113 Royal Avenue

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Terraced three storey stucco building with attic, built c.1885, with rusticated Portland limestone ground floor. Rectangular on plan facing west onto Royal Avenue. Extensively renovated c.2000, now in use as an arts centre and interconnected with No. 112 (HB26/50/066A).

Steeply pitched natural slate roof with black angled ridge tiles, fronted by a panelled stucco parapet broken at centre by an aediculed dormer flanked by panelled pilasters supporting segmental pediment with dentil enrichment; moulded cornice on brackets. Walling is stucco to upper floors, over rusticated ground floor topped by moulded cornice on double dentil course. Windows are round-headed to ground and first floor; those to ground floor in deep coved keyblocked surrounds having moulded stone sills and granite aprons; those to first floor arcaded with continuous hood mould, foliate impost mouldings (plain to outer opes). Segmental second floor windows embedded in recessed openings flanked by colonnetes; flush cills over second string course. All windows are 1/1 timber sashes.

Principal west-facing elevation is four windows wide to upper floors. Ground floor has three openings including entrance located to right side. Entrance comprises multi-panelled timber door with lugged Portland stone surround inset with panel to lintel bearing fixed letters ‘No 11’. Plain lintel cornice with semi-circular overlight having keystone. Paired windows to dormer.

North side elevation abutted by adjoining building No. 114.

Redbrick walls to the rear elevation, laid in English garden wall bond with gauged brick square-headed window openings and 2/2 timber sash windows.

South side elevation abutted by adjoining building No.112 (HB26/50/066A).

Setting:
Street-fronted and located on the east side of Royal Avenue in Belfast city centre.

Roof: Natural slate
RWG : None
Walling: Painted render / Portland limestone
Windows: Single-pane timber sash

Historical information

The current building was constructed c1885 as a shop premises, occupied in its early years by a number of jewellers’ firms and later absorbed into the premises of the adjoining Northern Bank. The architect is unknown. First shown on the fourth edition OS map of 1901-2, (the large-scale town plan of 1883-4 shows a gap) the building was initially occupied by Steel and Sons Ltd who may have had the building constructed to their specifications, having purchased the lease from the adjoining Northern Bank. (Patton; Valuation records; Industries of the North)

Steel & Sons Ltd were electro-plate manufacturers, gold and silversmiths, watch and clock makers, jewellers and opticians, the firm having been founded in 1860 by Matthew C Steel who was joined by his sons in 1871. Initially specialising in the sale of tools and materials for watch and clock makers, the firm later began to move into the electro-plating trade (Belfast Newsletter). In 1887, having become a limited company, the firm moved from their premises in Ann Street to the current building which was named ‘The Irish Electro Plate Works’, electro-plating being at that time a new undertaking in Belfast (Belfast Newsletter). The original shopfront was of plate glass with a recessed central doorway. The ground floor housed the salesroom and an electro-plating department to the rear. Over the sales floor were ‘balcony showrooms’ on three sides displaying jewellery trade tools, watchglasses and ‘all manner of materials and requisites for the watch, clock and jewellery trades...These balconies add greatly to the fine appearance of the establishment, and produce a capital effect when viewed from the shop’. On the second floor was a showroom for clocks, especially French and American examples, together with an assortment of bronzes and electro-plated wares. Here also, the goods were burnished by female employees. (Belfast Newsletter; Industries of the North) On the third floor were the watch and clock makers’ workshops, part of the silversmiths’ and laquerers’ plant and on the top floor the polishers and buffers (who prepared the items for plating) and the jewellers and engravers. (Belfast Newsletter)

Unfortunately, however, the enterprise failed and by 1900 the firm were in liquidation. Their former premises was let floor by floor to a number of jewellery firms. The building was valued in 1900 at £311 in total. The ground floor shop was let to John, then Thomas, Albin, wholesale and retail jewellers, the first floor to McCutcheon and Donaldson, watch and clock makers, jewellers, opticians and engravers and the third floor to Henderson and Thompson who were jewellers, silversmiths, engravers and electro-platers. (Valuation records; Street Directories) By the early 1920s the shop had been taken over by the adjoining branch of the Northern Bank and the ground floor shopfront had been filled in and rusticated, probably to designs by Godfrey William Ferguson who is known to have completed work for the Northern Bank in Royal Avenue at around this time. (www.dia.ie)

The present building can be accessed from within the former Northern Bank and formed part of the conversion of the bank into gallery space and offices in 2002.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/8/30/4-4A – Large-scale plan of Belfast 1883-4
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931
4. PRONI VAL/7/B/9/23 – Belfast Revaluation 1900
5. Street Directories
6. Belfast Newsletter, 13th September 1887

Secondary Sources

1. “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)
2. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
3. www.dia.ie – Dictionary of Irish Architects online

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Symmetrical multi-bay three-storey with attic stucco-fronted former bank building, built c.1885, with rusticated Portland limestone ground floor. Rectangular on plan. Although there ahs been some loss of character internally and changes to the floor plan, much historic fabric and detailing survive. The building is a good example of this type of smaller commercial premises representing the expansion of commerce in the city.

General comments

Renumbering to be looked at - this is not really a pair with /066A