21 UNIVERSITY SQUARE

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Three storey with attic, three bay, red brick, mid terraced former townhouse, now incorporating much of the ground floor and all of the upper floor accommodation of No 20 University Square (HB26/27/015T) on its W side.
However, as these changes are largely reversible (interconnecting doors between both buildings), No 21 is described as it was formerly, as a three storey, three bay building.
No 21 operates as university offices for the School of Creative Arts at Queen’s University.
The terrace was built in stages between 1848-1853 with No 21 constructed in 1848-49. While University Square was laid out by Charles Lanyon, the architect of the actual terrace is unconfirmed. Fronting onto University Square in South Belfast, which links University Road on the west and Botanic Avenue on the east, the terrace faces south and overlooks the Old Library (now QUB Student Graduate Centre – HB26/27/002) and the grounds of the northern end of The Lanyon Building (HB26/27/005). No 21 is located towards the east end of the street, one of a row of 30 former houses and is flanked by No 20 (HB26/27/021T) on the west and No 22 (HB26/27/021V) on the east. No 21 is abutted at the rear by a three storey return built at half landing height which is in turn abutted by a two storey return and finally by a small single storey lean-to. A shared rear yard is formed between the rear elevations and returns of Nos 21 and 22. This yard links into a larger network of alleyways and courtyards behind Nos 20 – 24 University Square, between the rear returns of the buildings and modern buildings to the rear (part of QFT & School of Creative Arts at QUB) which back onto University Square Mews.

Materials:
Roof: Natural Welsh slate (replacement)
Walls: Red brick in Flemish bond
Windows: Front (S) - Timber sliding sash, single-glazed, horns to GF & FF (possibly replacement)
Rear (N) & returns - single-glazed timber sliding sash and timber top-hung
Rooflight to rear – likely modern
RWGs: Hidden parapet gutter to roof, painted metal (S) / Painted metal to rear

Front Elevation (S):
Three storey with attic, three bay, mid terraced, red brick facade built in Flemish bond. Entrance on left side and single storey flat-roofed canted bay window to right side of ground floor level.
Bay window is painted render with one square-headed window opening to each face. Openings have roll-moulded stucco detail to soffit and reveal edges. Continuous painted stone cill. Painted stone rounded cornice above windows and below painted stone coping of parapet. Doorway on left side has an elliptical arched head with brick voussoirs and moulded plaster reveal, deeply recessed with fluted columns with Doric-type capitals to each side. The columns support a plain painted rendered entablature with moulded cornice. Plain glazed fanlight with “21” in centre. Panelled painted timber door (possibly original) with replacement ironmongery. Original low painted stone plinth wall either side of front door with iron bootscraper on left side.
Three regularly spaced window openings above on both first and second floor levels, aligned vertically. Continuous painted stone cill course to first floor windows (partly hidden behind bay parapet) and separate painted stone cills to second floor windows. Plain rendered plinth and corbelled painted stone cornice above with lead to parapet edges.
Pitched natural Welsh slate roof with red clay ridge tiles, brick chimney (rebuilt) with corbel detailing and seven yellow clay pots to right side, no chimney on left side. Small pitched roof dormer window to right side of roof with cheeks (likely lead) and natural slate roof with red clay ridge tiles, paired timber casement windows.
All windows to front are timber sliding sash, single glazed and have splayed brick heads; windows to bay are 1/1 (smaller top sash); three 1/1 windows to FF; three 6/6 windows to SF (some panes have historic glass).
Hidden parapet gutter to roof, likely to be formed in lead. Painted metal downpipe with metal hopper from parapet gutter to canted bay roof. Metal hopper and downpipe at right side of bay.
Six replacement reconstituted stone steps from street level leading to landing of reconstituted stone paving slabs. Modern metal railings either side of steps. Disabled ramp with concrete sett surface formed between brick walls with reconstituted stone coping stones, containing shrubs. Flemish bond low brick boundary wall to street (not original) with reconstituted stone coping beneath replacement painted metal railings.

Side elevation (W):
Fully abutted by No 20 (HB26/27/021T) on the west side.

Side elevation (E):
Fully abutted by No 22 (HB26/27/021V) on the east side.

