RUC Barracks

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Attached symmetrical multi-bay three-storey with attic sandstone former hospital, dated 1878, to the designs of Thomas Jackson, with a more utilitarian three-storey wing to the rear. The front portion is square on plan facing east onto Queen Street and set back slightly from the street. It is currently empty and boarded up.

Natural slate mansard roof, lead-lined to the top with glazed lantern. Profiled sandstone ashlar chimneystacks rising from both gable ends and a further stack to the centre of plan. Central wall-head dormer with sandstone coping surmounted by cross and having a carved Belfast coat of arms to the gable supported on scrolled console brackets with a single square-headed window opening having replacement timber casement window. Diminutive hipped dormers to either side having billeted cornice, lead-lined roofs, single-pane timber sash windows and breaking through a sandstone ashlar blocking course over the crown cornice with ball finials. Plastic guttering to the south end. Uncoursed rock-faced sandstone ashlar walling with smooth pink sandstone pilasters, cornices and friezes framing the upper floors. Square-headed window openings with pink sandstone architrave surrounds and single-pane timber sash windows (boarded up to ground and first floors).

East front elevation is three windows wide, paired to the ground floor with a central square-headed door opening. Each window is framed by a pair of sandstone pilasters to first and second floors rising to a stepped and dentilled crown cornice. Full-span sandstone frieze over each floor, punctuated by the pilasters to first and second floors with decorative carved motifs and raised lettering over the central second floor window stating; ‘A.D.1878.’. Second floor windows have a diamond-faced keystone while the paired ground floor windows have deeply set bowtel surrounds, central mullions with stylised console brackets and a continuous moulded sill course. Central door opening also has a bowtel surround with decorative scrolled lateral brackets and replacement steel door opening onto a stone step to enclosed front area.

South side elevation abutted by adjoining early twentieth-century building.

The rear elevation is plain rendered with unevenly-spaced windows, four to the first floor and five to the second, the ground floor could not be observed clearly. Most of these have two over two sash timber sash frames, with others boarded. To the far left-hand side the façade is abutted by a narrow link section (see below).

The plot of the property stretches westwards into College Court. Here, beyond a courtyard and set back from the line of the neighbouring structures, is a large, generally plain, three-storey block (that is believed to have originally contained the wards) which is linked to the main Queen Street building by means of a very narrow three-storey link which traverses the northern boundary of the site. Both of these sections are contemporary with the main building. The block is of irregular plan, being basically rectangular, but with a large recess to the south-east corner, and has a plain rendered façade and a double-pitched roof covered in natural slate and two rendered chimneystacks (that to the south much larger). The College Court frontage has formal fenestration with the windows to the ground and first floors boarded, and (largely) one over one sash frames to those to the second floor. The central ground floor entrance has a plain sheeted door with boarded-up half-sidelights and a large canopy-like hood over with a sprocketed slated roof. The east façade is less formal with more varied openings, several of which have Georgian-paned sash frames. The exposed section of the south façade could not be seen on site, but appears to be rendered with at least one small second floor window.

The narrow link to north has the same plain appearance as the western block, but with a mono-pitched slate roof and fenestration similar to the front of the western block, albeit with less (irregularly-spaced) openings.

North side elevation abutted by two-storey infill building.

Setting

Located on the west side of Queen Street, set back slightly from the street with a double-height steel fence.

Roof : Mansard natural slate & lead, two large lantern / rooflights to top of roof and two dormers to the rear, each with sloping roofs
RWG: UPVC
Walling: Rock-faced uncoursed sandstone ashlar
Windows: Single-pane timber sash

Historical information

The former R.U.C. Barracks on Queen Street, a three-storey building in Scrabo sandstone, with a more utilitarian wing to the rear opening into College Court, was originally constructed as a children’s hospital and was designed by Thomas Jackson & Son. Thomas Jackson (1807-1890) went into partnership with his son William Ridgeway Jackson in c. 1855; the pair continued in partnership until the early 1880s making the hospital on Queen Street one of the final commissions undertaken by the family firm. The Irish Builder notes that the hospital replaced the previous hospital located on King Street; the foundations of the new hospital were laid at the end of 1877 and a Mr. William McCammond was contracted as builder to realise Jackson’s design. The cost of construction was estimated at approximately £3,840 (Irish Builder, pp 364-366; Dictionary of Irish Architects).

When first completed the children’s hospital, which was exempt from taxation, was valued at £132 in the Annual Revisions. According to a perspective sketch of 1877 the cornice running under the first, second and attic-storey windows was decorated with the following inscription: ‘ERECTED A.D. 1878 BY VOLUNTARY / DONATIONS AND SUBCRIPTIONS / BELFAST HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN.’ This original inscription has now been removed apart from the date which is still located below the attic-level dormer window.

There was no change to the value of the children’s hospital until the Belfast Revaluation in 1900 when the value of the building was increased to £240; the valuer noted that the hospital was leased by Belfast’s City Council and was administered by the Trustees of Belfast Children’s Hospital. The 1911 Census records that the Belfast Children’s Hospital employed a large number of staff and cared for a similar number of afflicted children; the census notes that there were nine nurses, three administrators (‘hospital sisters’) and four domestic servants employed at the hospital; in that year these staff cared for 26 sick children which consisted of new-born babies to children 12 years of age (the maximum age for admission is not known). The census building return described the building as a 1st class hospital which consisted of 15 inhabited rooms and wards.

