72-74 ROYAL AVENUE

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A four storey terraced commercial building with attic, in a decorative Queen Anne Revival style, originally Gresham Life Offices (1887). It was designed by William J. Gilliland, and sits on the west side of Royal Avenue.

Natural slate roof pitched behind parapet and gabled dormer to front (east) elevation, lead ridge; pitched dormer to rear elevation; tall deep brick chimneys with stepped cornices, to each gable. Concealed parapet gutter. Walls are red terracotta with ornate mouldings: roundel frieze, trefoiled gablets with finials and diamond infill to dormer apex slightly advancing over a machicolated cornice with animal gargoyles to each end; string courses between floors; "GRESHAM LIFE OFFICE" inscribed in floral decorated panels over first floor arches; geometric decoration and foliate capitals to columns of moulded window architraves. Gauged bricks running full height divide paired windows with varying openings to upper floors: to attic and third floor shallow segmental arches; to second floor, bi-partite, square-headed, recessed within segmental arched architrave; to first floor, bi-partite, round headed, in round arched architraves with cinquefoil tracery. Windows are generally 2 pane 1/1 timber sashes with horns, to first floor they are replacement timber casements, additional 2 single pane timber windows flanking dormer.

The front east elevation is symmetrical, 3 pairs of window wide. The dormer windows are framed by pilasters sitting over the projecting cornice of the central bay. Modern ground floor shop front, including door.

The south elevation is completely abutted by HB26/50/182.

The rear (west) elevation, is plainly detailed with cement render. Right dormer window centred over two windows to the fourth floor under which there is a lean-to extension. The left side has a canted, full-height, monopitch roofed projection. At ground floor level is a modern light-weight constructed shop unit.

The north elevation is completely abutted by HB26/50/184.

Setting:
72-74 fronts directly on to the pavement on the west side of the major commercial street of Royal Avenue in Belfast’s commercial heart. The rear elevation is accessed directly from Haymarket Arcade. The terraced building is bounded on each side by listed buildings (N: HB26/50/184 and S: HB26/50/182), faced by HB26/50/185 and HB26/50/186.

Schedule:
Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Terracotta
Windows: Timber sash and replacement casements
RWG: Terracotta - hidden within construction.

Historical information

Nos 72-74 Royal Avenue, a four-storey red terracotta building, was constructed in 1887 and is one of the original buildings erected after the Royal Avenue redevelopment of 1880-81. The commercial building was constructed to designs by William John Gilliland (1855-1929), a Belfast-based architect who practised independently from 1879; nos 72-72 Royal Avenue was only the second of Gilliland’s independent contracts recorded in the Dictionary of Irish Architects, although it is likely that earlier work was undertaken by the architect between 1879 and 1887 (Irish Builder, p. 3010; Dictionary of Irish Architects).

Upon completion of the new building nos 72-74 Royal Avenue was included in the Annual Revisions; the structure consisted of a ground floor shop valued at £75, whilst the upper floors were used as office space and were valued together at £76 (the total value of nos 72-74 Royal Avenue therefore stood at £151 in 1887). The building was constructed by Gilliland for the Gresham Life Assurance Co. and was known as Gresham Chambers; the upper offices were occupied by a variety of firms and were leased out by the Life Assurance Co. (one of the early occupants of the upper floors was the architect W. J. Gilliland who had his office here in the 1890s). The ground floor shop was occupied by a Mr. John Warnock, a clothing retailer; the shop continued to operate at the site until c. 1910 despite Warnock’s death in 1895 (PRONI Wills). By 1896 the total value of nos 72-74 Royal Avenue had increased to £208; however in 1900 it was further increased under the Belfast Revaluation to £368.

In 1901 Warnock’s clothing shop continued to occupy the ground floor of the building, but the Belfast Street Directories tell us that the first floor was utilised as the offices of R. N. Kennedy (an insurance agent for the Gresham Life Assurance Co.) and a Mr. John Bain (also an insurance agent); the second floor was occupied by the Gresham Life Assurance Co. as its main branch headquarters in Belfast; the third floor does not appear to have been occupied in 1901 and the fourth floor was used by the caretaker as apartments (Belfast Street Directory – 1901). There was little change to the Gresham Chambers over the following three decades aside from frequent changes in the occupants of the upper floor offices; by 1918 John Warnock’s clothing store had vacated the ground floor shop when the Gresham Life Assurance Co. occupied the unit whilst retaining its first floor offices. By the end of the Annual Revisions, which were cancelled in 1930, the total rateable value of nos 72-74 Royal Avenue had been lowered and stood at £247.

