17 Bedford Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A Venetian-Renaissance style detached three-storey-with-attic multi-bay, sandstone former warehouse, now vacant; built c.1870 to designs by James Hamilton and located to the west side of Bedford Street in Belfast city centre. L-shaped plan with curved corner entrance bay to northeast extending into a cupola at attic with a copper dome.

Double-pile natural slate roof with brick chimneystacks to gables. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods to rear elevation. Walling is ashlar sandstone to principal facades; Flemish-bonded red-brick to gables and rear elevation; moulded string course between first and second floor. Windows are round-headed top-hung metal-framed casements framed by pilaster jambs with moulded archivolts, keystones and surrounds; recessed to ground and first floor, ground floor windows have stilted segmental-headed arches, moulded decorative archivolts and moulded sill course on a high moulded base. Variety of segmental-headed timber and metal-framed top-hung casements to rear; attic windows have tracery-style casements with ornately carved surround and moulded archivolt.

Main entrance to curved bay at northeast corner, with wings to west and south creating L-shaped block.

Curved entrance bay has central recessed doorway within curved portico (boarded) accessed by three stone steps; framed by twin Corinthian columns and pilasters on raised moulded base and surmounted by moulded architrave. Inner doorway framed by pilasters with ornate carved frieze surmounted by semi-circular transom with carved head keystone. Three windows to first and second floor; seven slender casement windows divided by semi-engaged Corinthian columns to attic; copper dome with three apertures in decorative classical style surrounds, topped by drum and weathervane.

The south wing is almost symmetrically arranged with four sets of paired windows to either side of a central bay one Venetian window wide; attic window to central bay and far left; recessed porch to central bay (as at main entrance to northeast) with decorative wrought-iron gates. Entrance door also to far left (boarded) framed by paired Corinthian columns; single windows to first floor.

West wing is ten windows wide with attic windows at far left and right. Pierced blocking course to parapet above dentilled cornice; frieze and architrave on alternate single and twin Corinthian columns framing second floor windows.

The south gable is abutted at ground floor by a modern extension of no interest; five metal-framed casement windows to first floor and three 4/4 metal-framed windows to second floor.

The rear elevation of the south and west wings have irregularly arranged windows to each floor; windows to the far right side of south wing are bricked up.

The west gable is covered in a corrugated steel sheeting.

Setting: Prominently sited on a major thoroughfare, corner-sited at the junction of Bedford Street and Franklin Street and directly opposite the Ulster Hall. Tarmacadamed car-park to rear; seven-storey modern office block to south.

Roof: Double-pile natural slate
Walling: Ashlar sandstone and Flemish-bonded red-brick
Windows: Metal-framed casements
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

The current building dates from 1869 and was built as a linen warehouse, confidently expressing what was at that time Belfast’s world dominance in the linen trade. (Bardon) The building was constructed to designs by James Hamilton of Glasgow as warehouses for the Bedford Street Weaving Company, a large factory that occupied a plot bounded by Franklin Street to the north, Clarence Street to the south, and McClintock Street to the west. (Irish Builder) The factory was constructed on a new road called Bedford Street that had been laid out in the 1850s in an area formerly known as McLean’s fields. The damp floodplain of the river Blackstaff had made the site unattractive and it was not until the area was drained that it began to be developed. Spinning and weaving factories had colonised the western side of the street by the second edition OS map of 1858. (Brett)

The new warehouse is first shown on the 1871-3 street map of Belfast. The architect, James Hamilton, was the designer of several buildings in Belfast including the former Ulster Bank in Waring Street and further Ulster Bank branches in Trim and Sligo. Hamilton was based in Glasgow but is thought to have had a Belfast office for a time in the 1860s. (www.dia.ie)

The building first enters valuation records in 1871 and is valued as two units, each an office and wareroom, the more northerly half at £330 and the remainder at £230. According to Patton, the business over-extended itself during the linen boom caused by the US Civil War and the buildings were bought in 1876 by William Ewart & Son, flax spinners, linen manufacturers, weavers and merchants. (Patton) The building was subsequently valued as part of the entire Ewart’s holding and no further separate valuations are made but in the Belfast Revaluation of 1900 it is noted to be a ‘warehouse’. In 1900 the factory employed 350 workers and housed 486 looms and the warehouse, where goods were stored and displayed to potential customers, effectively formed a buffer, both physical and architectural, between the noise and bustle of the factory behind it and Bedford Street itself. (Annual Revisions)

The premises was occupied by the Ewart firm for a considerable number of years, from 1876 until the early 1990s. However, as the linen industry declined, Ewarts changed and diversified. From 1923 most of the Bedford Street site was let out to other linen businesses, Ewart’s retaining only the current building. By 1974 the firm had turned its attention to property and was reborn as Ewarts Properties Ltd. By 1987 Ewarts was a publicly listed company and after an acquisition in 2000 became Dunloe Ewart plc. The current owners purchased William Ewart Properties Ltd including the Northern Ireland and GB portfolio from Dunloe Ewart in 2002. The company now has assets in excess of £1bn and its portfolio includes a number of shopping centres in London and Edinburgh. (Street Directories; www.ewartproperties.com)

As the company began to diversify in the 1970s, it shared its premises with other businesses and organisations and the building latterly housed a number of automotive and office equipment businesses as well as providing offices for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and the Belfast Education and Library Board. However, it was vacated in the early 1990s and has remained vacant since that time. (Street Directories)

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. Bardon, J “Belfast, An Illustrated History” Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1982
2. 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
3. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
4. www.dia.ie – Dictionary of Irish Architects online
5. www.ewartproperties.com

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
V. Authorship
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest

Evaluation

A Venetian-Renaissance style detached three-storey-with-attic multi-bay, sandstone former warehouse, now vacant; built c.1870 to designs by James Hamilton and located to the west side of Bedford Street in Belfast city centre. A landmark building by a prominent architect, with an unusual corner entrance bay and copper cupola, this is one of the finest remaining nineteenth-century warehouses in the city; characterising the social and economic development of Belfast during the Victorian era. Architectural detailing is of good quality and is largely intact, with some sympathetic restoration to the stonework in recent years. It is of significant historical and architectural interest, both locally and in the wider context of the economic development of Northern Ireland.