24 COLLEGE GARDENS

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Mid-terrace three-storey over basement (with attic) red brick late Victorian town house, built 1882; architect unknown. Part of a block of four, including No.23, 25 and 26 College Gardens (HB26.28.021A, C & D), symmetrical on plan and elevation with No.24 mirrored by No.25 and No.23 & 26 to gabled ends. Located towards west end of College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled townhouses running from Malone Road to Lisburn Road and within Queens Conservation Area; the buildings face south and overlook the grounds of Methodist College. Full height projection to rear (N) of No.24, abutted by double return comprising three-storey hipped roofed and two-storey flat roofed parts, all offset to right (W). Building currently used as offices, combined with No23.

Natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. Large red brick chimney centred on ridge and shared with No.23 replaced in part and reconstituted stone corbelled cap and several circular pots. Modern flat roofed dormer to front pitch; duo-pitched dormer and two roof-lights to rear pitch, one modern and the other conservation-style. Projecting moulded stucco eaves and fluted corbel brackets on plain frieze band to front and alternating angled brick headers at projecting eaves to rear.
Materials
ROOF: Natural slate, with some artificial slate noted to east facing slope of hip roofed return. Flat roof not seen.
RWG: Cast iron ogee profile gutter and square section aluminium RWP to main roof (S) and uPVC gutter and RWPs (N).
WALLS: Red brick walling in Flemish bond with painted moulded stucco dressings (S);
Red brick in English Garden Wall bond to rear (N) and return.
WINDOWS: Single glazed double hung single glazed sliding sash with 1/1 panes (S) and refer to Rear Elevation for remainder.

Front Elevation (S):
Facing south, Italianate in style with classical proportions. Asymmetrical, with aedicule at entrance to left and single-storey squared bay with three windows and openwork parapet to right. Entire ground floor in painted stucco; red brick walling over with moulded stucco dressings including continuous projecting cills at first and second floors. Three windows each to upper floors, diminishing in height, all segmental arched: plain stucco surrounds to first floor with projecting hoods (pedimented to middle window; shallow pitched to side windows); and moulded stucco surrounds to second floor with corresponding brackets below cill course. Projecting base plinth with moulded top, cill, head and cornice with plain frieze to bay. Double glazed timber framed windows to flat roofed dormer and double glazed fixed lights to cheeks. Timber framed four-panelled door and plain glass fanlight, with bolection moulding to fielded and pitched panels, flanked by Corinthian-style pilasters and topped by deep moulded pediment with foliated tympanum bearing date ‘1882’. Inner face of fanlight glass has applied gold digits ‘24’.

Rear Elevation (N):
North elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews; asymmetrical with full height projection built at half-landing level, adjoined to same at No25 and abutted by double return comprised of three-storey hipped roof and two-storey flat roofed parts, all offset to right and built over basement. Single window at each floor to main building left of return: to attic level, modern sliding sash in duo-pitched dormer clad with artificial slate to walls and cheeks; to second and first floor, original sliding sashes with 2/2 panes; to ground floor, sliding sash with 1/1 panes; and to basement, fixed timber framed replacement window. Plainly detailed compared to front: red brick with soldier courses above flat-arched windows and simple stone cills (except attic cill – concrete).
Former chimney centred on full-height projection now capped. All windows to north face of double return are timber-framed replacement sliding sashes, with 1/1 double glazed panes and concrete cills. Hipped roof return has single window at second floor centred on ridge, otherwise blank. Flat roofed return informally arranged, with large window offset to right (reduced in height with modern red brick in-fill below cill) and smaller one to left at first floor; centrally placed window and modern sheeted timber door to right at ground floor, with no openings remaining at basement level, although evidence of former segmental arched door and adjacent window evident by salvaged brick in-fill.

East elevation:
No.23 College Gardens (HB26 28 021A) abuts east side of main building.
E face of full height rear projection has one window at each half-landing level: to ground floor, a replacement timber framed sliding sash with 2/2 panes; to first and second floor, original sliding sashes with 1/1 panes having coloured margins; and to attic replacement timber framed sliding sash with 1/1 panes.
E face of double return has informally arranged openings. Two original sliding sashes at first floor both with 2/2 panes. Two further sliding sashes at ground floor, with 1/1 panes (double glazed replacements with timber slips). Ground floor windows flank modern zinc clad ‘bridge’, which spans yard and connects to No.23 College Gardens. Sheeted timber door (replacement) at basement level.

West Elevation:
No.25 abuts west elevation of main building, including return.

Set back from tree-lined street on south side of College Gardens, building sits mid-terrace within block of similar town houses, rectangular on plan and aligned E-W parallel to road. Mature hedging and modern metal railings align boundary with adjacent front gardens at No.25 & 23 respectively. Ramped entrance in place of original steps, with buff-coloured precast concrete paving slabs having small pavers to border. Gravel bed to perimeter of square bay and behind small section of dwarf brick wall at boundary to College Gardens; tarmac to remainder of front garden to provide off-street parking. Young tree in gravel bed at boundary.

