119 UNIVERSITY STREET BELFAST

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

One of a pair of late Victorian, two-bay, three storey with attic, redbrick terraced houses with Dumfries red sandstone dressings, constructed between 1890 and 1893 by architect William J Fennell, located on University Street at its junction with Sandhurst Road, near Queen’s University in South Belfast.

University Street is one of the main roads linking the Ormeau Road in the E with the University area to the W, characterised by red brick terraces. There is a 20th C hotel building opposite and All Saints Church (HB26/27/054) to the immediate NW, also by WJ Fennell.
No.119 is set back from the pavement behind brick dwarf walling with sandstone coping and piers. Replacement railings.

Redbrick Flemish bond walling; full-height projecting canted bay to N elevation and two-storey bowed bay to W gable.
Pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles; natural slate hipped polygonal roof to canted bay with terracotta ridge tiles and finial.
Tall redbrick chimneys with cornices and clay pots on W gable.

Windows have been replaced with uPVC double-glazing throughout and there are modern rooflights at attic level.
Sandstone stringcourse at cill level and sandstone dressings to all openings on N and W facades.
Rainwater goods are painted metal.

Front elevation (N)
Two-bay façade with three-storey projecting canted bay on right side and front entrance on left; sandstone moulded architrave to front doorway with decorative carved sandstone pediment with a crest depicting a pelican standing on a rose branch with the motto ‘PROBITAS FONS HONORIS’ (Integrity is the fountain of honour) carved on scroll below; smaller carved pediment to first floor window above doorway and to centre bay of first floor bay with carved ‘WG’ motif.
Front door appears to be a replica of the original door and has six panels with segmental overlight. Entrance accessed by four replacement concrete steps with modern handrails to each side.
Segmental heads to windows on two lower floors and straight heads to second floor.
Chunky sandstone brackets to projecting sandstone eaves cornice.

Gable elevation (E)
Fully abutted by No.121 University Street (HB26/27/056B).

Gable elevation (W)
Facing W onto Sandhurst Road; three storey gable on left side with two storey return on right, which abuts No.2 Sandhurst Road.
No.119 has a shallow projecting chimney breast on left side and a two-storey bow window with flat roof on right with a pair of window openings on second floor above; decorative, fretted timber barges to eaves level and apex of gable, supported on sandstone brackets and timber brackets.
W façade of return has paired window openings to both ground and first floor levels, and two replacement doors on right side accessing rear store and yard; single window opening above.
Chunky sandstone brackets to projecting sandstone eaves cornice; stone coping to plinth with rendered plinth below.

Rear elevation (S)
Rear return to left side with single storey stores and access to Sandhurst Road via alleyway.
Rear wall of main block has painted brickwork to ground floor level, and brick above; splayed brick voussoir heads to first floor windows and arched voussoirs to large half landing window opening above. Single window opening at high level on E wall of return.

Setting:
Located on the S side of University Street on the corner with Sandhurst Road, in close proximity to Queen's University. University Street is one of the main roads linking the Ormeau Road in the E with the University area to the W, characterised by red brick terraces. There is a 20th C hotel building opposite and All Saints Church (HB26/27/054) to the immediate NW, also by WJ Fennell.
The building is set back slightly from street level behind a small concrete enclosure bounded by a low brick plinth wall with sandstone coping and piers; railings are replacement.

Materials:
Roof: natural slate
RWG: painted metal
Walling: Red brick in Flemish bond, with Dumfries red sandstone dressings
Windows: Replacement uPVC windows throughout

Historical information

119 University Street was constructed as one of a pair (with 121 University Street) between 1890 and 1893 to designs by noted Belfast architect W J Fennell. The building is adorned with sandstone reliefs that identify the owner/builder as William Gabbey, a well-regarded local contractor.

Original plans held by Belfast City Council are signed by the architect W J Fennell and dated 1890. The Northern Whig of 2nd September 1890 confirms that plans had been approved for two houses in University Street and Sandhurst Road for William Gabbey. The pair of dwellings enter valuation records in 1893 (at £45 each), suggesting there was a short delay in the construction of the dwelling houses. William Gabbey advertised the current dwelling in the Belfast Newsletter of September 1893 (to be let or sold) as a ‘magnificent new house; three large receptions, six bedrooms; finished beautifully throughout’.

