Bryson House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Symmetrical attached three-storey with attic Venetian Gothic redbrick and sandstone former linen store, dated 1867. Rectangular on plan facing west and located on the east side of Bedford Street adjacent to the Ulster Hall (HB26/30/057) with a further multi-bay three-storey north side elevation fronting onto Franklin Street.

Hipped natural slate roof with lead ridges and ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering to overhanging sandstone eaves supported on sandstone modillions to an angled brick course below, and cast-iron downpipes. Elaborate redbrick and sandstone chimneystacks rise from both side elevations on corbelled out machicolations having trefoil sandstone panels, offsetts and tapered capstones to stop-chamfered grouped redbrick stacks. Redbrick walling laid in Flemish bond with continuous sandstone impost and sill courses and moulded sandstone plinth course. Square-headed window openings to first and second floors with decorative carved sandstone panels to voussoired sandstone arches, round-headed to ground floor with voussoired sandstone arches and single-pane timber sash windows throughout.

Symmetrical three-storey front west elevation with elaborate carved sandstone central doorcase. Second floor window openings arranged in three groups of three openings on continuous moulded sill course and a pair of squat columns with stiff-leaf capitals to each group. Each group has three panels with quatrefoils to three voussoired arches and continuous hood moulding. Six larger window openings to the first floor on continuous deep sill course with continuous stiff-leaf impost moulding and recessed panels with quatrefoils to each voussoired sandstone pointed arch and hood moulding. The central pair of windows open onto a balcony rising from the central doorcase. Four round-headed window openings to the ground floor on continuous splayed sandstone sill course, continuous stiff-leaf impost moulding and voussoired sandstone arches with hood mouldings. Central doorcase comprises curved jambs with pairs of squat columns and stiff-leaf capitals to either side supporting compound voussoired round arch with decoratively carved stone overdoor panel, carved spandrel panels and a pair of polished timber doors having eight diamond-faced panels to each. To either side of the arch is an oversized console bracket supporting a truncated column with stiff-leaf capital, in turn supporting a lintel cornice, trefoil-panelled frieze, stiff-leaf cornice and balustrade above with moulded coping and stop-chamfered piers.

North side elevation fronting onto Franklin Street is nine windows wide. Windows to second floor arranged in pairs and detailed as per front elevation, first and ground floor windows detailed as per front elevation. To the east end of this elevation is a secondary entrance doorcase, detailed as per front entrance with replacement doors and a paired window opening above having a central column and carved panel above inscribed; '1867'. A further round-headed entrance is located to the centre of this elevation, detailed as per ground floor window openings with double-leaf painted timber doors, detailed as per front entrance.

East rear elevation abutted by adjoining building No.21 Linenhall Street.

South side elevation partly abutted by adjoining building 'Ulster Hall' (HB26/30/057). This elevation is only four windows wide fronting onto a small forecourt with a central chimney (detailed as per above), the windows detailed as per north side elevation. Simple square-headed window openings to the re-entrant angle and a redbrick liftshaft rising above the roof level.

Roof: Natural slate
RWG: Cast-iron
Walling: Redbrick
Windows: Timber sash

Setting:
Corner-sited with its front elevation lining the east side of Bedford Street to the left of Ulster Hall and its extensive side elevation lining the south side of Franklin Street.

Historical information

Bryson House was built as a linen warehouse between 1865 and 1867 to designs by W J Barre. (Patton) The warehouse was constructed on the then newly-laid-out Bedford Street. It was not until the damp floodplain of the River Blackstaff was drained that Bedford Street was laid out in the 1850s and spinning and weaving factories began to colonise the western side of the street. The second edition OS map of 1858 shows Bedford Street developed to the west but prior to significant building on the eastern side. (Brett)

In 1859 the Ulster Hall Company Ltd bought a lease on one hundred and fifty feet of land along Bedford Street on the understanding that this would give ample room for the construction of the Hall and ‘as the erection of the Hall will increase the value of ground in that locality, there will be no difficulty in re-letting the surplus land, and thus reduc[ing] the annual rent considerably’. (Belfast Newsletter)

William Girdwood of Wm Girdwood & Co, linen and calico printers, purchased a lease from the Ulster Hall Company in October 1864, ‘with the intention of building one of those commercial palaces which formed the greatest ornament of the town’. A condition of the lease was that Girdwood would spend, within a limited time, £800 in building on the plot. Plans were prepared by W J Barre, the architect of the neighbouring Hall and a contractor, Mr Ross, was employed. However construction of the building had been delayed for some time due to a dispute that arose between Girdwood and the Town Surveyor as to whether the frontage of the building should be set back four or five feet so as to leave a wider footpath for pedestrians attending the Ulster Hall. (Belfast Newsletter)

