15 MOUNT CHARLES

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Three-storey with attic mid-terraced brick townhouse with pitched roof, constructed to the designs of Alexander MacAlister in 1859. One of a terrace of nine, No 15 is seventh house from the right hand side, when viewed from Mount Charles. Rectangular on plan with projecting return to rear, the terrace faces north and lines the south side of Mount Charles a tree-lined street which runs between Botanic Avenue on the east side and University Road on the west, within the Queen’s Conservation Area. The rear return and yard back onto University Street with a tall wall with false windows at high level, giving the appearance of a three storey facade. Originally constructed as a townhouse, it is now university student accommodation.

Materials:
Roof : Natural Welsh slate with black clay ridge tiles
Walls: Red brick (Flemish bond) & painted render. Lime pointing.
Rainwater goods: Cast aluminium, small section of PVC at canted bay
Windows: Timber sliding sash with horns, single-glazed (replacement) / Modern rooflights.

Front Elevation (N):
Three storey brick facade built in Flemish bond with a single storey canted rendered bay on right and doorway on left at ground floor level. Two windows above on each of first and second floors, and two modern rooflights at attic level. All windows to the front are single-glazed timber sliding sash with horns and replacements. Windows to the canted bay and first floor level are horizontally split 2/2. (The lower sash of the bay windows have a translucent film applied to the inner face.) Second floor windows are 8/8. First and second floor window heads are straight with splayed brick soldiers. Continuous painted stone cill course to first and second floors. Deep painted rendered plinth to base and similar frieze beneath eaves.
The canted bay to the right is painted render with moulded plaster detailing, the lower section under cill being formed by the deep plinth. Flat roof with modern roof membrane over projecting cornice.
The doorway has an elliptical arched head with brick voussoirs and moulded plaster reveal, deeply recessed with ionic columns to each side on raised moulded plaster panelled bases. The columns support a moulded plaster entablature with plain fanlight over. The cornice, columns and bases sit on top of two replacement concrete steps with dwarf wall each side. The timber four-panelled door itself appears to be original, although the two top panels have been replaced with glazing. Ironmongery replaced.
Pitched natural Welsh slate roof with black clay ridge tiles. Brick chimney stacks to right and left (rebuilt), shared with Nos 13 & 17, centred on ridge with corbelled detailing and seven circular clay pots. Cast aluminium ogee gutter. Cast aluminium downpipe and hopper from canted bay, small section of PVC pipe from bay into hopper.

Side Elevation (E):
Fully abutted by No 17 (HB26/27/021H).

Side Elevation (W):
Fully abutted by No 13 (HB26/27/021F).

Rear Elevation (S):
Three storey facade abutted by an original three storey return on the right side built at half-landing height. All walls to rear within yard are painted render. The rear yard is enclosed by the rear wall of the house, return on right side, return of No 13 on left side and three storey yard wall to University Street. Pitched natural Welsh slate roof to main block with one modern rooflight to left side, hipped natural Welsh slate roof with black clay ridge tiles to return.

The rear elevation of the main block is abutted by a single-storey flat-roofed modern extension boiler house, spanning the full width and approximately half the depth of the yard. The boiler house is accessed from the yard through a set of double painted timber doors with metal vents. There are two large circular-section metal flues rising from the felt roof of the boiler house to above full eaves height. Yellow gas pipework extends from the boiler house to the rear yard wall along the wall with No 13 at high level.
All windows to the rear are single-glazed timber sliding sash with horns and are replacements, with possible exception of a ground floor window on the rear yard wall.
The rear elevation of the main block has a 2/2 window (horizontally split) on the left side at first and second floor levels with painted stone cills. A smaller single 6/6 window is located at the attic half landing level on the right side, above the roof of the return.
The elevation of the return facing into the yard is comprised of a replacement timber back door on the extreme left, adjacent to the extension. Above the boiler house extension there is a 6/6 window on first floor level and a smaller similar 6/6 window above on second floor. To the right side of the back door, on ground floor level is a set of modern double painted timber doors with metal vents giving access to the oil tank. Cast metal downpipe and replacement cast metal gutters on metal brackets to rear elevation and within yard.
The internal face of the yard wall onto University Street is comprised of a replacement timber sheeted door with plain fanlight over on ground floor level, and two multi-pane timber window frames above (no glass), one at first floor level and the other above at second floor level, both with slim painted stone cills. Plain flat concrete coping stone to rear wall.