The architect, William John Fennell (d.1923) was a distinguished designer of church buildings, domestic dwellings and schools, his most well-known works in Belfast being the Water Commissioner’s Office (1883), 68-70 Royal Avenue (1885), Cooke Centenary Church (1890-92), Mater Infirmorum Hospital (1894-1900), Cushendall Presbyterian Church (1899-90), Whitla Medical Institute (1902) and Harding Memorial School (1911-13). His domestic work includes a number of suburban villas in Belfast, largely in the Malone area, and several of which are substantial semi-detached pairs. Fennell was a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the RIAI, as well as being a founder member of the RSUA. He was to have a significant architectural impact on this part of University Street, also subsequently designing All Saints Church (1897-8), which lies diagonally opposite the current pair of dwelling houses.

The pair of dwelling houses was built by William Gabbey, well-known Belfast building contractor who also had a timber mill in Hope Street (from at least the late 1870s) where he produced ‘mouldings wrought to any design’ and joinery for building construction using ‘most improved machinery’. His obituary recorded that his houses were ‘noted for the excellence of their finish and their workmanship’ and when the current house was being advertised for sale in 1921, almost 30 years later and long after his death, William Gabbey’s name was still being used as a selling point.Gabbey worked with Fennell on at least one other occasion, constructing the two acre Cullingtree factory (now gone) for W W Cleland, packaging manufacturers, completed in 1904.

Gabbey had built up a considerable reputation by the time the present house was constructed as one of the most ‘eminent’ building contractors in Belfast. Gabbey lived in Sandhurst Street and then at ‘Princess Gardens’, in University Street, and built numerous houses (and occasionally shops and commercial premises) in the area known as ‘The Plains’ of Belfast in the period 1870 to 1906, as well as elsewhere in Belfast and further afield (notably Dungannon). He is known to have constructed houses in University Street, Magdala Street, Fitzroy Avenue and Agincourt Street and perhaps most notably a terrace of four houses in Botanic Avenue to designs by Vincent Craig (one of which is now listed HB26/27/047) and the terrace in which he himself lived ‘Princess Gardens’ (his former home, constructed c1880, is now listed HB26/27/046D). The gable end of the current dwelling features a double-height bow with similarities to full-height bows on the Princess Gardens dwellings. Gabbey also built the adjacent terraces to the current dwellings, in Sandhurst Road and 109-117 University Street. His son and heir to the business, William C Gabbey, lived at number 117.

Gabbey began to build a significant business from the 1870s and in the summer of 1879, newspapers reported that his workers had been treated to a day trip to Newcastle the assembled company (including ‘wives and sweethearts’) amounting to 300 people. Gabbey’s success was maintained through the following decades and he was noted to be one of the seven main importers of roofing slates in the city in 1896. He was selected as a government expert in building matters, following an accident at Falls Foundry in 1903, and retained this position until his death in 1906. It was said at the time of his appointment that ‘no gentleman is more frequently selected as arbitrator and expert in building matters’.

The initials ‘WG’ are carved into the stonework (red Scottish sandstone) over the first-floor windows of both houses and a crest and motto used by William Gabbey are carved above the doorways. The crest depicts a pelican standing on a rose branch with the motto ‘Probitas Fons Honoris’ meaning ‘Integrity is the fountain of honour’. Fairbairn’s Book of Crests identifies the pelican and rose branch and the motto as belonging to ‘Moses Gubbay Esq of Poona East India’. It is unclear whether William Gabbey was genuinely descended from Gubbay or had simply chosen to use part of the coat of arms belonging to a man with a similar name.

Although William Gabbey put a clear visual stamp on both buildings, it does not appear that he ever lived in either of them. The houses are both recorded in street directories/valuation records as vacant until 1896, when they were both let to tenants and 119 acquired the name “Somerset House”. The first tenant recorded as resident in number 119 is the Rev William Park who lived at the house until c1905. Rev William Park was resident at the time of the 1900 Belfast Revaluation which gives a plan and dimensions for the building at that time, listing a total of eight sitting rooms and bedrooms plus one attic room. The house was fitted with gas and a bathroom and the cost of construction was estimated by the valuer at £877. The plan of the building at this time does not differ greatly from the plan form today, suggesting that the original footprint has been largely retained.

The 1901 census records Rev Park’s family present in the ten-room first-class house, although he himself was elsewhere at the time the census was taken. His son and daughter, William (an electrical engineer) and Susan were present at the house together with a Tyrone-born housemaid and a cook from County Derry. Rev William Park (d.1925) had been installed as minister in Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church in 1873, a position he occupied for 52 years, and had served as Moderator of the General Assembly in 1890 before moving to the current house. In the period he was resident he was convenor of the Foreign Mission (1886-1902), which may explain his absence from the house at the time of the census. Rev Park was considered sufficiently skilful as a theologian to be awarded an LL.D by Queen’s University Belfast in 1921.

