57 University Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Substantial three storey late Georgian style terrace house of 1840-43 with stucco façade and decorative doorcase, one of a matching group of four, all extensively renovated in c.1984 and divided into flats with stairwell returns added to the rear in the process. The terrace to which the property belongs (originally named ‘Botanic View’) is situated on the W side of University Road, with Camden Street to the north and Fitzwilliam Street to the south, and consists of this property, its three identical neighbours, three similar but lower three storey houses of c.1840-41, (now also converted to flats), and a short two storey brick grouping of 1852 to the south end (now flats and offices). No.57 is in the middle of the terrace.

The front (E facing) façade is asymmetrical. To the left on the ground floor is the original entrance doorway. This is no longer used as the flats are accessed from the rear stairwell return. The ‘doorway’ consists of traditional style panelled and glazed ‘door’ which in fact acts as a window. The ‘door’ has panelled pilaster jambs and is topped with a plain rectangular fanlight, with the whole ensemble encased with plain pilasters with decorative console brackets supporting a cornice hood with tympanum-like blocking course over. Steps and path in front of ‘door’.

To the right of the doorway are two flat arch windows, with Georgian-paned sash frames (6/6). To the first floor (and directly in line with the ground floor windows) are two more windows with frames as before. There are two similar but shorter windows to the second floor, (in line with previous windows).

The ground floor level is finished in square channelled rusticated render. The first and second floor levels are in plain render with simple moulded surrounds to the window openings. It is probable that the first and second floor levels were originally in brick. The ground floor render is painted in a darker shade than the first and second floor levels.

To the right hand side of the rear (W) elevation there is a large, full height stairwell return shared with no.59 (it spans across part of its elevation also). This was erected in c.1984, with each property’s own individual return demolished in the process. To the W face of the return there is a sash window (much as front) to the first half-landing level, with another (slightly shorter) at second half-landing level. To the left on the ground floor of the N face of the return there is a doorway (with recent security door) leading to the stairwell and giving access to the ground floor flat of no.57 (and that of no.59). To the immediate right of this doorway there is a single storey flat roofed projection in brick, which houses the dustbins belonging to each of the three flats. The S face of the return repeats the arrangement of the N face but with a small sash window to the right at both first and second floor levels (both with Georgian panes 4/2).

To the ground floor of the rear façade of the main portion of the building (i.e. to left of the return) there are two windows to each floor, with that to left on each floor larger, and those to the second floor shorter than the rest. The ground floor windows are now covered up with security ‘grills’, with those to the upper floors with Georgian-paned sash frames (first floor- 6/6, 4/2, second floor- 6/3, 4/2).

The entire rear elevation is rendered upper floors front. The render is painted as upper floors front (with ‘quoins’ in darker shade).

The main gabled roof is slated with a mono-pitched (‘lean-to’-like) slated roof to the return. Tall rendered chimneystack to N with string course and decorative matching pots. Bracketed verge course to front and with plainer version to rear, both with recent looking moulded guttering. Modern style square downspouts.

To front the small garden has low rendered walls and is filled with shrubbery.

Historical information

Prior to the early 19th century, the present University Road was the main route south from the small but growing town of Belfast to Dublin, climbing along the Malone Ridge and twisting south-west towards Lisburn. Stretching westwards from this road and sloping down to the lower ground of the Bog Meadows were long, narrow strip farms. In the mid 1700s many of these farms were leased by the Donegall estate to Belfast merchants and farmed by undertenants, whose (largely) humble farmhouses were scattered along the road itself. In 1819 the present Lisburn Road was laid out, slicing through the farms, and by 1839 the Ulster Railway had been cut out through their lower fields. From 1823 onwards leases ‘in perpetuity’ began to be granted by the Donegall estate in relation to land to the south of Belfast; thus with the unity of the Malone farms destroyed the area became open to developers.

John Alexander was one such developer. His family had held a lease 31 acres in the townland of Lower Malone sine the early 1700s, and in 1823 acquired it outright from Lord Donegall for £480. It was on this land that Alexander built the three storey portions ‘Botanic View’ terrace (the present nos.53-65 University Road), in 1840-43, whilst parcelling out adjacent portions of the holding to other developers which in turn lead to the construction of Fitzwilliam Place (nos.71-75) in 1846-48, and dwellings along the newly laid out Fitzwilliam Street (nos.2-8) in c.1849-50. Camden Terrace appeared along the newly laid out Camden Street in 1849-52, with the two story southern portion of Botanic View in place by the latter year also.