The three storey high facade onto University Street is constructed of dark brown brick in Flemish bond with a rendered plinth and eaves band. The replacement yard door on left is painted timber paneling with plain fanlight beneath a semi-circular head with brick voussoirs. To the right is a 6/6 window (possibly original) with wrought iron bars attached to the reveals and painted stone cills. Diminutive square single-pane window with frosted glass to right hand side (surrounding brick has been re-pointed). First floor has false multi-pane window frame (no glass) to left side and 6/6 window on right. First floor openings have shallow arched heads. Second floor level same as first floor, except heads are straight. Cast iron gutter above painted rendered eaves band.

The front of each house in the terrace is accessed directly from the tree-lined pavement of Mount Charles while the rear is accessed directly from the pavement of University Street via the yard door.

Historical information

The granting of perpetual leases - and eventually outright sales of land - by the Donegall estate from the mid-1820s onwards, opened up attractive plots along the Malone Ridge to developers. Thus the following decades were to witness a number of relatively large scale building projects on the northern lower slopes of the Ridge, along and branching off from what was then ‘Old Malone Road’, (now University Road), as far south as the newly laid out Botanic Gardens. This movement intensified with the establishment of Queen’s College in 1845 and by the end of the 1850s the area was characterised by large rows of graceful terraces, largely early Victorian in date, but late-Georgian in style.

Mount Charles was part of this whole expansion. It is located within a trapezoidal plot set between what was formerly ‘Old Malone Road’ (the present University Road) and Albion Lane (the forerunner of Botanic Avenue), that belonged to a pre-1832 house –probably dating from c.1770 - recorded in the 1837 valuation as a two-storey residence. In its original form the street consisted of the present nos.2-6, built in 1842, with all three accessed by a short private lane opening off the main road. The old pre-1830s house was demolished c.1850 and in 1854 the new lane was adapted to serve no.1 to the south, (which was built as part of the development of nos.38-40 University Road), and extended further eastwards agin in 1859 with the building of nos.3-19 and 8-16, with nos.18-24 following in 1869. Despite all of these new arrivals, the street - unlike its near neighbours University Street, University Square and Upper and Lower Crescent, - did not become a public thoroughfare, maintaining its private (gated) character, even after the building of nos.26-50 in 1892-94 linked it directly through to Botanic Avenue.

Nos.3-19 This three-storey terrace, very much in the late Georgian style which characterised much of the early / mid Victorian development in the University area, was built in 1859-60 by Bernard (‘Barney’) Hughes (1805-78), the Armagh-born baker who eventually became Belfast’s master baker and the owner of Ireland’s largest milling concern. A noted philanthropist, Hughes initially offered part of his holding in Mount Charles to the Redemptorist Order to serve the catholics of the Malone area, but this was turned down and he subsequently decided to develop the site for dwelling houses much in the vein of the existing terraces in the vicinity.

The designer of nos.3-19, (and no.8-16 opposite), was Alexander MacAlister (c.1821-97) a native of Carlow, who spent his entire career in Belfast working on commissions almost exclusively located in counties Antrim and Down. The properties were previewed in The Dublin Builder of 1 May 1859, with the writer describing them as ‘not large’, their plots ‘too confined for our notion of how towns should be built, but the proprietor appears to be sparing no expense to render then durable and elegant dwellings for those whose aspirations do not go beyond paying £45 or £50 per annum rent… . There is a fashion in everything. Bay windows seem as much the rage now as hoops or crinoline! All Mr. Hughes’ houses have their parlours enlarged and their exteriors decorated with this appendage and fitted up with arrangements for hot and cold baths, sunk and covered ashpits in the yards, and everything necessary for comfort and convenience. The workmanship alone is contracted for, the proprietor supplying all the materials and the whole superintended by Mr. McAlister. The nine houses on the south side have the peculiarity of a double frontage, the returns extending to University Street, with the yard wall in the same street built up to an equal height with the windows and cornice above. This has the advantage of making the return bedroom one of the most cheerful and desirable in the house, which is far from usual.’