William Gabbey senior was tragically killed in a railway accident at Carnalea Station in 1906, and his son, William C Gabbey, took over his business and his property in University Street, letting the house from 1906 to c.1915 to John Williamson, tanner and master boot manufacturer with premises (Williamson Bros) at 46 Royal Avenue. Williamson was resident at the time of the 1911 census with his wife and four young children. The family kept a general domestic servant, Isabella Scarlett from County Monaghan.

William C Gabbey, like his father, was a prominent Belfast citizen and during WW1, played a significant part in providing funds and support for servicemen, being the ‘leading spirit’ in the founding of the Sailors and Soldiers’ Service Club, and a committee member of the Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Help Society. He both donated his own money to causes benefitting servicemen and arranged for money to be raised through his work with the Rotary Club, of which he was president for the 1914-15 term. Gabbey’s property at 119 University Street was used by the UVF during the war, ultimately becoming the property of their Trustees. It is unclear whether Gabbey sold the property to the UVF while alive or left it to them in his will (he died in 1919), but his close association with servicemen’s charitable causes, suggests a motivation for passing the property to them.

The UVF had established a military hospital in the Exhibition Hall in Botanic Gardens in 1914 which was subsequently extended into the grounds of Queen’s University in 1915. The hospital provided treatment for soldiers fighting on the fronts in France and Belgium and later in the war, from Gallipoli, Salonica and the Middle East, also containing a workshop which made artificial limbs. After the war ended, the wooden buildings continued in use as a military hospital until 1926. The current dwelling was used as a nurses’ home for hospital staff for a time between c1917 and c1919 but also offered maternity services, some babies being born here during this period.

After the war, the house was again let out and in December 1919 was occupied by a Captain M S Morgan, who headed up a jazz band called ‘St George’s’ (also known as ‘St George’s Alabam Jazz Band’). St George’s Jazz Band, based in London and made up of demobbed servicemen was an extremely early jazz band to perform in Ireland - only a few months before in February ‘Mr Thompson’s’ was being advertised as ‘the only Jazz Band in Belfast’. At their performance at the newly-opened 100 club in Belfast they were described as ‘an excellent London combination’. Jazz had erupted onto the scene in Belfast, initially as a new dance step in late 1918. The music was described by an early Belfast listener as ‘strange’ and ‘jangling’ and a few months later criticized by one Irish orchestra leader as ‘suggestive and indecent’. By late 1919 jazz was becoming something of a craze and several jazz bands including ‘St George’s’ were performing in Belfast. The next resident, Miss Doak, maintained the musical theme, offering pianoforte lessons at the house in 1921.

The UVF trustees attempted to sell the house in 1921, the advertisement giving a full list of rooms with dimensions, and describing the house as ‘situated in attractive and healthy residential district’. The ad draws attention to the interior as a selling point: ‘In arrangement, material and workmanship the greatest care has been bestowed, the Rooms are large and the ceilings lofty, whilst the Hall and Landings are most artistically finished’. An attempt was again made to sell the house in 1926, stating that it was ‘admirably adapted for a Private Nursing Home’, but the house appears to have remained unsold and the UVF Trustees retained it until the 1940s.

Following partition in 1921, the Union Theological College in Botanic Avenue was used as a parliament building pending construction of Stormont (completed 1932). Various government departments were housed in buildings across Belfast and the Ministry of Labour was located, in part, at 119 University Street in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The specific function of the current building was to house the Medical Referee’s Office. Medical referees were appointed by the Home Office in Northern Ireland to assess cases brought under the Workers’ Compensation Act (1897) which allowed workers to claim for compensation after workplace injuries.

When the Ministry of Labour had removed to Stormont, the current building became a nursing home. Balminster Nursing Home was run by Miss Hannah Beattie SRN and opened in 1932. Balminster advertised its suitability for a wide range of patients, ’surgical, medical, maternity, chronic and mental patients received’ and newspaper notices suggest that babies were again born at the house during this period. Valuation records of 1934 reveal that the home contained bedrooms for five patients, and rooms for the staff, which consisted of a matron and two trained nurses. An operating theatre had been installed on the first floor at a cost of £70. The home also advertised a novel facility, the Zotofoam bath – a ‘medical’ bubble bath that used bubbles generated electrically to raise body temperature and metabolic rate. The bath was claimed to assist weight loss. In 1936 the house was sold and became St Elmo Private nursing home, again principally a maternity home, newspaper notices recording babies born at the home between 1938 and 1941.