Rear overlooks Elmwood Mews, shared alley running full length of College Gardens and connected to Elmwood Avenue. Red brick walling in English Garden Wall bond and curved terracotta cap with simple metal railings over divides yard from No.25. Modern red brick wall with galvanised steel lintel with metal roller shutter over forming wide vehicular entrance to off-street parking area within rear yard, shared with No23. Modern concrete steps retained by salvaged red brick walling and modern metal railings lead from exit door at ground floor to tarmacked yard at basement level.

Historical information

Background - College Gardens (originally ‘College Gardens Avenue’) is located on land which prior to the early 19th century had been one of the series of strip farms running from what is now the Malone and University Roads to the Bog Meadows. Probably laid out in early 1600s, the integrity of these was broken up by the cutting of the Lisburn Road in 1816-19 and the construction of the Ulster Railway in 1837-39. Around the same time, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate lead to the gentrification of what remained of these farms with the building (or upgrading of existing structures) to create small country villas and the laying out of small demesnes within the plots formerly farmed. The land to the immediate north and south of College Gardens belonged to such a villa, ‘Vermont’, a pre-1770 house, possibly rebuilt or enlarged c.1815 and enlarged again c.1840s – on this occasion by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The building of Queen’s College a short distance to the north-east in 1845 sparked the suburbanisation of the area, and in 1865 Vermont itself was sold for the building of another educational establishment, Methodist College. The latter was completed in 1868 and a new private avenue laid out the lower ground to the immediate north, with building plots on the northern side of this. Beginning at the eastern end, present nos.1-6 were constructed in 1871, nos.7-18 in 1877, no.33 and 34 in 1879, 19-22 in 1881, 23-26 in 1882 and 27-32 in 1883.

No.24 This property belongs to a terrace of four symmetrically arranged single-fronted townhouses built in 1882. The identity of the architect is not known, but the developer of everything in College Gardens from no.11 to no.32 appears to have been Rev. George Cron, the then minister of the Evangelical Union Church in Wellington Place.

The 1887 street directory (the first edition in which this property appears in) records the occupant of no.24 as J.S. Poole, a medical doctor, followed by William M. Whitaker in c.1889. He vacated the property in c.1891 and was succeeded by Rev. George Shaw, minister of Fitzroy Presbyterian Church, who in turn was followed by Robert T. Martin, a solicitor, who in the 1901 census is recorded as occupying no.24 with his wife, Edith, their two young children, and three domestic servants, with the building itself noted as a ‘first class’ dwelling with 16 rooms in use. The Martins vacated the house that same year and James H. Stirling, ‘director of York Street Flaxspinning Co. Ltd.’ was in residence by 1907. Mrs. Stirling (presumably the latter’s widow) is listed as the occupant in 1910, with the 1911 census recording the householder as Baptist Gamble, a widowed ‘railway manager’, who was living there with his two teenage children, his two sisters-in-law and their parents, and a single domestic servant.

R.J. Brandon, a chartered accountant, was residing in no.24 by 1918, and an ophthalmic surgeon, W.A Anderson, by 1924, remaining there until at least 1951. By 1960 the property was being used as the offices for the Iron Trades Employers’ Insurance Association Ltd. and continued as such until at least 1996. It is still in use as offices, integrated internally with its neighbour to the east, no.23, with a modern link now spanning between the returns of each (part of a major refurbishment of c.2013-14).

References – Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL12B/43D/7 annual valuation revision book, 1862-82
2 ‘Belfast News-Letter’, 3, January 1877, 23 March 1878
3 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Street Directory’, (Belfast News-Letter, Belfast), various dates from 1880 to 1996
4 PRONI VAL12B/43D/14 annual valuation revision book, 1882-96
5 PRONI OS8/30/3/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1883-84
6 PRONI OS8/30/4/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1896
7 PRONI VAL12B/43A/36 annual valuation revision book, 1897-1905
8 PRONI VAL7B/14/15 valuation of Belfast, c.1900-01
9 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [online - http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/]
10 PRONI OS8/30/5/49 OS town plan of Belfast, 1903
11 PRONI VAL12B/43P/3 valuation book, 1906-15
12 PRONI VAL12B/43P/7 valuation book, 1916-30
13 OS maps, 1958, 1970 (online - http://www.centremapslive.co.uk/)

Secondary sources
1 Carleton, S.T., ‘The growth of South Belfast’, (unpublished QUB MA thesis), 1967
2 Rowan, A.J. and Brett, C.E.B., Historic Buildings…Queens University of Belfast, (Belfast, UAHS, revised ed. 1980)

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

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Mid terrace three-storey over basement red brick late Victorian town house built 1882; architect unknown. Set on a tree-lined street of similarly scaled townhouses running from Malone Road to Lisburn Road; the buildings face south and overlook the grounds of Methodist College within the Queens Conservation Area. Amongst the later houses within a block of four, No.24 has group value No.23, 25 and 26 College Gardens (HB26.28.021A, C & D). The street demonstrates the evolving styles in building at the time with various influences evident although unified as a whole in height and scale. Well proportioned in Italianate style with stucco embellishment to the front façade, No.24 is a good example of late Victorian domestic architecture, despite minor modifications. Now office accommodation combined with No23, the plan form is altered slightly but a good deal of original joinery and authentic historic detailing, including the original staircase, remains intact.