7 College Place North

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Terraced two-storey red brick house, built c.1840, as one of four similar houses. Rectangular on plan facing southeast and located in a cul-de-sac to the north of College Square North.

Pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles, profiled brick chimneystack with terracotta pots to the south party wall (shared with No.9 HB26/50/004D) and cast-iron guttering on iron brackets to brick eaves course with cast-iron downpipe. Red brick walling laid in Flemish bond with cement pointing. Gauged brick flat-arched window openings with painted sandstone sills, rendered reveals and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows.

Front elevation is two windows wide with a square-headed door opening to the right having replacement four-panelled timber door with bolection mouldings and rectangular overlight flanked by large plain console brackets supporting a hood cornice. Door opens onto two concrete steps to the front pavement with the remains of a plinth wall to the former railed front area.

South side elevation abutted by adjoining house No.9 (HB26/50/104D).

Rear elevation not seen.

North side elevation abutted by adjoining house No.5 (HB26/50/104B).

Setting

Forming part of a terrace of four similar houses lining the northwest side of College Place North at the entrance to an industrial yard, located to the north of College Square North.

Roof: Natural slate
RWG: Cast-iron
Walling: Red brick
Windows : timber

Historical information

No. 7 College Place North, a two-storey terraced dwelling, dates from c. 1840 and is one of a small number of surviving late-Georgian / early Victorian houses to remain in Belfast city centre. Together with the adjoining nos 3-9 (HB26/50/104A-D) and nos 11-13 (HB26/50/105A-B), No. 7 College Place North was constructed by the second edition of the Belfast Ordnance Survey map in 1858. The terrace was not depicted on the first edition (1832-33) which shows that the area lay vacant; at that time Belfast’s development was focused to the north and south-east, however with the opening of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (HB 26/50/023) in 1814 and the increase in population with the Victorian period, the construction of terraced streets to the west of Belfast’s centre accelerated.

Griffith’s Valuation (1860) records that nos 3-13 College Place North were owned by a Mr. Thomas McCammon. A tanner, leather merchant and flour miller, McCammon operated his business from a tannery factory on 23 King Street (directly to the north of College Place North) and was also the lessor of a number of other dwellings in the area (Belfast Street Directories). Griffith’s Valuation records that McCammon leased No. 7 College Place North, which was valued at £9, to a Mr. John Murray. The 1861 Belfast Street Directory records that Murray was employed in a local brewery; however he vacated the dwelling by 1868 when the directories noted that David Malcolmson, a bakery manager, had taken over possession. The occupant of No. 7 College Place North changed a number of times over the next few decades; in 1877 Robert Armstrong, a local miller, took possession, however by 1880 he had been replaced by Robert Beattie, a mechanic (who also occupied the adjoining No. 9 College Place North (HB26/50/104D)). The Annual Revisions recorded a Mr. John Reid as occupant between 1881 and c. 1900; although by the Belfast Revaluation of 1900 occupation of the site had passed to a Mr. William Adams.

The Belfast Revaluation recorded that the terrace had come into the ownership of a Mr. Samuel Gibson, a druggist and general merchant who owned properties on King Street (Belfast Street Directories); the terrace was revalued and No. 7 College Place North was increased in value to £10 10s. and let at an annual rent of £17. The revaluation return described the property as a two-storey dwelling of approximately 50 years in age, heated by gas and contained five rooms (excluding a kitchen).

By 1901 No. 7 College Place North had once more passed hands; the census of that year noted that a Mr. John Rickerby (59, Church of Ireland), a Police Pensioner, had come into possession of the dwelling and reside there with his wife Sarah (53) and their children. The census building return described No. 7 College Place North as a 2nd class private dwelling that consisted of six inhabited rooms. Rickerby only briefly resided at the address, being replaced as occupant by a Mr. W. H. Alexander by 1907; Alexander was employed as the sexton to the nearby Christ Church (HB26/50/025), located on the grounds of Royal Belfast Academical Institution. By the 1911 Census the property had passed to the Quinn family who continued to reside at the site until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930.
By the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1935) No. 7 College Place North had been increased in value to £14 10s. By that time the two-storey dwelling had come into the possession of a Mr. Patrick Gunn, however Gunn vacated the site by the Second General Revaluation which commenced in 1956. By the end of the revaluation in 1972 No. 7 College Place North was slightly increased in value to £15 and was occupied by a Mr. J. Oliver.

Brett, writing in 1985, described nos 3-13 College Place North as ‘enchanting little two-storey mid-Georgian houses [which] cannot be earlier than 1832 … they are real jewels with glazing bars all intact;’ however this Georgian date is too early as the terrace was most likely constructed c. 1840-50 during the Victorian development of the area surrounding College Square and most certainly had not been constructed by the 1832-33 Ordnance Survey map (Brett, p. 20). It is clear that College Place North was constructed as part of the development of the increasingly fashionable residential area surrounding the Royal Belfast Academical Institution; a report compiled by the Historic Buildings Branch in 1992 stated that College Place North was erected as ‘mews houses for the servants working in the great houses fronting onto [College] Square.’ Patton states that the terrace was once blocked off with a brick wall at the Killen Street end whilst an opposing terrace once stood opposite on the south-west side (now demolished). The terrace remains in the shadow of Neill’s factory which was originally constructed during the famine but was remodelled in the 1880’s by James Neill (Patton, pp 71-72).

The terrace was listed in 1977 on the grounds that they represented rare surviving examples of two-storey early-19th century housing in the area, however in the period immediately after its listing the group of mid-19th century dwellings fell into a state of disrepair due to neglect and the advent of vandalism in the area; by the 1990s over half of the houses on the terrace lay vacant. James Neill’s original Victorian mill was demolished in 1986 87 and replaced with the current structure; subsequently Neill’s Mill requested the delisting of College Place North in 1992 with the intention to demolish the terraces and incorporate the site into the factory. The request was rejected and a renovation project was carried out on nos 3-13 College Place North resulting in the restoration of the original character of the terrace (Ulster Newsletter; HB File).

Patton, writing in 1993 at the time of the restoration, described nos 3-9 College Place North as an ‘obtuse-angled terrace of two-storey red-brick houses with some surviving three-lobe fanlights over four-panel doors in simple doorcases;’ the original fanlight for No. 7 has been removed, however the glazing bars noted by Brett have been maintained.

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1832-33
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1901-02
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1931
5. PRONI OS/6/1/61/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1938
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/7/5D – Griffith’s Valuation 1860
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/E/1-24 – Annual Revisions 1862-1930
8. PRONI VAL/7/B/12/20 – Belfast Revaluation 1900
9. PRONI VAL/3/B/3/18 – First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1935
10. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/36 – Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1956-72
11. Census of Ireland (1901; 1911)
12. Belfast Street Directories (1861-1918)
13. First Survey Record – HB26/50/104 (1970)
14. First Survey Image – HB26/50/104 (1974)
15. Ulster Newsletter (30 Sept 1993)

Secondary Sources

1. HB File - HB 26/50/104C
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.
4. Patton, M., ‘Central Belfast: An historical gazetteer’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

End of terrace two-storey red brick house, built c.1840, as one of four similar houses. Rectangular on plan facing southeast and located in a cul-de-sac to the north of College Square North. Much historic fabric and detailing and its character survive and the whole group forms a coherent nineteenth-century terrace that is one the few examples of late-Georgian/early-Victorian housing of this scale to survive in Belfast city centre.