Morrison's Lounge Bar

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A symmetrical five-bay, three-storey-with-attic, terraced red-brick public house in Lombardic style;, formerly a linen warehouse incorporating HB26/30/015 B&C Built 1871 to designs by John Boyd and located to the west side of Bedford Street in Belfast city centre. Rectangular-on-plan with bowed front façade with modern interventions to rear (of no interest).

Pitched natural slate roof with yellow brick chimneystacks. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on projecting masonry eaves with arcaded Lombardic frieze eaves course. Walling is Flemish-bonded red-brick with yellow brick dressings; dog-tooth string course to second floor windows at impost level. Windows are segmental and round-headed 2/2 timber-framed sliding sash replacements, in yellow brick chamfered surrounds having ornamented painted masonry keystones and corner stones, and projecting painted masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces east and is symmetrically arranged with two windows to either side of a gabled entrance bay and traditional-style pub-front to ground floor. Double-height recess rises from the first floor sill course, embracing loggia-style window and an oculus above; oculus with carved head to keystone, and corbelled and dentilled plinth to loggia-style window. Double-leaf raised-and fielded six-panel entrance door with segmental-headed transom light, in a decorative painted masonry lugged surround with moulded architrave.

The south elevation is abutted by adjoining building; HB26/30/015B.

The west (rear) elevation has a panelled timber door and a window to each floor at far right. At left is corrugated tin cladding to upper floors.

The north elevation is abutted by adjoining building.

Setting:
Located on a major thoroughfare in the centre of the city, north of the junction with Ormeau Avenue and south of the City Hall. Tarmacadamed alley to rear.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Flemish-bonded red-brick
Windows: Replacement timber-framed sliding sash
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

The current building dates from 1871 and was built to designs by John Boyd as warehouses for William Ferguson, linen merchant. (Patton) The warehouses were constructed on what was then a new road called Bedford Street that had been laid out in the 1850s in an area formerly known as McLean’s fields. Adam McLean was a linen draper and property developer who came into possession of the area between 1805 and 1826. It was slow to develop with the damp floodplain of the river Blackstaff making the site unattractive. However, spinning and weaving factories had colonised the western side of the street by the second edition OS map of 1858, following drainage of the area. (Brett)

The new warehouses are first shown on the 1871-3 street map of Belfast and appear to have been let by the Ferguson firm to other enterprises. They first enter valuation records between 1863 and 1881 but the initial entry is not dated. (Annual Revisions)

The first occupiers to be recorded in number 21 are William L and Henry H Bell & Co, bleachers, who lease the warehouse from William Ferguson. The valuation is £135. The next occupiers are William Stewart & Son, linen and cambric manufacturers in 1882 and the valuation is reduced to £115 in 1884, probably following an appeal. The same year, management of the property falls to John Ferguson & Co who are later described in the 1880s as ‘among the oldest and most respectable concerns engaged in the Ulster linen trade having been founded more than a century ago by an ancestor of the present proprietor'. (presumably William Ferguson-Industries of the North)

By 1893 the occupiers were Greenmount Spinning Company, linen manufacturers of Harold’s Cross, Dublin and the valuation was raised to £160 the same year, perhaps as the result of improvements to the property. A long period of occupation followed by Harris Adair & Co, linen manufacturers, who used the premises from 1908 until it was requisitioned by the government in 1941. However, the textile industry remained strong in Bedford Street and in 1944 the warehouse was again occupied by H Gryffe and Co Ltd, hemstitchers, followed by H M Smyth & Co Ltd, linen manufacturers in 1947 who shared the premises with Glen Linen Company, linen, rayon and cotton manufacturers and Derryville Hemstitching Company. These firms were joined in 1952 by George Conn & Co, cotton piece goods manufacturer. However, the 1950s began to see a slow decline in textiles and by 1958 only Smyth & Co and Derryville Hemstitching remained in the building. They had been joined by a telephone, engineering and electrical contractors signifying the beginning of a change in Belfast’s economy towards light engineering and service industries. By the mid-1960s the building was vacant and nearly a century of association with linen manufacture had come to an end. In 1966 the building was taken over by J D Nicholl & Co Ltd, auctioneers and in recent years has been refurbished for use as a public house.

According to Patton, the chimneys at the gable of number 21 formerly sported a ‘group of tall castellated yellow clay pots until they were taken down during the construction of number 19’. A neo-Victorian shopfront was inserted into the ground floor of this building c1990 under the supervision of Terence McCaw architect. (Patton)
References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/8/30/1/36 – Belfast Street Map (1858)
2. PRONI OS/8/30/2/36 – Belfast Street Map (1871-3)
3. PRONI OS/8/30/3/36 – Belfast Street Map (1883-4)
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/1 – Annual Revisions (1863-1930)
5. PRONI VAL/12/F/3/14/1 – Annual Revisions (1930-1935)
6. PRONI VAL/7/B/14/B – Belfast Revaluation Fieldbooks (1900-1)
7. Belfast Street Directories (1902-1995)

Secondary Sources

1. Brett, C.E.B., Gillespie, R. and Maguire W.A. “Georgian Belfast, 1750-1850, Maps Buildings and Trades” Dublin and Belfast: Royal Irish Academy and Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, 2004
2. “Industries of the North One Hundred Years Ago” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1986 (First published as ‘Industries of Ireland, Part 1. Belfast and the Towns of the North’ in 1891)
3. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
4. www.dia.ie – Dictionary of Irish Architects online

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A symmetrical five-bay, three-storey-with-attic, terraced red-brick public house; built 1871 to designs by John Boyd and located to the west side of Bedford Street in Belfast city centre. Formerly a linen warehouse, incorporating numbers 23-25 (HB26/30/015 B&C) with an unusual bowed façade. This is one of a number of nineteenth-century linen warehouses that characterise the social and economic development of Belfast during the Victorian era. Externally, proportions and detailing are typical of the Lombardic style. Architectural detailing is largely intact, with some sympathetic restoration over the years. A traditional-style pub-front has been added to the ground floor as a response to the changing requirement of the buildings usage. Number 21 adds significant value to the group as a whole, retaining the style and proportions of the terrace and contributing positively to its overall character.