Orange Hall

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical three-bay three-storey sandstone Orange Hall, built c.1885 to the designs of William Batt. Located on a prominent site now overlooking the Westlink to the south and fronting onto Clifton Street with a further rendered rear elevation fronting onto Regent Street.

Natural slate roof on a U-plan, hipped behind front parapet with a pitched slate roof to the rear section. Replacement steel rainwater goods to angled brick eaves course. Roof hidden behind parapet wall with moulded coping, blind pierced balustrades and panelled piers to either end surmounted by decorative urns. To the centre is a raised parapet with relief carving ‘1690’, dentilled cornice and supporting a bronze statue of King William III on a horse wielding a sword. Pale sandstone ashlar walling to the front elevation only, returning to the side elevations by a single blind bay. Rock-faced red sandstone plinth course with moulded trim and channel-rusticated corner piers with fluted capitals rising to a red sandstone bracketed crown cornice and interrupted at each level by a full-span string course (dentilled to the ground floor). Painted cement rendered walls to south side elevation and redbrick walls to rear and north side elevations laid in Flemish bond with stucco embellishments to the rear. Round-headed window openings arranged in groups of three to the front elevation with stone mullions, red sandstone impost mouldings, arch mouldings and single-pane timber sash windows. Gauged black and redbrick round-headed window openings to the south side elevation, now rendered over. Square-headed window openings to the rear elevation with decorative stucco surrounds (now boarded up).

Symmetrical front elevation is seven windows wide with a central feature bay having a double-height compound arch to the upper two floors and flanked by pilasters rising from the principal doorcase. The second floor window forms a Venetian arch with a central colonettes, Belfast coat of arms below the sill. The first floor window has a cartouche to the keystone. First and second floor windows have decoratively carved apron panels while the ground and second floor windows have decorative terracotta keystones. Advanced aediculated Corinthian doorcase comprising a round-headed door opening flanked by polished granite columns having stiff-leaf capitals rising from panelled plinths. Door opening flanked by paired Corinthian pilasters resting on panelled plinths supporting full dentilled entablature with parapet above having raised lettering; ‘ORANGE HALL’ and framed by a pair of urn finials. Double-leaf timber panelled doors and fanlight set deep within the opening with a steel gate to four granite steps.
The stone front elevation returns onto the south side elevation by a single blind bay, detailed as per front elevation, with the remainder of the elevation set slightly back and being five windows wide.

Gabled three-storey brick and stucco rear elevation, dated 1883, is three windows wide. Redbrick gable with dentilled raking cornice is surmounted by a dentilled pediment with raised lettering to the tympanum; ‘1883’, and a bipartite blind bay with central colonettes flanked by brick piers having foliate capitals. Blind stucco occuli flank the pedimented bay with squat panelled piers to either end having segmental pediments. The first and second floors are defined by four Giant Ionic order brick pilasters with decorative stucco capitals. Square-headed window openings are paired to the centre bay with decorative stucco surrounds including arched overpanels to the second floor, entablatures to the first floor and central colonettes to the centre bays (now all boarded up). Square-headed window openings to the ground floor with hood cornices, now infilled with redbrick. Square-headed door opening to the right with sidelight (now bricked up) having a hood cornice and steel door with security steel cage.
Redbrick north side elevation with the stone front elevation returning onto the side elevation by a single blind bay, detailed as per front elevation. Remainder of the side elevation not visible.

Setting:
Fronting onto Clifton Street with a small railed and paved area enclosed by replacement steel railings set into original red sandstone plinth wall. Occupying a highly prominent site overlooking the Westlink with its rear elevation fronting onto Regent Street.

Roof: Natural slate
RWG : steel
Walling: Sandstone ashlar/brick
Windows: timber

Historical information

Clifton Street Orange Hall, a three-storey meeting hall crowned with a bronze statue of King William III, was constructed between 1883 and 1887. The Irish Builder notes that William Batt (d. 1910), a Belfast-based architect, won the competition to design the building with his 56ft tall, 126ft deep plan which employed Newtownards and Dumfries stone. The builders contracted to carry out Batt’s design were Dixon & Son who undertook construction at an estimated cost of £6,000-7,000; the Orange Hall was officially opened in the summer of 1885 (Irish Builder, 1883, p. 29; 1887, p. 184). The 10ft bronze sculpture of King William III, depicted on horseback at the Battle of the Boyne (1690), was fashioned by a Mr. Harry Hems (1842-1915/16), an English sculptor who exported his carvings and statues all around the world. The statue was not completed and installed until two years after the opening of the Orange Hall, the unveiling taking place on 16th November 1889 during a grand ceremonial display by the local Orange Lodges (Irish Builder, p. 280; Dictionary of Irish Architects).

