Northern Bank

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three storey (entry level, trading hall level & extension level) corner building on the west side of Victoria Street turning the corner, and extending with modern addition, into Gordon Street. Designed in 1851 by Thomas Jackson in a Classical style. Set back third storey added with insertion to rear of façade in 2000.

Modern third floor extension has flat roof, all sitting behind incised loopwork parapet whose piers are surmounted with arched gablets. Concealed parapet gutter. Walls are sandstone, largely band rusticated. Moulded, dentilled cornices with plain frieze runs under parapet and at ground floor level (all dentils replacements to ground floor); giant staged pilasters divide bays, two floral roundels to upper capitals, foliate brackets to ground floor. Windows to first floor have segmental arched heads, moulded architraves set in slightly recessed arches of ashlar stone; windows to ground floor are flat lintelled openings set in modern rusticated stonework panels between original pilasters. Windows are replacement timber sashes (10 pane to first floor, 4 pane to ground). Door is double 6 panelled timber with boarded-up overlight.

The main east elevation is 5 windows wide. The entrance sits under the left hand, south first floor window; framed by Ionic in antis porchway.

The side south elevation is a blank brick wall above the abutting modern building.

The rear west elevation is abutted by the modern addition.

The side north elevation is two windows wide and generally matches the east elevation except the incisions in the parapet are solid and, central over the parapet, sits a plaque with crossed corn sheaves flanked by volutes and surmounted by a flattened urn. The main entrance to the building is in the adjacent glazed section of the modern addition.

Setting

1-9 Victoria Street sits directly on the pavement of the busy thoroughfare of Victoria Street to the west with a large paved area with modern sculptures to the north at the blocked end of Gordon Street. Diagonally across Waring Street on the opposite side of Victoria Street sit HB26/50/053 and HB26/50/056.

Roof: Modern extension.
Walling: Sandstone
Windows: Timber
RWG: Unseen.

Historical information

Nos 1-7 Victoria Street, a two-storey sandstone building, located at the corner of Victoria Street and Gordon Street, was constructed in 1851 to designs by Thomas Jackson and was originally a Corn Exchange. The Dictionary of Irish Architects records that Jackson (1807-1890) established his independent practice in Belfast in 1835 and was described primarily as a ‘domestic architect, though he turned his hand to buildings of every type, commercial, industrial, educational and ecclesiastical.’ The Builder notes that Jackson designed the corn exchange in a Classical style utilising sandstone sourced from Glasgow; the estimated cost was set at £3,000 and when completed the corn exchange consisted of four ground floor commercial units, with the Exchange Room occupying the upper floor of the building. The builder contracted to undertake Jackson’s design was a Mr. W. Graham of Belfast (Builder, pp 393-775; Dictionary of Irish Architects).

The 1852 Belfast Street Directory records that the Corn Exchange Building was originally known as Regent Buildings; however the directory gave no detailed information concerning the occupants of the group floor commercial units (Belfast Street Directory – 1852). Griffith’s Valuation (1859) set the total rateable value of the corn exchange and its four shops at £170 noting that the corn exchange was administered by the Directors of the Corn Exchange (the secretary of whom was a Mr. Robert Vance), whilst the ground floor units were occupied by Gustavus Heyn (a general merchant and ship broker), Robert McAlister (a clerk), Thomas G. Folingsby (also a merchant and ship broker) and Robert Vance (a secretary to the Corn Exchange and publisher of the Belfast Mercantile Journal).

The corn exchange continued to operate from Regent Buildings until 1870 when the organisation vacated the building; in that year the Northern Whig newspaper acquired the upper floor, and one of the ground floor units, which it converted into a printing press and offices; by 1877 the Belfast Street Directories noted that the remaining three units were occupied by Alfred M. Munster (a commission merchant with the Royal Swedish and Norwegian Consulate), Robert Vance’s Belfast Mercantile Journal offices), and J. A. Cochrane (secretary to the Belfast Mining Co. Ltd.) (Belfast Street Directory – 1877).

By 1901 the upper floor continued to be utilised as a printing press, and the Northern Whig had also established a second office (a sales and dispatch office) on the ground floor of the former Corn Exchange Building; Alfred Munster continued to occupy the site at that time whilst the remaining ground floor shop was occupied by a Mr. Hugh T. Barrie, a general produce merchant (Belfast Street Directory – 1901-18). There was no further change to the occupants of the former Corn Exchange Building until 1919 when the Northern Whig vacated the site and established the offices at the Commercial Buildings on Bridge Street (see HB26/50/060); upon the partition of Ireland in 1922 the vacant upper floor of the former Corn Exchange Building was occupied by the offices of the Northern Ireland Ministry of Labour. At the same time all of the ground floor commercial units were acquired by Cullen Allen & Co, Ltd., potato merchants, who established their main Belfast office at the site.