The Belfast Children’s Hospital continued to operate from Queen’s Street until 1932 when the organisation was moved to its current premises at the Royal Hospital on the Falls Road. Immediately after vacating the site, the former hospital building was acquired by the Northern Ireland Ministry of Home Affairs who converted the site into a Police Station for the Royal Ulster Constabulary; the value of the building was subsequently increased to £355 under the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland (1935) and it is likely that the original lettering was removed from the façade around that time. The former hospital survived the heavy bombardment of Belfast’s City centre during the Blitz of April and May 1941 and in the aftermath of the Second World War the building was included in the second general revaluation which commenced in 1956. The police station continued to be occupied by the R.U.C. until the late-20th century and by the end of revaluation in 1972 the value of the three-storey building stood at £848.

Queen Street was developed in the early-19th century and roughly follows the line of the original town defences of Belfast. The street was initially occupied by members of the merchant class and, prior to the erection of the hospital in 1877-78, the current plot was to the immediate north of the site of the Mechanics Institute which was established in c.1822 and demolished in the 1860s (Patton, pp 271-72).

The first children’s hospital in Belfast was established at No. 25 King Street on 4th August 1873; however within only a few years of opening it was determined that the building could not cope with the influx of patients that resulted from Belfast’s huge expansion during the period prior to the granting of city status in 1888. In 1874 alone the original hospital treated 317 intern patients and 5,408 extern patients. The site on Queen Street was purchased in 1877 and Thomas Jackson & Son were commissioned to undertake the design of the new edifice. Brett states that the design was one of the family firm’s most successful describing it as ‘a distinguished building in a dignified Scottish renaissance style;’ Larmour followed by noting ‘the style is a form of Early Renaissance, chosen no doubt to recall, in a modest way, the great period of hospital building in Jacobean England’ (Brett, p. 55; Larmour, p. 45).

Harold Love states that although the cost of construction was estimated at £3,840, the actual cost was upwards of £5,000. The new Belfast Children’s Hospital was completed in 1878 but was not officially opened for the admission of patients until 24th April 1879; when completed the hospital was praised for its quality of treatment, erected ‘on lines which at that time were considered most modern and adequate,’ and possessing a large extern department and 45 hospital beds located within its wards (which are believed to have been largely contained in the wing to the rear). The first Matron was a Miss Lennox who was a former pupil of Florence Nightingale’s school in London; Loves stresses that it was ‘largely due to her efforts that the difficulties encountered in the early years of the Hospital were successfully overcome.’ In 1880, the first full year of opening, the hospital treated 294 intern and 6,831 extern patients; in the year prior to the hospitals closure the building was treating 799 interns and 13,251 externs. The history of the hospital notes that ‘this great increase is indicative of the growth of the City of Belfast;’ this stretching of the capacity of the hospital could not be maintained and in the late 1920s a decision was made to relocate the hospital to a new site on the Falls Road. The foundation stone of the new hospital was laid on 5th June 1929; the hospital building on Queen Street was closed prior to the opening of the new facility on 24th November 1932 (Love, pp 2-3).

The R.U.C. occupied the former children’s hospital between c. 1935 and c. 1993; the building was listed in 1979 and was described by Patton in the following terms: ‘three-storey building in slightly rusticated brown (originally pink and white) Scrabo sandstone, set back from the main building line to achieve a sense of airiness. Paired windows on either side of central door with brackets enclosing dentilled head; first floor windows in moulded surrounds with lugged bases’ (Patton, pp 271-72).

The former hospital and police station was vacated by the Police around 1993 and is still vacant.

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1858
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1901-02
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1931
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1938
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/E/3-9 – Annual Revisions 1863-1896
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/20-42 - Annual Revisions 1897-1930
7. PRONI VAL/7/B/9/45 – Belfast Revaluation 1900
8. PRONI VAL/3/B/3/14 – First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1935
9. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/42 – Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1956-1972
10. Irish Builder, Vol. 19 (15 Dec 1877)
11. Census of Ireland (1901; 1911)
12. Belfast Street Directories (1901-1918)
13. First Survey Record – HB26/50/027 (1971)
14. First Survey Image – HB26/50/027 (1976)

Secondary Sources

1. Brett, C. E. B., ‘Buildings of Belfast: 1700-1914’ Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1985.
2. Larmour, P., ‘Belfast: An illustrated architectural guide’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1987.
3. Love, H., ‘The Royal Belfast Hospital for sick children: A history – 1948-1998’ Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1998.
4. Patton, M., ‘Central Belfast: An historical gazetteer’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993.

Online Resources

1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

Attached symmetrical multi-bay three-storey with attic sandstone former hospital, dated 1878, to the designs of Thomas Jackson, latterly used as an RUC barracks. Much historic character and detailing survive and its history represents both its changing use and the provision of healthcare in the city. It is s good example of a small civic building by an architect of note.