Rear Elevation (N):
Main rear elevation is painted render and three storeys high with attic. It is abutted on right side by a three storey return with hipped roof built at half landing height, which is further abutted by a two storey return with hipped roof. The latter is finally abutted by a single storey lean-to. Both larger returns have natural slate hipped roofs with red clay ridge tiles. A shared rear yard is formed with No 22 on the E side.
The rear elevation is exposed to left side only with a single window opening to each level; wide opening on ground level with a wide 2/2 timber sliding sash window, 6/6 windows to FF & SF levels. Small rooflight to left side of rear roof pitch.
The side (E) of the three storey return has randomly placed openings, not aligned with the openings below; on ground floor level, from left to right - door opening with flush timber door to extreme left side with two window openings on right, both timber top-hung. Two small openings on first floor, a 3/6 timber sliding sash window on left side and a top-hung timber window to right. Two small openings on second floor, a top-hung timber window on left side and a 3/6 timber sliding sash window to right.
The side (E) of the two storey return has a single large window opening to ground floor level with paired top-hung timber windows and a single window opening to extreme right side on first floor level, which is a 3/6 timber sliding sash and appears original.
The rear (N) elevation, which is exposed above the hipped roof of the two storey return has a single window opening on right side with a 4/8 timber sliding sash window (narrow outer panes). The rear (N) of the two storey return has a centrally located single window opening with a 3/6 timber sliding sash window above the lean-to below. The rear elevation of the single storey lean-to has a single window opening to approximate middle (window type not seen at time of survey).
The side (W) elevations of the returns are blank and are only exposed from first floor level as a single storey flat roofed extension has infilled the space between the rear returns of Nos 20 and 21.
All walls to rear are painted render, with a painted rendered plinth.
All windows to the rear have plain reveals and appear to have painted stone cills with the exception of the single storey lean-to which appears to have a painted concrete cill. All windows to ground floor level are behind metal bars.
Rainwater goods are painted metal, guttering supported on metal rise & fall brackets.
A rear alleyway is located at the North end, enclosed on the north side by modern buildings (‘The Black Box’, part of QFT and School of Creative Arts at QUB) which back onto University Square Mews.

Historical information

As its name suggests, University Square was one of a number of streets created as a direct consequence of the construction of Queen’s College in 1845-49. Set immediately north of the College’s grounds, the street (originally intended to be named ‘Victoria Square’) was laid out in c.1847 under the direction of the designer of the college itself, Charles Lanyon, on land set aside for development by then owner, Jane Gregg. The rear (northern) ends of the house plots followed an already established boundary of a garden belonging to a pre-1832 residence whose integrity had begun to be broken up by the building of present nos.2-6 Mount Charles in 1842, nos.42-48 University Road in 1846-48, and, around the same time, the creation of what was to become University Street.

The new thoroughfare was mainly populated by large, generally similar but not entirely uniform, three-storey late-Georgian style brick-built terraced dwellings, nos.18-25 dating from 1848-49, 26-27 built in 1849-51, 4-17 in 1852, 28-30 in 1852-53, with the High Victorian nos.1-3 (on the site of three pre-1837dwellings) following in 1871. Although Lanyon determined the layout, there is no indication that he was actually involved in the design of the houses themselves. Building agreements dating from 1847 state that the frontages were to be based on Glenfield Place, a terrace then being built on Ormeau Road (present nos.121-35). The architect behind the latter is not known, but Paul Larmour has suggested that the University Square properties derived from it were the work of the prolific Belfast-based architect Thomas Jackson. So far no documentary evidence has surfaced to confirm this, but both the style of the buildings, and the fact that Jackson was later to be responsible for nos.1-3, suggest he may well have been involved with whole terrace. That said, many of the interiors have odd layout quirks (for example most of the entrances are awkwardly off-centre when viewed from their respective hallways), which seems uncharacteristic of Jackson.

The broad unity of nos.4-30 was broken in 1865 when the single-storey canted bay was added to no.19, with a two-storey version built on no.23 before 1873, similar projections appearing on nos.20 and 22 by 1883, and several others following suit in the early 1900s - some canted (nos.7 and 11) and some rounded (nos.12, 14 and 30); most of the dormers appear to be of the early 1900s also, as does the pebbledash to no.20. The mid to later 20th century witnessed changes to the rears of many of the properties, with extensions of various sizes added to many, in particular Queen’s Film Theatre at the rear of no.20, which started out in 1968 in a lecture hall addition but which, following several rebuilds (the most recent and most extensive in c.2004), has spread into what were the formerly the back gardens of a significant number of its neighbours to either side. The whole terrace underwent a major renovation in c.1990-94, with the small front gardens landscaped and adapted for disabled access c.2004.

