203 Donegall Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Terraced three-storey over basement redbrick townhouse, built c.1820, as part of a terrace of eight similar houses, Nos. 207-215 demolished c.1990. Restored and partially reconstructed c.1993. Square on plan with small front railed basement area and set on a slightly elevated site on the east side of Donegall Street at the junction with Carrick Hill.

Pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and rebuilt redbrick profiled chimneystack to the both party walls. Cast-iron guttering on drive-through brackets to projecting brick eaves course and cast-iron downpipe. Redbrick walling laid in Flemish bond. Square-headed window openings having flat brick arches with flush rendered reveals, sandstone sills and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows throughout.

Front elevation is two windows wide to the upper floors, closely spaced to the ground floor with a gauged brick round-headed door opening to the right. The doorcase comprises a projecting moulded surround with six-panelled timber door flanked by slender timber pilasters to a simple lintel cornice and spoked webbed fanlight set in a scalloped surround. Door opens onto replacement sandstone platform and steps enclosed by replacement iron railings returning to enclose the basement area and set on replacement sandstone plinth wall.

North side elevation abutted by adjoining house No.205 (HB26/50/085C).

Rear elevation is four storeys in height with staggered fenestration reflecting the rear stairhall and gauged brick square-headed window openings, sandstone sills and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows.

South side elevation abutted by adjoining house No.201, (HB26/50/085A).

Setting:
Set on a slightly elevated site at the north end of Donegall Street with a landscaped raised area buffering the terrace from the street. Each house has a rear yard enclosed by timber fence with a bitmac car park behind.

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

Historical information

Built as a terrace of three, with a further adjoining terrace of five (earlier in date but now gone), the current dwellings were built after 1796 as dwelling houses for the rising mercantile and professional classes of Belfast. Donegall Street, originally named ‘Linnenhall Street’ after a brown linen hall that formerly stood near the site of St Anne’s Cathedral, was laid out in the 1750s by the fourth Earl of Donegall. The eye was formerly guided along the street to the poorhouse at the end which closed the vista. (Patton; Brett) During the course of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Donegall Street became a busy commercial centre boasting a number of wholesale textile businesses as well as churches of all three main denominations. The housing built in the area was intended for the new middle classes, and when the current plot was sold to John Milford, a linen draper, a condition of the lease required frontages of at least 30 feet in height. (Brett) The basements of the houses are stone-built but it is thought that the upper floors, of brick, are of somewhat later date. Brett dates the terrace to 1799 but Patton suggests, on evidence uncovered during restoration, that the houses were constructed around 1820. (Patton) The site of the terrace, along a prehistoric raised beach, means that the basement is at ground level to the rear and the houses, although appearing to be three storey are in fact four storeys high. (Hearth website)

The terrace is shown on the first edition OS map of 1832-3 and is listed in the Townland Valuation, where each house is valued at £6.7s.6d. The dwellings comprised a three-storey house, two storey scullery return and a single storey privy and ashpit with a further basement storey and a rear entry to York Lane. Early street directories suggest that the terrace was favoured by textile merchants, with silk mercers and linen/cotton manufacturers resident. As the industrialisation of Belfast rendered the town an increasingly dirty and uncomfortable place to live, these wealthy merchants tended to move out to Malone and to the North Down coast. Bishop Denvir, when living in the neighbouring presbytery, complained of the soot and smuts from the biscuit factory opposite which meant frequent redecoration was necessary. (Valuation records) The nineteenth century saw the terrace taken over by professional people such as doctors, dentists and vets and by the turn into the twentieth, by the petty bourgeoisie running shops and employment agencies.

Number 203 is listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828-40 as the home of Henry Horner of Stevenson, Currell & Co, merchants. (Street Directory) Subsequent occupiers were J Matthews, manufacturer (1839), Mrs Crookshank, who ran a school on the premises (1846-7) and Joseph McAllister who ran a wine and spirit stores in North Street (1863). McAllister is listed in Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) and leased the property from William Suffern. The house and yard were valued at £17 and the rent was £20. McAllister complained that the basement storey was no asset to the house and could be used only as cellars. (Valuation records) McAllister was followed by Joseph Wigham, draper (1868), Jane Auld, dressmaker (1877-80) and James Barron, MD. By the turn into the twentieth century the house had been taken over by J Carvill for use as a catholic repository selling religious books and other goods. The 1901 census records John Carvill present in the house with his wife and seven children, two of his daughters assisting in the shop, while another daughter was a national school teacher, perhaps at the nearby St Patrick’s National School and his elder son was a telegraph clerk. The seven-room house was designated first class. John Carvill ‘improved’ the house by inserting a shop window at a cost of about £75, and the valuation was consequently raised to £25. (Valuation records)

The Carvill & Co catholic repository remained at the house until after the Second World War and the premises was subsequently occupied as a shop by Belart Ltd nursery goods (1950) and Solomon and Peres, radio and TV dealers (1955). The house had fallen vacant by 1965 and in 1985 the terrace attracted the attention of Hearth. The terrace of five that adjoined numbers 201-205 was demolished for road widening in 1990. The current three dwellings were restored by Hearth in 1991-3, but the rear wall of number 201 collapsed before restoration work began due to decay in the old lintels. A new back wall to the terrace was erected using modern brick, but reclaimed brick was used as replacements on the front elevations. New railings and stone kerbs were fitted and the doorcases restored with festooned plaster to the reveals and spiderweb fanlights. The shop front that had been inserted into the current building was removed and the original elevation restored. The house remains in use as a domestic dwelling. (Hearth website)

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition OS Map 1832-3
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/710A Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/7/3AGriffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
7. PRONI VAL/7/C/9/1 – Belfast Revaluation 1900
8. PRONI VAL/7/B/9/14 – Belfast Revaluation 1900
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/1-45 Annual Revisions (1863-1930)
10. Street Directories 1839-1995
11. 1901 census

Secondary Sources

1. Brett, C.E.B. “Buildings of Belfast 1700-1914” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, revised edition 1985
2. Brett, CEB “Georgian Belfast, 1750-1850 – Maps, Buildings and Trades” Royal Irish Academy, 2004
3. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
4. http://freespace.virgin.net/hearth.nireland - Hearth website

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Terraced three-storey over basement brick townhouse, built c.1820, as part of a terrace of eight similar houses, Nos. 207-215 demolished c.1990. One of only three houses to survive on the terrace (HB26/50/085A&C), this group is a good example of Belfast’s late Georgian domestic architecture, albeit largely reconstructed. Although compromised by the loss of interior fabric and detailing, they are a significant survival of late Georgian Belfast and their historic links with the mercantile and professional history of the City are of note.

General comments

This record has been renumbered. Formerly all three houses were HB26/50/085.