his garden and just south of the old water course. This new development (the erroneously named Lower ‘Crescent’) was much in the same style as that to the south and was occupied by the same mix of professionals and businessmen, though by as early as 1860 the ground floors of some of the properties were used as offices. In the later 1860s a railway line was cut to the immediate north of Lower Crescent (along the line of the old water course), in 1873 the large sandstone building (originally Ladies Collegiate later Victoria College), was added to the west end of the terrace, with two houses added to the east end by the close of the decade, the most easterly of which, ‘Rivoli House’, (designed by William Hastings), originally contained a dance academy run by a Frederick Brouneau. The new railway line cut across Albion Lane and presaged the laying out of a new broader thoroughfare, ‘Botanic Avenue’.

Upper Crescent also witnessed further building in the 1860s and 70s, with two large William Hastings designed properties erected to the west end in 1869, one of which, Crescent House’ (the present Bank of Ireland) also fronted on to University Road. In 1878-79 two further houses were added to this end, on the ground between those of 1869. In 1885-7 the large Presbyterian church (the present Crescent Church) was erected to plans by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson, on the west side of Robert Corry’s former garden, with a two storey terrace, the present ‘Crescent Gardens’, built on the site of smaller garden plots to the to east end in 1898.

During the first half of the 20th century most of the properties of Upper and Lower Crescent, as well as Crescent Gardens, remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many were given over to business use others divided into flats, with the former Rivoli House (later named ‘Dreenagh House’) becoming the ‘Regency Hotel’. This trend continued and by the beginning of the 21st century none were occupied as private dwellings. In the mid 1990s three of the 1860s to 70s houses at the west end of Upper Crescent were demolished and a modern office block built in their place, whilst in 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent was built over, in preparation for a new development.

No.12 Lower Crescent
This property was built in 1877-78 to designs by architect William Hastings, who had also worked on the larger property to the east (present no.13) two years earlier. The building was originally occupied by a William J. Morrison, with a William Campbell in residence in 1899. Campbell remained there until some time between 1910 and 1920, with a Miss Gardener occupying the house in the latter year. In 1930 a journalist named Alex Riddle and a Professor Ivor Arnold are recorded as residents, with three occupants listed in 1940, two in 1951 and three in the 1960s and 1970s directories; obviously the property must have been split into flats around c.1930.

In the later 1980s the building was converted to a restaurant, linked with the neighbouring ‘Regency Hotel’ (no.13), with hotel rooms to the upper floors. In the later 1990s the restaurant was converted to a public bar. The return to rear appears to have taken its present form in the 1980s.

References- Primary sources
1 ‘Henderson’s Belfast Directory’ [later ‘Belfast & Province of Ulster Directory’], 1849-
2 PRONI VAL/2B/7/1d Second valuation, Belfast, 1860
3 PRONI VAL/2D/7/43a Second valuation town plan of Belfast sh 43a, 1860
4 PRONI VAL/2D/7/43b Annual valuation revision town plan of Belfast, sh 43b, 1860-95
5 PRONI VAL/12B/43a/1-10 Annual valuation revision notebooks, Cromac Ward, Belfast, 1863-82
6 PRONI OS/8/30/2/43 OS town plan of Belfast, sh 43, 1871-73
7 PRONI OS/8/30/2/49 OS town plan of Belfast, sh 49, 1871-73
8 PRONI OS/8/30/3/43 OS town plan of Belfast, sh 43, 1883-84
9 PRONI OS/8/30/3/49 OS town plan of Belfast, sh 49, 1883-84
10 PRONI OS/8/30/3/49 OS town plan of Belfast, sh 49, 1894-95

Secondary sources
1 S.T. Carleton, ‘The growth of south Belfast’ (QUB MA thesis, 1967)
2 John Caughey, ‘Seize then the hour- A history of James P. Corry & Co. Ltd…’ (Belfast, 1974), pp.28-29
3 David Evans, ‘Historic buildings…Queen’s University’ (revised ed., 1980), p.11
4 Alison Jordan, ‘Margaret Byers, pioneer of women’s education…’ (QUB Inst. of Irish Studies, ?1988)

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

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Relatively large but relatively plain three storey rendered town house of 1877-78, built as an addition to a regency style terrace of 1852 and now converted to a public house and integrated with the larger neighbouring hotel. To the rear there is a large, relatively recent, two storey gabled return.