The street was populated in its early years by a mixture of Queen’s academics and those well-off Belfast merchants and professionals wishing to escape the confines of the rapidly commercialising town centre for more sedate surrounds. By c.1920 the terrace was largely occupied by medical men and their families, but with the opening up of ‘education for all’ in the late 1940s, the properties were gradually acquired by Queen’s for use by their growing range of departments. By 1960 the University had taken possession of around two-thirds of the buildings, was occupying all bar one by 1974, with all coming into QUB use by the mid-1980s.

To the rear of the terrace two mews houses are noted from c.1880 onwards, one of which remained occupied as a private dwelling up until the 1960s. Both have since demolished to make way for QUB extensions.

No.21 was one of University Square’s original eight houses, being built in 1848-49 along with the present nos.18-20 and 22-25.
Mrs. Isabella Killen, is noted as the occupant in the 1850 street directory remaining there until c.1893 with George B. Coulter named as householder in the 1895 street directory. In the 1901 census, Mr. Coulter (a 57yr-old life insurance agent) is noted as living there with his wife, Clemenia and two domestic servants, with the building itself a ‘first class’ dwelling with 15 rooms in use. In c.1906 the lease was taken up by surgeon Thomas Sinclair Kirk, who in the 1911 census was occupying no.21 with his wife, Constance Mary, and two domestic servants. Dr. Kirk moved out c.1941 and after a period of vacancy, E. Reid, a consulting engineer, is recorded as the occupant in 1947. By 1951 the property had been acquired by Queen’s for use by the University’s Department of French. By 1955 both it and neighbouring no.20 had become the ‘Women Students’ Hall’, with both becoming part of the Faculty of Law in c.1972. They were still in use as such in 1980, but are not recorded in the directories from at least 1986 onwards.

Map evidence suggests the bay window may have been added in the early 1900s. The building was listed in 1979. The early to mid 1990s refurbishment of the whole terrace witnessed the renewal of no.21’s roof covering and chimney and the building of a single-storey rear extension. In c.2003-04 (the the rebuilding of the Queen’s Film Theatre) the interior was adapted to include the upper floors of into neighbouring no.20, and around the same time the front garden adapted for disabled access.

References – Primary sources
1 ‘Northern Whig’, 17 March 1849
2 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1852 to 1996
3 PRONI VAL12B/43A/4 annual valuation revision book, c.1861-81
4 PRONI VAL12B/43A/14 annual valuation revision book, 1882-97
5 PRONI OS8/30/3/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1883-84
6 PRONI OS8/30/4/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1896
8 PRONI VAL12B/43A/36 annual valuation revision book, 1897-1905
7 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [online - http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/]
8 PRONI OS8/30/5/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1903
9 PRONI VAL12B/43P/3 valuation book, 1906-15
13 PRONI VAL12B/43P/6 valuation book, 1916-30
14 OS maps, 1958, 1970 (online - http://www.centremapslive.co.uk/)

Secondary sources
1 Carleton, S.T., ‘The growth of South Belfast’, (unpublished QUB MA thesis), 1967
2 Rowan, A.J. and Brett, C.E.B., Historic Buildings…Queens University of Belfast, (Belfast, UAHS, revised ed. 1980)
3 David Evans and Paul Larmour, ‘Queen’s an Architectural legacy’, (Belfast, 1995), pp.51-53

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
R. Age
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Three storey with attic, three bay, red brick, mid terraced former townhouse, now incorporating much of the ground floor and all of the upper floor accommodation of No 20 University Square (HB26/27/015T) on its W side. No 21 operates as university offices for the School of Creative Arts at Queen’s University. The terrace was built in stages between 1848-1853 with No 21 constructed in 1848-49. While University Square was laid out by Charles Lanyon, the architect of the actual terrace is unconfirmed. Fronting onto University Square in South Belfast, the terrace faces south and overlooks the Old Library (now QUB Student Graduate Centre – HB26/27/002) and the grounds of the northern end of The Lanyon Building (HB26/27/005). No 21 is located towards the east end of the street, one of a row of 30 former houses and is flanked by No 20 (HB26/27/021T) on the west and No 22 (HB26/27/021V) on the east. Internally there have been changes to the original floor plan, with the integration with No 20, however some original features survive to upper floors. The exterior retains much original character, proportions and detailing to the front with its distinctive doorcase, a feature which is repeated throughout the terraced row. However, the large modern flat-roofed extension to the rear of Nos 20 & 21 detracts from the rear setting. There is coherence to the terrace despite elevational variations such as bay and bow windows which were added to some of the houses during the late 1800s into the early 1900s. The terrace has strong value as a group (Nos 4-30 University Square - HB26/27/015D-DD) and adds significant character to its setting within the Queen’s Conservation Area.