In October 1941 the house was taken over by the government for a second time and the Ministry of Information’s Travellers’ Censorship Office was situated there. It was the job of the Censor to examine any literature, documents, letters, photographs, portraits or other material which the owner wished to take from Northern Ireland to Eire and remove or censor any material which ‘may prove prejudicial to the State’. Visiting the Censor before a trip meant less risk of having papers confiscated at the border. The examined documents were placed in an envelope which was labelled and sealed and the traveller issued with a permit. When the Ministry of Information was dissolved in 1946, the building passed to the Ministry of Finance but was vacated by them in May 1947.

After the war, the building was offered for sale in 1948 and by 1955 had been converted into three flats, occupied by civil servants, nurses and teachers. With the outbreak of the Troubles, Belfast became less attractive for residents and the house was sold again in 1970, being advertised as suitable for conversion into offices. Initially the building provided offices for professionals and businesses associated with the construction industry. Colum P Macnally was a consulting engineer who worked on several schools and churches including a Catholic Church at Greystone Road, Antrim, a new primary school in Glengormley, an extension to Our Lady of Lourdes, Ballymoney, an extension to Stella Maris, Rathcoole, a library block at St Joseph’s College of Education, St Aloysius Special School, Somerton Road and St Aiden’s Secondary School Glenavy. McCartan & McAteer were Civil Engineering Contractors who worked on projects including Limavady Sewage Treatment Works, additional buildings at Methodist College, Gas Mains for Belfast Corporation, the dual carriageway in West Belfast and Woodburn reservoir. Medway Buildings (NI) Ltd were a subsidiary of a Kent-based company that sold ‘industrialised building systems’ in Northern Ireland. The company was awarded contracts by schools, churches and hospitals, and also supplied temporary housing for families whose houses had been destroyed in the disturbances of the 1970s. Maiden Poster sites, advertising contractors and McGrath office supplies were also based in the building in the 1980s.

In the mid-1980s the former dwelling became a vet’s practice, and in 1994 the building was converted into offices and counselling rooms as the Belfast headquarters of the Nexus Institute (now Nexus NI), using funding from the Department of Health. This charity responds to the needs of adults who have experienced sexual abuse. Nexus remained in University Street until 2021 when they moved to the Malone Road and the building is currently used as a foodbank.

This substantial Victorian gothic semi-detached villa, with classical details, is the work of a distinguished architect and a prominent builder and constitutes a significant presence on this corner site where its full-height canted bay, double-height bow and fretted bargeboards are shown off to advantage. The building is enhanced by the use of sandstone in cornices and dressings, decoratively carved over the front door and windows, the monogram and crest linking the house to its original owner and builder William Gabbey. The attention to decorative detail is maintained in the interior where high-quality original cornices and joinery have survived, no doubt formed from timbers that were cut by the steam saws in Gabbey’s Hope Street mill. The building’s unusual and varied past, speaks to the changing character of University Street through the last century. The unique roles of the former dwelling house during the upheaval of partition and two world wars add to its local interest.

