The Lanyon Building

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 7-storey building of red brick with sandstone dressings, designed in the manner of a late medieval Italian palazzo with battered faces. Main entrance faces south onto the street front.

South elevation is 12-bays wide comprising 11 repetitive bays to the upper floors with the end bay to the right-hand extremity projecting forward, corbelled out at first floor level, with a curved corner to the left, and projecting up above the roofline as a small rectangular attic storey which has ball finials surmounting each corner. Materials are red brick with some red sandstone dressings, and a projecting plinth of black bricks.

The façade is divided horizontally by projecting stringcourses at each storey with a prominent corbel course above the fifth floor and a balustraded parapet to the roofline which terminates at the left-hand extremity in a panelled chimney stack and is also interrupted by two similar stacks after the fourth and eighth bays from the left. The chimneys on the parapet have original plain creamware pots. Flat roof, hidden behind red brick parapets with arcaded brick balustrading; plain sandstone copings.
The ground floor walling is arranged in horizontal stages of brickwork stepped back slightly in four bands of four courses each followed by two bands of two courses each, to accentuate the battered profile.

Openings are elliptically arched with moulded brick drips, but the arrangement varies on each floor: ground floor openings have sandstone keystones; second, third, and fourth floor windows are arranged in recessed vertical panels; while the fifth and six floors have a pair of smaller coupled windows in each bay, surmounted by a common drip moulding above.

Windows are mainly segmental headed timber 4-pane fixed lights with 2-pane top lights, but the ground floor contains four original segmental arched timber sliding sash windows, vertically hung, 2 over 2 with horns, with deep splayed cast iron cills which are protected by three iron bars, the outermost original, with blunt spikes which originally rotated, the other two later with fixed spikes.
The second opening from left on ground floor contains a doorway, modern rectangular timber, glazed, with side panel and fanlight, surmounted by an original 2-pane fanlight.
The sixth opening from left contains a 4-pane timber window with a concrete cill in what appears to be a partly bricked up doorway originally; the seventh opening is an original window with cast iron cill but later filled with glass bricks; the eight and ninth openings are similar to the sixth. The tenth opening is a narrower brick arched window opening with original cast iron cills and spiked bars as previous, but the opening now bricked up within the recess.
The eleventh opening is the wide-arched main entrance containing a pair of rectangular timber sheeted double doors surmounted by a 5-pane fanlight over a concrete lintel.
The twelfth opening is also a narrower arched window like the tenth but it retains its original sashed window frame, 1 over 1, with horns, and its arch is formed of red sandstone to each side of which project curved sandstone corbels carrying the projecting bay above.

The projecting bay has two small semi-circular headed windows, staggered to the front on each floor from the first to the sixth floors along with a single semi-circular headed window in the curved wall to the left and one in the side to the right, all with sandstone heads. The attic projection has three rectangular windows to the front and two to the right-hand side, all dressed in plain brickwork.

East elevation is a blank wall of plain red brickwork with a plain parapet (now partly taken down) above projecting stringcourses; stringcourses, cornices, and a corbel course decorate the left-hand extremity, returned back from the front façade for a short distance, with a plain red brick chimney projecting above parapet level at the right-hand corner.

West elevation: of plainer character than the entrance front; built of red brick with projecting brick sandstone stringcourses dividing storeys, with a brick corbel course over the fourth floor, all surmounted by a plain parapet with a prominent panelled chimney stack to each extremity. Groups of cast iron ties appear at each storey, a number of them in the form of shields bearing the date 1891. Part of the ground floor and first floor brickwork has been smooth cement rendered probably where previously abutted by other buildings. Two windows to each floor from the second floor up, elliptically arched, with drip moulds, and arranged as pairs of coupled windows in the top two floors; windows of similar pattern to entrance front. Modern door in ground floor, rectangular flush timber.

Rear elevation: built of red brick, of plain character, with a corner chimney projecting above the parapet at each extremity, and three more chimneys at intermediate positions on the parapet; below the right-hand corner chimney the stringcourses, cornices and corbel course of the west elevation return back for the width of the chimney to form a shallow projecting pilaster or pier-like vertical strip. Ten bays of repetitive brick segmental arched windows to each floor of mainly similar pattern to previous elevations, with the left-hand end bay containing narrower coupled windows. Some windows later opened up to form doorways to give access to a later steel fire escape stairway. Extreme left-hand end bay on ground floor contains an original wide elliptical archway later partly closed up with brickwork to form a rectangular doorway with an arched sidelight. Some cast iron downpipes retained but most replaced by PVC.

SETTING: The building stands in an urban area, in a cul de sac, facing directly on to the street. It is abutted on its east side by a lower earlier mill building which itself is linked by a gateway to a former mill office block further to the east (HB26/47/004A). Its west side is abutted by a modern gateway leading into the extensive former mill site which is surfaced in tarmac and contains a number of detached buildings (described in the
setting of HB26/47/004A). Front boundary to site to west of this block is formed by a low modern red brick wall surmounted by modern iron railings between panelled modern red brick piers, with the gateway in similar style. Boundary of site to west is formed mainly by a modern red brick wall, with partially demolished terrace housing beyond; boundary of site to north is formed by modern iron fencing; boundary of site to east is formed by wire mesh fencing surmounting a concrete block retaining wall with a railway shunting yard at higher level beyond. On the street front the building overlooks an industrial works opposite.

Historical information

Built in 1891 as a 6-storey extension to Jennymount Flax Spinning Mill for Philip Johnson & Son, to the designs of John Lanyon, architect; seventh storey added in the same style in 1909 by J.K. Sparrow, engineer; hoist inserted in interior in 1945, and steel fire escape added to exterior at rear in 1965, both by S. Stevenson & Sons, architects.
Originally the ground floor was fitted out as a three-bedroom apartment in the western portion, with an enclosed yard at the rear, and the eastern portion laid out as a large 'Dining Rooms' area next to the cart-way, also with an enclosed yard to the rear.
The history of the overall development of the site is recorded at HB26/47/004A.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1938, Co Antrim 61.
2. Original drawings in Building Control Office, Belfast City Hall, by John Lanyon (1891), J.K. Sparrow (1909), and S. Stevenson & Sons (1945 and 1965).
3. Cast iron tie rod plaques dated 1891.
4. Hogg Collection, Ulster Museum, photograph of Jennymount Mill, c 1905.
Secondary Sources
1. P. Larmour, Belfast: An Illustrated Architectural Guide (Belfast, 1987), p 55.
2. IHR 10014.
3. P. Collins, The Making of Irish Linen (Belfast, 1994), p 76 (illustrates the photograph from the Hogg Collection, Ulster Museum).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

This is a very fine example of a late Victorian flax spinning mill, of distinctive style and proportions, whose overall elevational treatment and detailing is of an ornamental character. It displays the open plan form and repetitive storeys associated with its building type as well as a structural system which is characteristic of its era. Designed by John Lanyon, a leading Irish architect of the period, it is a particularly good example of a building type of special importance in the industrial history of Northern Ireland, which is now uncommon in the Belfast area. It is a very noticeable landmark in its locality and together with the earlier mill and former mill offices (HB26/47/004A) alongside it, it forms an important group representing the great age of local industry associated with textiles.