Mayfair Building

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A distinctive red brick commercial building in the Art Nouveau style by Blackwood & Jury, c.1906, rising to four storeys with attic, with ashlar sandstone stripes and pilasters, overhanging eaves and octagonal corner turret, located on Arthur Square.

Pitched natural slate roofs with sheeted overhanging eaves having ogee gutters. Original timber windows in a variety of styles, detailed with elevations.

William St South elevation:
Ground floor shop, retaining ventilation strips and long twelve-pane windows under sandstone entablature which appear to be original features. Three bays wide and three storeys high, the first floor windows are triple-light, the outer ones being segmental-headed and the middle one Diocletian. Second floor windows are segmental-headed d/h sashes paired to outer bays with stone stripes, while third floor windows are plain d/h sashes with stone lintels in rounded brick reveals. The central bay is set slightly forward and capped by an Art Nouveau gable in brick with stone trimming, while the outer bays terminate in deep boarded gables. Rainwater goods include ogee gutters on curly iron brackets and square downpipes with ornamental hoppers. Steep hipped slate roof with tall slender chimneys. “Mayfair” lettering in Art Nouveau script on convex string course at base of gable.

At the corner to Arthur Square there is an octagonal turret with bulging stone detail and an ogival roof, rising from a scooped stone portico over the corner entrance.

Arthur Square elevation: Similar to the William St elevation, but four bays wide at first floor, the central two set forward and terminating in the wider main gable of the building, which has a set-back attic storey and sandstone apex finial; paired windows to outer bays, which are gabled. Entirely modern shops. 'Mayfair' lettering as previous to this elevation also.

Arthur Street elevation: Similar to the William St one but omitting the corner entrance and turret, and with an apparent office entrance under the central bay.

Setting: Busy pedestrianised city centre location, enclosing the north side of Cornmarket and Arthur Square. Complemented by other listed buildings including the Grand Restaurant and the Masonic Lodge on either side.

Schedule of materials:
Roof: Slate
Walls: Brick with gingery sandstone trims
Windows: Timber
RWG: square metal with ornamental hoppers

Historical information

The Mayfair Building was constructed for the Arthur Square Development Company in 1906-7 to designs by Blackwood and Jury. The contractor was Robert Corry and the building is first shown on the sixth edition OS map of 1931. The building was erected on the site of houses, shops and a night refuge but in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the area had been the site of the town ‘Shambles’. (Patton)

The junction of Ann Street and Cornmarket is one of the older parts of Belfast, having formed a focal point as early as 1685 (Philips map). By the late eighteenth century it had acquired much of its present form, the name Arthur Square being listed in an 1819 Directory. In the 1950s a triple-branched gas lamp stood at its centre surrounded by a paved and cobbled circle, but in the late 1960s the area was pedestrianised. (www.paddi.net)

On announcing that Blackwood & Jury were preparing the plans for the building in March 1906, the Irish Builder commented that the new block would be ‘a great improvement to this locality, especially as it will be a very handsome and important building’. (Irish Builder) Construction was underway in November 1906 and the ‘Expanded Metal Company’ of Hartlepool was responsible for expanded steel and concrete flooring throughout the building, a large picture of which was used as advertising for the company. (Irish Builder) An illustration carried in the Irish Builder in 1907 shows the building as originally intended. There have been few changes in the façade since this time, other than alterations in the shop elevations. The chimneys vary from the illustration and appear to have been departures from the original design.

The building enters valuation records in 1907-8 as 29 lettings in all, comprising shops (together valued at over £100) and a motor house on the ground floor and offices and caretaker’s apartments on upper floors. The building was constructed by Arthur Square Development Company Ltd. Early occupants in the ground floor shops were Parke & Wilson, merchant and ladies’ tailors and the Mayfair Café (1910 Street Directory).

The1908 street directory records a number of businesses on the upper floor, several solicitors’ offices, a tax surveyor and a law agent. A caretaker, William Farley from Co Derry, a police pensioner, occupied four rooms with his wife. (1911 census) By 1910 the occupants included the Ulster Unionist Council, the Northern Law Society and the Income Tax Office for the district. The architect Ernest Woods also had offices here in 1910. (Patton)The 1918 street directory records a hatter and outfitter, G Baird, who occupied two of the ground floor shops and Joseph Braddell & Son, Gun Rifle, Revolver, Fishing Rod and Tackle Manufacturers in the other shop. Shops facing onto Ann Street were occupied by a solicitor’s practice and W Hamilton & Co, Seedsmen, Nurserymen and Florists. W J Crean was employed in the building as a lift attendant.

Larmour suggests that the corner cupola ‘owes something to the example of Norman Shaw’ but that the scrolled iron eaves brackets and art nouveau carving are ‘typical Percy Jury touches’. The building remains in use as offices and shops.

Primary Sources

1. PRONI D4247/3/2/374 Philips Map of Belfast 1685
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 Sixth Edition OS Map 1901-2
3. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/1-31 Annual Revisions (1863-1905)
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/D/1-22 Annual Revisions (1862-1930)
5. Street Directories 1908-18
6. 1911 census online
7. Irish Builder Vol 48, 24 March 1906, p242
8. Irish Builder Vol 48, 17 November 1906, p928
9. Irish Builder Vol 49 23rd February 1907, p148
10. Irish Builder Vol 59 7th July 1917, p337

Secondary Sources

1. Larmour, P “Belfast, An Illustrated Architectural Guide” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1987
2. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
3. www.paddi.net

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

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A distinctive red brick commercial building with stone enrichments, built c.1906 in the Art Nouveau style to designs by Blackwood & Jury. Much historic fabric and detailing survive and the concrete and steel structure is of note. The building represents the ongoing development of commerce in the early years of the 20th century, especially in this locale, and is a fine example of the type, as well as the work of an architectural practice of note.