Originally all private dwelling houses, by 1991 nos.11-19 were in the ownership of Queen’s University and shortly afterwards were converted to student accommodation. This included the following alterations: the rebuilding of the chimneystacks and replacement of pots; the re-slating of the roofs in new Bangor Blues; the introduction of cast aluminium rainwater goods in place of the original cast-iron versions; re-plastering externally and internally (no plaster detailing remained internally at that stage); the re-pointing of brickwork; the renewal of all the window frames; the replacement reconstituted stone steps to front entrance; the renewal of the rooflights to front and rear, and all of the internal joinery work replaced with the exception of the staircases.

In recent times the university has carried out a further refurbishment scheme which has involved the replacement of all kitchens and bathrooms, and further changes to the joinery.

No.15 appears to have been first occupied by Mrs. Annabella Wilson, a shopkeeper with premises in Donegall Place, who remained there until c.1867, when she was succeeded by William Grogan, a linen merchant, who in turn was followed by Thomas Gerrard, ‘manager of Belfast Mills’. By 1884 Mrs. Robert Reid, had taken on the lease, remaining until c.1898 when Rev. Hugh Davis Murphy, Rector of St. George’s Church became resident, who in the 1901 census is recorded as living there with his wife, Francesca, their three children, house guest and two domestic servants, with the building itself noted as a ‘first class’ dwelling with 11 rooms in use. The Murphys vacated no.15 in 1909 and Miss Agnes Scott Gibson is noted as the householder in 1910, who in the 1911 census was occupying the house with two boarders. William McBretney had become occupant by at least 1918, and was still there in 1924, but by 1932 the property had been divided into flats with E.F. Cassidy, a banker, Miss A.A. Murphy and E.E. Fisher, a solicitor, in residence at that point. The building remained as three flats until it was acquired by QUB in c.1990-91.

Primary Sources
1 OS maps and town plans, 1832, 1843, 1858, 1871-73, 1883-84, 1896
2 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1861 to 1996
3 PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/4 General Valuation of Ireland - Annual Revisions (1865-1881)
4 PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/36 General Valuation of Ireland - Annual Revisions (1897 - 1905)
5 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [available online]
6 PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/3 General Valuation of Ireland - Annual Revisions (1906-1915)
7 PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/6 General Valuation of Ireland - Annual Revisions (1916-1930)

Secondary Sources
1 Carleton, S.T., ‘The growth of South Belfast’ MA Thesis (QUB, 1967)
2 Larmour, Paul 'Belfast, an Illustrated Architectural Guide', Friar's Bush Press, 1987
3 Magee, Jack, ‘Barney, Bernard Hughes of Belfast 1808-78’ (2001)
4 Royle, Stephen A., ‘Irish Historic Towns Atlas No.17 – Belfast, Part II, 1840 to 1900’ (Irish Royal Academy, 2007)

Online sources
1 Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie/architects/view/3712/MACALISTER%2C+ALEXANDER#tab_works

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
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
R. Age
S. Authenticity
V. Authorship
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

Three-storey with attic mid-terraced brick townhouse with pitched roof, constructed to the designs of Alexander MacAlister in 1859. The land was developed by Bernard (‘Barney’) Hughes (1805-78), a noted philanthropist and Armagh-born baker who eventually became Belfast’s master baker and the owner of Ireland’s largest milling concern. One of a terrace of nine, No 15 is flanked by Nos 3-13 HB26/27/021A-F on the W side & Nos 17-19 HB26/27/021A H-I on the E). The terrace faces north and lines the south side of Mount Charles, a tree-lined street which runs between Botanic Avenue on the east side and University Road on the west. The rear return and yard back onto University Street with a tall wall with false windows at high level, giving the appearance of a three storey facade. Originally constructed as a townhouse, it was divided into flats during the 1930s, and since the 1990s it is has been university student accommodation, having been refurbished for this means with some subdivision of the original plan form, yet retaining the staircase in its original position. However, the exterior retains much original character, proportions and detailing with its single storey canted bay and deeply recessed doorway with ionic columns accessed directly from the street, details which are repeated throughout the terraced row. The terrace has strong value as a group (Nos 3-19 Mount Charles – HB26/27/021A-I) and the dual aspect onto both Mount Charles and University Street, a strong design feature carried out with much success, adds significant character to its setting within the Queen’s Conservation Area.