The Northern Ireland Ministry of Labour vacated the upper floor of the former Corn Exchange Building by 1928 when Cullen Allen & Co. Ltd. Took over the upper floor. However, by the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1935) Cullen Allen & Co. Ltd. Had vacated the majority of the building (retaining only a single ground floor retail unit) but were recorded as the owners of the site having purchased the property in c. 1930. In 1935 the total value of the former Corn Exchange Building was increased to £470; by that year the upper floors had been occupied as club rooms and a meeting hall for the Royal British Legion in Belfast, whilst the three ground floor commercial units had been occupied by the Henderson Brothers (the original name of the Anchor Line Ltd., a transatlantic steamship company). There was no further revaluation carried out for over two decades due to the outbreak of the Second World War, however by the 1950s the second revaluation noted that the Anchor Line Ltd., and Cullen Allen & Co. Ltd., continued to occupy the ground floor commercial units of the former Corn Exchange Building. The Royal British Legion had vacated the site in the interim period and by 1956 the upper floor was utilised by the Ulster Transport Authority as club rooms; by the end of the second revaluation in 1972 the total rateable value of the building had been increased to £1,036.

The origin of the Corn Exchange Building dates from the Corn Laws of the late-18th century; under these protectionist laws, cereal and grain production in the United Kingdom was protected from international competition by the imposition of high tariffs on the foreign import of cereals. The economic benefit of this strategy was thrown into question during the Irish Famine (1845-52) when the Anti-Corn Law League called for the repeal of the laws in order to facilitate the import of cheap cereals into Ireland to aid relief efforts. The Corn Laws were repealed in July 1846 (Byrne, p. 82). The Corn Exchange Building was constructed in 1851 by a local company of grain merchants as a direct consequence of the repeal of the Corn Laws; however by the 1870s the Corn Exchange had vacated the site.
The Northern Whig converted the upper floor of the former Corn Exchange Building into a printing press in 1870; the newspaper was originally established in 1823 and prior to acquiring the site on Victoria Street, the Northern Whig occupied offices at Calender Street (Belfast Street Directory – 1861). The Northern Whig continued to be printed from the former Corn Exchange Building for over fifty years until acquiring new headquarters at the Commercial Buildings on Bridge Street (from which it operated until production of the periodical ceased in 1963).

The former Corn Exchange Building was listed in 1988 at which point the building was utilised as administrative offices by Northern Bank; Larmour, writing in 1987, described the structure as ‘a fairly plain two-storey building with shops below a lofty first floor hall ... Built of freestone, rusticated and pilastered, with a very tall Renaissance loopwork parapet, and an Ionic in antis porchway.’ Patton (1993) similarly described the former Corn Exchange as a ‘beige sandstone building ... With tall segmental-headed windows between giant order pilasters at first floor, over channelled ground floor; incised parapet over dentilled cornice, with crossed sheaves of corn in central panel on gable, flanked by volutes and surmounted with a flattened urn’ (Larmour, p. 17; Patton, p. 318).

In 2000 Russell Simpson carried out a £1.2 million refurbishment of the former Corn Exchange Building which resulted in the loss of the sites original interior. The original listed façade was retained; however an entirely new three-storey building has been constructed behind Jackson’s Classical exterior. The former Corn Exchange Building is currently vacant.

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1858
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1901-02
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1931
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1938
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/7/3A – Griffith’s Valuation 1859
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/1-42 - Annual Revisions 1863-1930
7. PRONI VAL/7/B/9/31 – Belfast Revaluation 1900
8. PRONI VAL/3/B/3/13 – First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1935
9. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/42 – Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1956-1972
10. Builder, Vol. 9 (21 Jun; 25 Oct; 6 Dec)
11. Belfast Street Directories (1852-1918)
12. First Survey Image – HB26/50/173 (1987)
13. Ordnance Survey map 130-13NE (1959-60)

Secondary Sources

1. Byrne, J., ‘Byrne’s dictionary of Irish Local History: From earliest times to c. 1900’ Cork: Mercier Press, 2004.
2. Larmour, P., ‘Belfast: An illustrated architectural guide’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1987.
3. Patton, M., ‘Central Belfast: An historical gazetteer’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993.

Online Resources

1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie
2. Russell Simpson website - http://www.russell-simpson.com/our_work.php?id=16

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

A two storey Classical stone building built 1851 to designs by Thomas Jackson. Although the integrity of the building as a whole has been compromised by the 20th century refurbishment and extension, much historic fabric and detailing survive reflecting its history as a corn exchange. Its association with the Northern Whig is also significant. It is also the work of a local architect of note.