27-37 TALBOT ST.

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A four storey former warehouse building on the south side of Talbot Street. Built c.1900, it has elements of a Queen Ann Revival style.

The pitched roof is natural slate, hipped to west, with a raised coping between two sections of building and modern rooflights. Rainwater goods are uPVC. The walls are brick laid in English garden wall bond with sandstone parapet coping, cornice, keystones and cills. Stone finials sit on scalloped parapet which rises to form a Dutch gable with exaggerated stone keystone, splayed brickwork to outer arch, inner arch and panel below of patterned diaper terracotta. Full height bullnose brick pilasters define bays, some corbelling out to form octagonal piers to parapet, all piers have brick pendants with moulded terracotta stops; brick strings run over lintels on each floor. The windows to the second and third floors are flat arches with bullnosed surrounds, continuous projecting cills; first floor windows are arched with exaggerated keystones and bullnosed surrounds, flush cills. Ground floor windows and doors are segmental arches with bullnosed reveals, flush cills. Windows are timber replacements; ground floor windows and doors are metal replacements.

The front north elevation has a modern rooflight. The elevation is 13 windows wide (1/2/2/2/1/4/1). The windows are 2 or 3 pane top hung.

The east elevation is abutted and obscured by a modern building.

Rear south elevation is staggered, each of three sections is three window wide. All windows have segmental arches, openings are bullnosed brick. Openings with French windows have modern tubular metal, glazed balconettes. The windows are 2 or 4 pane casements.

The west elevation is fully abutted by a modern building.

Setting
27-37 Talbot Street sits directly on to the south side of Talbot Street facing the side of St. Anne’s Cathedral (HB26/50/027). Although Talbot Street is a narrow street the building can be seen from a distance across the car park to the rear of the Cathedral.

Roof: natural slate.
Walls: red brick
Windows: timber
RWGs: uPVC

Historical information

Nos 27-37 Talbot Street, a four-storey redbrick warehouse located opposite St. Anne’s Cathedral (HB26/50/067), was constructed in 1903-04 to designs by Belfast architects Blackwood & Jury.

Prior to the completion of the warehouse, nos 27-37 Talbot Street had been the site of a number of individual commercial properties. The directory for 1880 records that a wood turner, a carpenter, tailors and a plasterer had their premises on the street (Belfast Street Directories – 1880-1901). The Belfast Revaluation confirms that the six buildings (on the site that would be occupied by the current warehouse) stood until at least 1900 when they were included in the revaluation; the valuer noted that the six properties were worth between £6 and £8 and were ‘old’ in date (in the Belfast Revaluation the ‘old’ designation was generally utilised to refer to a building dating from at least the early-19th century).

The new building, which was advertised to be 'built to suit intending, tenants, either as warerooms, stores or factory etc.', commenced around March 1903 and appears to have been completed in March of that following. The property was first included in the Annual Revisions in 1908 when it was valued at £360 and utilised by Young King & Co. as a Bonded Store. Young King & Co. was a local distillery company who also possessed offices at nos 32-76 Talbot Street (now demolished), however the 1908 directory notes that the company utilised the building as a store for dry goods.

In 1912 the value of the warehouse was decreased to £330 after an appeal was made against its high rating. Young, King & Co. continued to occupy nos 27-37 Talbot Street until 1924 when the company vacated the site, leasing the warehouse to W. W. Kennedy & Co., a carrier and removals firm that had formerly held premises on nearby Academy Street (Belfast Street Directory – 1918). In 1927 W. W. Kennedy & Co. sublet part of their warehouse to William Campbell & Co., brass founders and finishers who had originally worked from nearby nos 6 26 Talbot Street. William Campbell & Co. occupied nos 33-37 Talbot Street whilst W. W. Kennedy & Co. operated from nos 27-31; the total rateable value of the building was decreased to £302 in 1927 as a result of these changes.

In 1930 W. W. Kennedy & Co. vacated nos 27-31 Talbot Street; the soft drinks manufacturers, Hollywood & Donnelly, occupied this portion of the building in the same year increasing the total value of the building to £379. Hollywood & Donnelly continued to occupy nos 27-31 Talbot Street until the 1960s, but by the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland (1935) the other half of the warehouse lay empty having been vacated by William Campbell & Co; under the revaluation the total value of nos 27-37 had been increased to £490.

There was no further revaluation carried out for over two decades due to the disruption caused by the Second World War, however in the aftermath of the conflict the warehouse was included in the second revaluation (1956-72). By the 1950s Hollywood & Donnelly had occupied expanded to occupy nos 31-33; the remaining nos 35-37 were occupied by the Daily Mirror who utilised the site as a warehouse. Hollywood & Donnelly vacated the building in 1964 after over three decades; in the years prior to the cancellation of the revaluation the tenants of nos 27-37 Talbot Street changed a number of times. By the end of the Second Revaluation in 1972 the total value of the warehouse had been decreased to £312.

Talbot Street formed part of the town-planning scheme initiated by Lord Donegall in the late-18th century; as part of this scheme Donegall Street, Church Street, Academy Street and Talbot Street were developed along their current layouts. The development of Talbot Street was carried out by Roger Mulholland in the 1780s and the name of the street was derived from a Mr. Talbot who was employed as Donegall’s agent in Belfast (Brett, p. 6; Patton, p. 308). In the mid-19th century Talbot Street had gained a reputation as a working class area of Belfast where ‘social evils’ could be procured such as alcohol and prostitutes; in 1853 the Rev. William O’Hanlon wrote that in the Talbot Street area ‘spirit stores meet you at every turn … some of them most imposing establishments – and all of them driving a brisk and profitable trade in the material of ruin … let us think of the fatal effects of such a deluge as this through the households of the poor and we shall cease to wonder at the social degradation and vice that prevail’ (Royle, p. 119).

Nos 27-37 Talbot Street was listed in 1990 when the building was utilised as office space; Patton, writing in 1993, described the building as a ‘four-storey redbrick warehouse with bullnose reveals to opes.’ Patton suggests that, due to the division of the warehouse into two distinct sections, the building was ‘apparently built in two stages, one with scalloped pediment and capped stone finials, the other with wavy gables above brick diaper pattern’ (Patton, p. 308).

In recent years the ground floor of nos 27-37 Talbot Street has been utilised as a restaurant in the Cathedral Quarter of Belfast, however in 2012 the restaurant, known as ‘No. 27 Talbot Street,’ was forced to close. The ground floor is currently occupied by an Indian restaurant known as ‘Mumbai 27’ whilst the upper floors have been converted into private flats owned by Helm Housing.

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.'Belfast News-Letter', 24 February 1903, 4 March 1904
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/12/B/43/C/33-45 – Annual Revisions 1906-1930
7. PRONI VAL/7/B/9/16 – 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 1956-72
10. Belfast Street Directories (1880-1918)
11. First Survey Image – HB26/50/193 (1980)

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.
3. Royle, S. A., ‘Portrait of an industrial city: ‘Clanging Belfast,’ 1750-1914’ Belfast: Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, 2011.

Online Resources

1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A red-brick, four storey, former warehouse building of 1903-04 to a design by Blackwood & Jury Architects, located in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, facing the south east side façade of St Anne’s Cathedral (HB26/50/067). The front façade retains much historic fabric and fine detailing such as the dutch gable and scalloped parapet, elements of the Queen Ann Revival style. Although windows have been replaced and the interior layout altered, the building is a good example of a turn of the twentieth century former bonded store and warehouse, which adds to the setting of the Cathedral Conservation Area.