By November 1866 building of ‘Mr Girdwood’s embryo warehouse’ was underway and the building enters valuation records in 1868 as vacant ‘offices and warehouse’ valued at £380. It is first shown on the 1871 street map of Belfast, together with the Ulster Hall. William Girdwood (1827-79) lived at a mansion in Oldpark where his linen printing works were also situated. He was a keen yachtsman, but died suddenly at the relatively young age of 52 while on a yachting cruise to Douglas on the Isle of Man in 1879. (Belfast Newsletter)

Girdwood does not appear to have ever made use of the warehouse for his own business and for some years it lay vacant, being noted as such in valuation records and street directories up to 1877 when it was occupied by Malcolm & Pentland, manufacturers of linen cambric and bleachers. Although the firm later vacated the building, James Malcolm continued to be the leaseholder until 1919, when Edward Shaw & Co acquired the ownership. Next to occupy the building were William Liddell & Co, linen manufacturers and bleachers and by 1895, Edward Shaw & Co linen and linen yarn merchants were the tenants of the ground floor. The first floor of the building was intermittently let to other linen firms such as J W Charley & Co, linen merchants, manufacturers and bleachers (1895), Geo Gray & Sons Ltd with works at Glenanne Co Armagh (1904-28) and John McCaughey, linens, glass cloths, towels etc (1931-7).

The building was put up for auction in 1944 and purchased by Edwin Bryson, former chairman of linen and carpet manufacturers Spence Bryson, as a centre for the Belfast Council of Social Welfare, a charitable organisation that had been formed in 1906. The building was named after Bryson’s mother Mrs Mary Bryson. (History of Bryson House) The building was sufficiently large to accommodate the Council’s own expanding services and several other organisations. Messrs Stevenson & Son supervised the conversion of the building and it was opened as Bryson House on 12th March 1948 “in the presence of a large and distinguished gathering of subscribers, social workers and representatives of other aspects of the public life of the province, including Sir Basil Brooke, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and Lord Norman, Chairman of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust. A representative of the Roman Catholic church was also present at a time when contacts between the two communities were very limited. This presence highlighted the non-sectarian ethos of the [Council]” The organisation has undergone several changes of name in subsequent years and in 2006 became Bryson Charitable Group. (www.brysongroup.org)

The Belfast Council of Social Welfare, which acquired the building in 1944 was descended from the Belfast Charity Organisation Society (formed in 1906 on the inititiative of the Belfast Christian Civic Union). The organisation expanded after the first world war and had among its aims, “interpreting the needs of the community to those whose business it was to make and amend social legislation; interpreting the legislation to people for whom it was intended; providing practical training for those who were to administer the services; and acting as a centre, not only of information, but also of study and research into social questions”. (History of Bryson House)

The model for Bryson House was Gaddum House is Manchester, one of the first Social Service Centres to be opened in UK, and a building that was converted from two old cotton warehouses. Bryson visited Gaddum House and was impressed by the potential offered by a warehouse building. In 1945 the Council bought 20 Franklin Street for £8,650 having become convinced that 28 Bedford Street would not be large enough for a city like Belfast and received £10,000 from Carnegie Trustees who eventually raised this to £15,000 when the cost of the reconstruction increased. C & W McQuoid were the contractors for reconstruction which included a boardroom and a large committee room to seat 150 people. (History of Bryson House)

Bryson House was seen at the time as highly innovative and ‘one of the most imaginative enterprises ever undertaken in the cause of social science – the establishment of one centre from which nearly all the principal welfare organisations in the Province can operate. Three cities across the water – London, Manchester and Glasgow – have experimented in group centres where a few societies function in one building, but nowhere is there anything comparable to Bryson House.” Today around 200 social services centres exist in the United Kingdom.

In the early 1980s a new roof with skylights was added and the ground floor remodelled, floors carpeted and ceilings lowered. (History of Bryson House)

Primary Sources

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/1-45– Annual Revisions (1863-1930)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/P/1-8 – Annual Revisions (1897-1930)
6. PRONI VAL/12/F/3/14/1 – Annual Revisions (1930-1935)
7. PRONI VAL/7/B/14/6 – Belfast Revaluation Fieldbooks (1900-1)
8. Belfast Street Directories (1870-1995)
9. Belfast Newsletter 7th February 1865
10. Belfast Newsletter 28th July 1866
11. Belfast Newsletter 20th November 1866
12. Belfast Newsletter 16th August 1879

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
5. www.brysongroup.org
6. The History of Bryson House, 1986

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A symmetrical three-storey with attic, former warehouse now office, built c.1867 to the designs of W.J. Barre. Square on plan and located on a corner site to the north of Bedford Street adjacent to the Ulster Hall (HB26/30/57). The decorative redbrick and sandstone exterior makes this a landmark building in the centre of Belfast. Displaying proportions and detailing typical of the Venetian Gothic period, much of the external architectural fabric is intact. Converted into an office in recent years, the internal layout has been largely changed, however some elements of a typical Victorian interior survive. Bryson House is a significant building and has important historical links to the linen industry.