Garage / Shop ('Europcar')

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Relatively small single storey terrace garage / shop of perhaps c.1930 with gabled roof on Belfast Trusses, and stepped parapet to front. The property is set on the S side of University Street, close to the the junction with Ormeau Road.

The shop is set between two much taller earlier houses (now offices). It is rectangular in plan form and measures roughly 16.7m x 11.2. The front (N) elevation has two relatively large vehicle doorways to centre-right and left with roller shutters. To right is a squat window with recent frame. Above the shop front the roughcast façade rises into a stepped (somewhat ‘Art-Deco’ style) parapet with plain coping. Just below parapet level is a small recent internally illuminated shop sign with a another laminated sign below this (above the central doorway). The writers were unable to gain access to the back to see the rear elevation.

The roof could not be seen from outside but internal observation suggests it is actually pitched, (i.e. it is a regular gable), though supported on Belfast Trusses! Internal evidence also shows that it is covered in corrugated metal and has two parallel rooflights with corrugated Perspex glazing.

Historical information

This building does not appear on the OS map of 1921. It may date from c.1930.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 OS map, Co Antrim sh 61, 1921

The Belfast truss was developed in the mid-nineteenth century to meet the demand for efficient, lightweight and long span roofs brought about by the industrial revolution. A detailed description of the historical development of the Belfast truss is included in the record for HB18/08/139. In brief, the first known reference to a curved wooden felted roof structure supported by bowstring girders is in an advertisement in the Dublin Builder for 1866 by the Belfast firm of felt-makers, McTear & Co. McTear’s continued making trusses until they went out of business in 1908.

A second Belfast felt supplier, Anderson & Co., began to produce trusses, to a slightly different design, in 1886. In 1896, Anderson’s launched their Mk II version; promoted as maximising long spans whilst maintaining light weight. This model was subsequently used by other companies, and is referred to by historians as the Belfast truss, although this term is widely used to apply to all timber bowstring trusses where the internal bracing members meet not on the bottom of the truss as was the convention but on the top curved member.

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Relatively small single storey terrace garage / shop of perhaps c.1930 with gabled roof on Belfast Trusses, and stepped parapet to front. An unusual example of a Belfast Truss-roofed building in that the roof is actually pitched.

General comments

Surveyed as part of the Belfast Roof Truss survey.