26 COLLEGE GARDENS

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

End 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 25 College Gardens (HB26.28.021A, B & C), 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. Substantial flat roofed extension to rear (N) of No.26, added c.2013. Building currently used as a home-from-home facility, set up by a charitable organisation.

Natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles. Two large red brick chimneys, both with rendered base several clay pots: one shared with No.25 (replaced in part) centred on ridge with simple corbelled brick cap; and one centred on gable end, with moulded cap (possibly reconstituted stone). Three conservation roof lights to front pitch and one to rear. Projecting moulded stucco eaves and fluted corbel brackets on plain frieze band to front (painted).

MATERIALS -
ROOF: Natural slate
RWG: Replacement metal: ogee profiled gutter and square section downpipe (S);
Half-round gutter and circular section downpipes (N & return)
WALLS: Red brick walling in Flemish bond with painted moulded stucco dressings (S & W);
English Garden Wall bond to rear (N); similar red brick in stretcher bond (extension)
WINDOWS: Replacement timber double glazed (slim) double hung sliding sashes with 1/1 panes;
N facing windows have central bead applied to resemble 2/2 panes.

Front Elevation (S):
Facing south, Italianate in style with Classical proportions. Asymmetrical with aedicule at entrance to right and single-storey bowed bay with five 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: 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 bowed bay. Timber framed four-panelled door and plain over-light, 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’. Toothed quoins to SW corner, abutted at ground floor by simple metal gate and modern brick walling, added in conjunction with 2013 extension.

Rear Elevation (N):
North elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews. From this aspect, original building is almost entirely obscured by 2013 extension, which spans full width of site along N boundary, two-storey over basement in height. Adjacent to original building, however, extension steps back in plan to match footprint of rear return it replaced. At this point, original N elevation is exposed in part. Plainly detailed compared to front: red brick with soldier courses above flat-arched windows, single row of brick headers at projecting eaves and simple stone cills. Return face of corbelled eaves at far right (W) side, painted. One window each at ground, first and second floors that diminish in height. Full-height shadow gap formed at juxtaposition between original building and extension; latter fenestrated to W with large square headed openings, informally arranged. Lift shaft extends beyond parapet, clad in polyester powder coated (PPC) profiled metal, dark in colour to tie in with original slate roof.

East elevation:
No.25 abuts east elevation. East face of extension is blank, stepped in height from N to S with lift shaft extending beyond parapet, as described to N elevation.

West Elevation:
Gable end of original building – largely blank, with projecting moulded bargeboard on corbelled brackets to far N and S sides, each with small round-arched attic window near to eaves. Chimney centred on apex as described above. Toothed quoins (painted) returned from front façade.
West face of extension – blank at N end, stepped back part has large square openings at ground, first and second floor levels, overlooking a private terrace. Metal clad lift shaft extends beyond parapet, as per E elevation.

Set back from tree-lined street by small square set pavers defining off-street parking spaces on south side of College Gardens. Polished concrete step to lawn enclosed by low box hedging. Building forms end-of-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.25. Rear extension overlooks Elmwood Mews, shared alley running full length of College Gardens and connected to Elmwood Avenue.

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.26 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.26 as John Elliott, a linen manufacturer. He was followed by Capt. W. H. Dick-Cunyngham of the Gordon Highlanders in c.1889, W.H. Arbuthnot, a solicitor, in c.1891, John Bennett in c.1899 and Thomas F. Mackie (a ‘machine manufacturer’) in 1901, who in the census of that year was living there with a domestic servant, with the house itself containing 14 rooms ‘in use’. Mrs C.L. Mackie is recorded as the occupant up until 1910 after which the house appears to have been left vacant for a time (it does not feature in the 1911 census). J.E. McIlwaine, a medical doctor, is noted as resident in 1918, and another doctor, Sir Thomas Houston, in c.1928. In 1947 architects ‘Thomas T. Houston & Co. (? related to the former occupant) moved into the property. Later known as Houston & Bell and then Houston, Bell & Kennedy this firm began sharing the building with two other businesses in the late 1970s (initially John Howard & Co. ‘packaging representatives’ and ‘The Design Group, chartered architects’). Houston Bell & Kennedy were still occupying the building into the 2000s.

In 2015 building was converted to a support centre, with accommodation, for the families of children being treated for cancer at nearby Belfast City Hospital, with the large Modern Style rear extension added as part of a major refurbishment.

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 enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

End-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.26 has group value No.23, 24 and 25 College Gardens (HB26.28.021A, B & C). 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, a substantial L-shaped modern extension, added 2013 to designs by McGonigle McGrath Architects, obscures much of the rear from Elmwood Mews. Whilst undeniably large, the juxtaposition between new and old is deftly handled, with the quality of detailing on the extension though modern echoing that of the historic building.