References:
Primary Sources:
1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1832-3)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1858)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1901-2)
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1938)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/14 Valuation Revision Book 1882-1896
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43A/27 Valuation Revision Book 1897-1905
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/43A/42 Valuation Revision Book 1906-1915
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/43A/45 Valuation Revision Book 1916-1930
9. PRONI VAL/12/A/7/E/26 Valuer’s Notebook 1907
10. PRONI VAL/7/B/3/14 Belfast Revaluation 1900
11. PRONI VAL/3/C/3/6 First Northern Ireland General Revaluation 1933-1957
12. PRONI VAL/3/D/3/1/C/66 Valuers RV Binder 1933-1957
13. Belfast Street Directories 1890-1995
14. Census of Ireland 1901, 1911
15. Belfast Newsletter, 3rd November 1874
16. Northern Whig, 2nd October 1878
17. Building News, 17th January 1879
18. Belfast Newsletter, 20th June 1879
19. Northern Whig, 31st July 1880
20. Belfast Telegraph, 8th November 1881
21. Northern Whig, 14th April 1882
22. Building News, 11th April 1890
23. Northern Whig, 2nd September 1890
24. Belfast Newsletter, 12th September 1893
25. Northern Whig, 3rd October 1903
26. Belfast Newsletter, 12th February 1919
27. Belfast Newsletter, 20th March 1919
28. Belfast Weekly Telegraph, 12th April 1919
29. Belfast Newsletter, 25th November 1919
30. Belfast Newsletter, 10th December 1919
31. Belfast Newsletter, 11th December 1919
32. Belfast Newsletter, 31st May 1921
33. Northern Whig, 28th May 1926
34. Belfast Newsletter, 25th July 1930
35. Belfast Newsletter, 10th February 1932
36. Belfast Newsletter, 9th December 1932
37. Northern Whig, 8th September 1934
38. Northern Whig, 25th March 1935
39. Belfast Newsletter,12th October 1935
40. Belfast Newsletter, 10th August 1936
41. Belfast Telegraph, 16th October 1941
42. Belfast Newsletter, 8th September 1948
43. Belfast Newsletter, 25th January 1968
44. Belfast Telegraph, 7th January 1970
45. Belfast Telegraph, 6th March 1970
46. Large scale Ordnance Survey maps 1858, 1884, 1902, 1920, 1931, 1937, 1958, 1970, 1986 (www.centremapslive.co.uk)
47. ‘Roofing Slate in Ireland’ Stone Volume XIV, Number 1, December 1896, p.476-484
48. The Rotarian, Vol VI, No 2, February 1915, p.80

Secondary Sources:

49. Carleton, Samuel Trevor (1967) The Growth of South Belfast. Unpublished MPhil thesis, Queen’s University Belfast
50. Dictionary of Irish Architects (www.dia.ie)
51. Fairbairn’s Book of Crests of the families of Great Britain and Ireland in two volumes.(1905) Volume 1. London & Edinburgh: TC &EC Jack
52. A history of congregations in the Presbyterian church in Ireland 1610-1982. (1982) Belfast: Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland.

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

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

Evaluation

119 University Street is one of a pair of substantial late Victorian, two-bay, three storey with attic, redbrick terraced houses with Dumfries red sandstone dressings externally and original exceptional highly-decorative plasterwork internally, constructed between 1890 and 1893 to designs by noted Belfast architect William J Fennell, located on University Street at its junction with Sandhurst Road, near Queen’s University in South Belfast.

The architect, William John Fennell (d.1923) was a distinguished designer of church buildings, domestic dwellings and schools, some of his most well-known works in Belfast being the Water Commissioner’s Office (1883), 68-70 Royal Avenue (1885), Cooke Centenary Church (1890-92) and the Mater Infirmorum Hospital (1894-1900). His domestic work includes a number of suburban villas in Belfast, largely in the Malone area, and several of which are substantial semi-detached pairs. Fennell had a significant architectural impact on this part of University Street, also subsequently designing All Saints Church (1897-8) (HB26/27/054), located to the immediate NW.

Nos 119 and 121 were constructed by William Gabbey, a well-known Belfast building contractor who had built up a considerable reputation by the time the present house was constructed as one of the most ‘eminent’ building contractors in Belfast. His obituary recorded that his houses were ‘noted for the excellence of their finish and their workmanship’ and when the current house was being advertised for sale in 1921, William Gabbey’s name was still being used as a selling point. He is known to have constructed houses in University Street, Magdala Street, Fitzroy Avenue and Agincourt Street and perhaps most notably a terrace of four houses in Botanic Avenue to designs by the architect Vincent Craig.

No.119 has had an interesting and varied history; current dwelling was used as a nurses’ home for UVF hospital staff for a time between c1917 and c1919 . After the war, the house was occupied by jazz band leader Captain M S Morgan, then by the Ministry of Labour in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It then became a nursing home, and in 1941, was taken over by the Ministry of Information’s Travellers’ Censorship Office. Various other offices and businesses have resided at the building since, and the building is currently used as a foodbank.

No.119 University Street constitutes a significant presence on this corner site where its full-height canted bay, double-height bow and fretted bargeboards are shown off to advantage. Externally, the building is enhanced by the use of sandstone in cornices and dressings, decoratively carved over the front door and windows, the monogram and crest linking the house to William Gabbey.

The authenticity of the building is largely conveyed through its interior, in the survival of the original ornate, high-quality, decorative plasterwork cornicing which is of an exceptional, exuberant standard. It is possibly some of the highest quality seen in Belfast, raising the special interest of the building beyond what is obvious on the exterior. The building’s unusual and varied past, speaks to the changing character of University Street through the last century and the unique roles of the former dwelling house during the upheaval of partition and two world wars add to its local interest.