1 UPPER CRESCENT & 28 UNIVERSITY ROAD,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Relatively large three storey restrained Italianate stuccoed terrace town house of 1869 by William Hastings, converted to a bank 2001-02 with large modern style entrance inserted to the W side. The property is set on the corner of Upper Crescent and University Road.

The building is now entered from the W elevation. The W elevation itself is asymmetrical. To the left side is a modern access ramp. To the right on the ground floor is a large modern style entrance with recessed plate glass doorway. To the immediate right of the doorway recess is a pair of ATMs. To the left of the entrance are three unevenly spaced plain sash windows with moulded voussoirs. To the first floor are six symmetrically arranged semicircular windows with relatively plain pilaster-like surrounds and moulded archivolts. These windows rest on a cill course. To the second floor are four smaller flat arch windows with plain sash frames and simple moulded surrounds. These windows are also set on a cill course.

The N elevation is longer and symmetrical save for the windows to the second floor. To the centre of the ground floor is the original main entrance (no longer used). This consists of a panelled door with semicircular fanlight all set within a deep semicircular headed recess. This recess is flanked with a plain rendered surround which is topped with a small decorative ‘balustrade’ supported on curved brackets with a moulded ‘keystone’ between also acting as a bracket. To the left of the doorway are three windows, as ground floor W elevation, but with the second and third windows narrower. To the right of the doorway are three windows, as previous, but in mirrored formation.

To the first floor are seven symmetrically arranged windows, as those to the first floor of W elevation. The second and third and fifth and sixth windows are arranged in pairs, and these, along with the centre window are narrower than the outer windows. To the second floor are eight windows, as those to second floor W elevation. The second and third and fifth and sixth windows are arranged in pairs.

The ground floor of both the N and W elevations are finished in rusticated render with vermiculated in-out quoins. The upper floors are in plain render with plain in-out quoins.

No access to rear, but from a distance the writers were able to observe two rendered gabled returns which abut eachother, with that to N much larger. The larger gable has a large flat arch vehicle doorway to the ground floor, with a very narrow window to right of this and another similar window to the first floor. The smaller return has a window (with modern two pane frame) to the first floor.

The building has a slated hipped roof with a slight overhang supported on a bracketed eaves course. There are four unevenly arranged rendered chimneystacks to the N side all with a bracketed coping and uniform pots. Metal rw goods.

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.1 Upper Crescent
This property, originally named ‘Crescent House’ was built in 1869 to designs by William Hastings. Its original resident was one Dr Wilberforce Arnold, whose family remained there until the early 1900s. The next occupant was a Dr John Campbell [?later Sir John Campbell], who was followed by a Dr William Campbell (presumably his son). Both the Campbells (and possibly Arnold before them) appear have used the University Road section of the property as a surgery.

In the 1970s the building was acquired by near by Queen’s University and served as the University’s Institute of Professional Legal Studies. In 2001-02 the property was converted to a branch of the Bank of Ireland (and practically rebuilt in the process), with half of the first floor and all of the second floor converted to offices, linked to the large modern office block to the east.

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 three storey restrained Italianate stuccoed terrace town house of 1869 by William Hastings, converted to a bank in 2001-02. The buildings contribute to the group value of Upper and Lower Crescent.