All of these new dwellings, along with others just to the north such as Fountainville Terrace, Upper and Lower Crescent, Prospect and Claremont Terraces, and University Square to the east, marked the beginning of the suburbanisation of South Belfast and the drift of the town’s professional and commercial classes away from its centre. The make-up of the earliest inhabitants of Botanic View reflects this, with a surgeon, an engineer, a drawing master and various businessmen listed in the late 1840s and early 1850s directories.

The whole of ‘Botanic View’ remained in the ownership of the Alexander family until 1881 when the present nos.53-65 were was sold to Robert Kelso Mathewson. In 1950 the lot came into possession of Queen’s University, with no.67 acquired by Queen’s in 1963. In 1982 the University sold the entire grouping to The Malone Housing Association. Up until this point the properties had largely continued to be used as private dwellings (some inhabited latterly by University staff and students), however, no.55 and nos.57-59 served, respectively, as a temporary post office and a branch of the Ulster Bank in 1971-72, and no.59 after sustaining damage in a bomb blast, was demolished in 1979.

In the mid 1980s Malone Housing Association converted the whole group into flats. In the process no.59 was rebuilt, with it and nos.53, 55 and 57 providing three flats each, with six flats shared between nos.61, 63, 65 and 67. All of the original rear returns demolished to make way for new stairwell projections, with a single stairwell shared between each former house.

In March 2000 the whole group was re-conveyed to Queen’s.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.835/1/3 Plans of Lord Donegall’s estates, surveyed by James Crow, 1767-70
2 PRONI D509/905 Donegall estate documents- Lease of land in Lower Malone, Lord Donegall to John Alexander, 20 Apr 1795
3 PRONI D509/1176 Donegall estate documents- Lease of land in Lower Malone, Lord Donegall to John Alexander, 16 Jan 1799
4 PRONI D509/1623 Donegall estate documents- Lease of lands in Lower Malone, Lord Donegall to John Alexander, 1 June 1808
5 PRONI D509/1794 Donegall estate documents- Lease of lands in Lower Malone, Lord Donegall to John Alexander, 21 Nov 1811
6 PRONI D509/905 Donegall estate documents- Lease (‘in perpetuity’) of lands in Lower Malone, Lord Donegall to John Alexander, 1 Nov 1823
7 PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 OS map [6in], Co Antrim sh 61, 1832
8 ‘Martin’s Belfast directory’ (Belfast 1839, 40-41, 1841-42)
9 ‘Henderson’s Belfast directory’ (Belfast, occasional issues in the period 1843-52)
10 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster directory’ (Belfast 1852, 1854, 1856, 1858, 1860- )
11 PRONI OS/6/1/61/2 OS map [6in], Co Antrim sh 61, 1858
12 PRONI OS/8/30/1/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1858, sh 49
13 PRONI VAL/2B/1/2a Second valuation, Shankill parish, 1860
14 PRONI OS/8/30/2/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1871-3, sh 49
15 PRONI OS/8/30/3/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1883-4, sh 49
16 PRONI OS/8/30/4/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1894-5, sh 49

Secondary sources
1 S.T. Carleton ‘The growth of South Belfast’ (QUB MA thesis 1967).
2 C.E.B. Brett ‘Buildings of Belfast (London 1967, reprinted by Friar’s Bush Press 1985).
3 David Evans ‘Historic buildings, groups of buildings, areas of architectural importance in the vicinity of Queen’s University of Belfast’ revised edition (Belfast,1980), p.26 etc.
4 J.C. Beckett ‘Queen’s- A short history of Queen’s College Belfast and Queen’s University of Belfast (QUB 1984).
5 ‘Queen’s conservation area’ (DOENI 1987)
6 David Evans and Paul Larmour ‘Queens- An architectural legacy’ (QUB Inst. of Irish Studies 1995).
7 Brian Walker and Alf McCreary ‘Degrees of excellence- The story of Queen’s, Belfast 1845-1995 (QUB Inst. of Irish Studies 1995)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

originally a substantial three storey late Georgian style terrace house of 1840-43, with stucco façade and decorative doorcase, one of a matching group of four, all extensively renovated in c.1984-5 and divided into flats with stairwell returns added to the rear in the process.