Under the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland (1935) the Gresham Life Assurance Co. continued to own and occupy the building which had, once more, been increased in value to £367. Royal Avenue was hit by a number of bombs during the Belfast Blitz of 1941 when a number of its buildings were moderately damaged (it is not known whether nos 72-74 were amongst the injured buildings) and in the aftermath of the Second World War nos 72-74 Royal Avenue was included in the second revaluation which commenced in 1956. By the 1950s the building had been purchased from the Gresham Life Assurance Co. by the Friends Provident & Century Life Office, a life insurance firm; the ground floor shop was occupied by Hipps Ltd., a tailors company, and the upper floors continued to be occupied as office space (the first floor was also utilised as a store by Hipps Ltd.). By the end of the second revaluation the value of nos 72-74 Royal Avenue stood at a total of £1,040.

Nos 72-74 Royal Avenue is one of the many commercial properties erected on the newly created boulevard of Royal Avenue which was laid out in 1880-81 by the surveyor J. C. Bretland (who in the process relocated approximately 4,000 people). Prior to the redevelopment of the area Donegall Place and Hercules Street (the precursor to Royal Avenue) were divided by an additional line of buildings located on the eastern side of the current street. The demolition and clearing of Hercules Place and Hercules Street created the long open boulevard which now extends from Donegall Square to York Street; however it required the destruction of almost all the buildings on the street pre-dating the 1880s. The only building to survive the clearing of the area is the former Provisional Bank of Ireland (HB26/50/106) which continues to occupy the original line of Hercules Place (a narrow square that linked Donegall Place to Hercules Street) and as a result is set further back in the street than the adjoining buildings. Nos 72-74, along with the adjoining nos 58-88 (HB26/50/181; 182; 184), were amongst the last buildings to be erected along the western side of the newly laid out boulevard (Brett, p. 40; Patton, p. 282; p. 286).

Nos 72-74, also known as Gresham Chambers, was described by Patton as a ‘highly ornate gabled four-storey red terracotta building [possessing an] arcade of three wide roundheaded windows at first floor, with ornamental arrises and eyebrows, supported on piers with diapered colonnettes and subdivided into two roundheaded lancets with five-lobed roundel above, with central barley pier.’ The lettering above the second floor windows reads ‘Gresham Life Office’ recording the company for which the building was originally erected (Patton, p. 288). The ground floor of nos 72-74 was occupied by a clothing store until the 1970s when the shop fell vacant (the First Survey Image records that the shopfront was boarded up by 1976); however the ground floor was reoccupied in the following year when yet another clothing company took over the premises. The building was listed in 1989 and in recent years the ground floor has been converted into a cafe.

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/12/B/43/E/1-13 – Annual Revisions 1862-1896
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/17-44 – Annual Revisions 1897-1930
7. PRONI VAL/7/B/9/24 – Belfast Revaluation 1900
8. PRONI VAL/3/B/3/13 – First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1935
9. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/41 – Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1956-72
10. PRONI Wills Catalogue – (8 Oct 1895)
11. Irish Builder, Vol. 45 (3 Dec 1903)
12. Belfast Street Directories (1861-1918)
13. First Survey Image – HB26/50/183 (1976); HB26/50/182 (1977)
14. Ordnance Survey map 130-13NE (1959-60)

Secondary Sources

1. Brett, C. E. B., ‘Buildings of Belfast: 1700-1914’ Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1985.
2. Patton, M., ‘Central Belfast: An historical gazetteer’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Four storey three bay red brick Gresham Life Office 1887 to designs by William J. Gilliland. The exuberant Queen Anne Revival style reflects the confidence of late 19th century Belfast with its unusual and highly decorated terracotta construction. Much historic fabric and detailing survive and it is the work of an architect of note. The building also reflects the early development of Royal Avenue as the commercial heart of Belfast expanded in the late Victorian era.