The Annual Revisions valued the new Orange Hall at £190 and noted that the building was administered by the Orange Order, but owned by the Belfast Charitable Society (originally established in 1752). The value of the Orange Hall was increased to £255 under the Belfast Revaluation of 1900; in that year the valuer noted that the hall consisted of 19 rooms (the report only included sitting rooms or bedrooms but excluded kitchens). and that the Orange Order paid ground rent of £34 10s. per annum. Aside from acting as the meeting place for the local Orange Lodge, part of the ground floor of Clifton Street Orange Hall was utilised as commercial space, occupied by a Mr. J. W. Agnew in 1901; between 1907 and 1918 the site was utilised by the Royal Navy as a recruiting station (Belfast Street Directories). At some point between 1906 and 1915 the value of the hall was reduced to £200 for unknown reasons, however the value of the site remained at this level by the end of the Annual Revisions for Court Ward (this ward was cancelled in 1915 despite the remainder of Belfast’s electoral wards continuing to be valued in the Annual revisions until 1930).

The Orange Hall on Clifton Street was not revalued until 1935 when the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland carried out the first survey of Court Ward in two decades; in the intervening period the value of the Orange Hall had been increased to £325, the increase partially due to alteration work being carried out in 1933 under the direction of Thomas Robert Eagar (1886/87-c. 1973), a Belfast-based architect (Irish Builder, p. 953). The Orange Hall survived the bombardment of Belfast during the 1941 Blitz and after the end of the Second World War was included in the second general revaluation which commenced in 1956; the value of the hall stood at £672 by the end of the project in 1972.

Brett states that Clifton Street Orange Hall was originally ‘very plain, discreet and unassuming; the only hint of its purpose was a single modest orange lily carved on the keystone of the central arch.’ The main focus of the relatively simple building is the 10ft tall statue of King William III which weighs ‘thirty-seven hundredweights,’ the statue’s uniform, consisting of stirrups, saddlecloth and pistol holster, were cast from the originals which were owned by the Baroness Von Stieglitz and kept in the Tower of London (Brett, pp 55-56).

The Belfast County Twelfth Booklet (2000) states that the foundation stone of the Orange Hall was laid in 1883; the building was finished in 1885, and opened that year. The King William III statue, the only one of the monarch in the city of Belfast, cost £600 and arrived at the site on 16th November 1889 accompanied by ‘many tens of thousands [who] took up the invitation to ensure a safe passage and arrival of the Prince of Orange ... At the unveiling, a procession of Orangemen, four abreast, took almost an hour to pass despite a brisk marching pace.’ The statue’s unveiling ceremony was undertaken by Mrs. Saunderson, the wife of Colonel Edward Saunderson, then a prominent Orangeman and M.P. For North Armagh (Saunderson staunchly opposed the Second Home Rule Bill of 1893 and later became the leader of the Irish Unionist Party – Newmann, p. 234); the County Grand Master of Antrim, W. H. Lyons gave the speech during the unveiling. Since it was opened Clifton Street Orange Hall has been utilised as the venue for monthly meetings of the County Grand Lodge of Belfast and is the starting point for the annual 12th July Parade (County Twelfth Booklet).

Clifton Street Orange Hall was listed in 1979; in 2000 the County Twelfth Booklet stated that ‘at the time, and for many years since, many and varied architectural experts have commented, if the whole essence of Belfast could be displayed in one building, the Orange Hall in Clifton Street is where it is to be found.’ The hall continues to be used as one of the main headquarters of the Orange Order in Ireland and possesses a small museum located on the second floor as well as a number of meeting rooms, however due to the building’s location at a community interface the hall has been subject to numerous arson attacks. The First Survey Image shows that by c. 1990 the facade of the Orange Hall had been marked by paint bomb attacks and, in an attempt to prevent damage to the building, a metal cage had been erected to protect the front of the lower two storeys; the protective grille has only recently been removed.

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1901-02
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1931
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1938
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/12+26 – Annual Revisions 1882-1905 (St. Anne’s Ward)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/G/1 – Annual Revisions 1906-1915 (Court Ward)
6. PRONI VAL/7/B/2/1 – Belfast Revaluation 1900
7. PRONI VAL/3/B/3/7 – First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1935
8. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/7 – Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1956-72
9. Irish Builder, Vol. 25 (15 Oct 1883); Vol. 29 (1 Jul 1887); Vol. 31. (15 No 1889); Vol. 75. (4 Nov 1933)
10. Belfast Street Directories (1843-1943)
11. First Survey Record – HB26/50/089 (1971)
12. First Survey Image – HB26/50/089 (c. 1994)
13. Ordnance Survey Map –130-13NE (1959-60)

Secondary Sources

1. ‘County Twelfth Booklet’ Belfast: Orange Order, 2000.
2. Brett, C. E. B., ‘Buildings of Belfast: 1700-1914’ Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1985.
3. Larmour, P., ‘Belfast: An illustrated architectural guide’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1987.

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
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical three-bay three-storey sandstone Orange Hall, built c.1885 to the designs of William Batt. As the headquarters of the Orange Order, this building is of significance in the history of that organisation, representing the aspirations of the Belfast lodges. Much historic fabric and detailing survive, including the bronze of King William IV by a significant English sculptor, Harry Hems. It is a fine example of a public hall, and of the work of a notable local architect. It is also part of a conglomeration of significant public architecture in Clifton Street and around Carlisle Circus and, as such, reflects the ongoing expansion of the City in the late 19th century.