25 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, 24 and 26 College Gardens (HB26.28.021A, B & D), symmetrical on plan and elevation with No.24 mirrored by No.25 and wider properties 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.25, abutted by double return comprising three-storey hipped roofed and two-storey flat roofed parts, all offset to left (E). Building currently used as offices.

Natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles. Large red brick chimney (replaced in part) centred on ridge with simple corbelled brick cap and eight circular red clay pots (shared with No.26). Two modern roof lights to front pitch and one to rear. Projecting moulded stucco eaves and fluted corbel brackets on plain frieze band to front.

Materials
ROOF: Natural slate
RWG: Cast iron ogee profile gutter and square section aluminium downpipe (S);
Cast iron half-round gutter and circular section downpipes (N & return) with some uPVC replacements.
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 sliding sash with 1/1 panes (S) and 2/2 panes (N & return), unless otherwise described.

Front Elevation (S):
Facing south, Italianate in style with Classical proportions. Asymmetrical with aedicule at entrance to right and single-storey square bay with three windows and openwork parapet to left. 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 with roll-edge moulding: 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 square bay and stop-chamfered detail to outer corners. Timber framed four-panelled door and plain 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’.

Rear Elevation (N):
North elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews; asymmetrical with full height projection abutted by double return comprised of three-storey hipped roof and two-storey flat roofed parts, all offset to left and built over basement; and single window at each floor to right side (1/1 pane at ground floor). Plainly detailed compared to front: red brick with soldier courses above flat-arched windows, alternating angled headers at projecting eaves and simple stone cills. Chimney at hipped roof return slated over; single window at second floor level, centred on ridge, otherwise blank. Flat roofed return informally arranged, with margin paned window offset to left and diminutive metal framed fixed light to right at first floor; two uPVC casement windows at ground floor; and two blocked up segmental arched openings at basement level. Sandstone steps (repaired in part with concrete) right of blocked up openings, with curved brick reveal to segmental arched recessed opening.

East elevation:
No.24 abuts east elevation, including return.

West Elevation:
No.26 abuts west elevation of main building. West elevation of full-height projection at far right side: single opening to each level with margin panes to 1st and second floor (that to ground floor now bricked up). West elevation of return: two windows each at ground and first floors within hipped roofed part; and sliding sash window with 6/6 panes and historic glass at ground floor and single window at second floor within flat roofed part, otherwise blank.

Set back from tree-lined street by tarmacked car park on south side of College Gardens, building sits mid-terrace to block of similar town houses, rectangular on plan and aligned E-W parallel to road. Mature hedging aligns boundary with adjacent front gardens to No.24 & 26. Dwarf wall, rendered and curved on plan terminates in circular pillars with conical caps to either side of entrance door. 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 canted brick cap with simple metal railings over divides yard from No.24; same wall with rounded terracotta cap aligns S boundary where sheeted timber ledged and braced door exits on to Elmwood Mews via short flight of steps; lean-to outbuilding to reverse side. Rear arranged on two levels, with lower yard surfaced in square paving flags and further steps within return leading to recessed back door. Flat roofed garage to right of yard adjoins substantial rear extension to No. 26, with red brick walling, PVC roof membrane and painted metal up-n-over door opening on to alley.

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.25 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.25 as Jasper Grant, a linen merchant, followed by William J. Pratten, a marine engineer, in c.1889. He vacated the property in c.1900 and it lay vacant for several years afterwards. John Dowling, ‘plumber and gasfitter’ was in residence by 1907, and in the 1911 census is recorded as occupying no.25 with his wife, Fanny, their daughter and son-in-law, and a domestic servant, with the building itself noted as a ‘first class’ dwelling with 9 rooms in use. The Martins vacated the house that same year and James H. Stirling, ‘director of York Street Flaxspinning Co. Ltd.’ 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.

The Dowlings were still there 1918, but had been succeed by a medical doctor, Thomas Houston (later Sir Thomas), by at least 1924. Another doctor, J.T. Lewis, had taken on the property by 1932, with Robert J. Frizzell an ‘organising secretary’ living there by 1943. Dr. Lewis was back at no.25 by 1951 and was still there in 1964. By 1969 the property had come into possession of Queen’s University and was being used as staff flats, before being given over to office use (seemingly as the offices for the Belfast Festival at Queen’s) in c.1987. It later served as QUB Midwifery Department.

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. Amongst the later houses within a block of four, No.25 has group value No.23, 24 and 26 College Gardens (HB26.28.021A, B & D). The street developed from E-W and 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.25 is a good example of its type. Now office accommodation, the plan form is altered slightly but a good deal of original joinery and authentic historic detailing, including the original staircase, remains intact.
Curved walling and dwarf pillars at the entrance add significant character to its setting within the Queens Conservation Area.