13-17 Grosvenor Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Symmetrical attached six-storey brick and stone Jacobethan commercial building, dated 1910, as one of four similar buildings to the designs of James Hanna. Rectangular on plan facing south onto Grosvenor Road with shopfront to the ground floor.

Roof not visible behind red brick parapet wall with sandstone coping. Machine-made red brick walling laid in English garden wall bond. Square-headed window openings with sandstone frames, moulded sandstone sills and uPVC windows.

Symmetrical front elevation is five windows wide with a shallow breakfront to either end, deep cornice over the fourth floor and a two-tier canted oriel window to both breakfronts. Voussoired sandstone oval window opening to both breakfronts at attic level having four keystones, that to the top rising above the parapet with a curvilinear parapet to the left only. First, second and third floor windows are tripartite with a single tripartite window opening to the fourth floor comprising a series of columns with cushion capitals resting on a single bracketed sill course with frieze and cornice over. The cornice rises as a scrolled pediment to the centre with raised digits; ‘1910’. Painted sandstone ashlar shopfront spanning the ground floor surmounted by fascia and cornice with steel roller-shutters. Round-headed door opening to the right with deeply coved and quoined surround having replacement hardwood doors, scrolled timber head and spoked fanlight. The central keystone is surmounted by a grotesque scrolled keystone with a further pair of larger scrolled keystones to either side having Celtic knotwork carvings and supporting the cornice over.

West side elevation is nine windows wide fronting onto Athol Street. Largely tripartite window openings with flush concrete sills and continuous flush concrete lintel courses.

North rear elevation abutted by adjoining building No.6 Murray Street (HB26/50/303C).

East side elevation is blank to the south end with red brick walling and flush concrete courses. To the north end the walls are of glazed white brick with largely tripartite window openings.

Setting

Fronting onto Grosvenor Road with a car park to the east shared with the adjoining buildings (HB26/50/303A,B & C).

Roof : Not visible
RWG: Not seen
Walling :Red brick
Windows : UPVC

Historical information

Numbers 4-6 Murray Street and number 13-17 Grosvenor Road were constructed as four separate warehouses, three for handkerchief manufacturers (1908-10) and the fourth for a linen weaving company (1910-11) to designs by James A Hanna. The buildings are first shown on the sixth edition OS map of 1931.
Number 13 to 17 Grosvenor Road were built to designs by James A Hanna in 1910-11 for the County Down Weaving Company Ltd. The building enters valuation records in 1912 as offices and a warehouse valued at £760 and the ground floor incorporated two shops which were valued at £33 and £29. The County Down Weaving Company remained on the upper floors through the 1920s but by 1930 the building was taken over by the Belfast Collar Co Ltd ‘manufacturers and patentees of Faulat and Falcon collars’ followed by William Strain & Sons, printers (c1940-c1975). The shops on the ground floor were let out, in 1920 to F W Jeffers, linen manufacturer and Marcantonio’s ice-cream saloon and subsequently to a series of confectioners and a house furnisher. In 1945 the shops were used as an ‘evacuation hostel’ and from the 1960s housed a car parts business and in the 1990s an electrical wholesalers. The two former shops were converted into a single premises c1970 and are now in use as a bridal store.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931
3. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/1-45 (1863-1930)
4. Street Directories (1900-1995)
5. Irish Builder 6th January 1917
Secondary Sources
1. “Industries of the North One Hundred Years Ago” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1986 (First published as ‘Industries of Ireland, Part 1. Belfast and the Towns of the North’ in 1891)
2. Larmour, P “Belfast, An Illustrated Architectural Guide” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1987
3. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
4. www.dia.ie

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Asymmetrical terraced six-storey brick and stone commercial building dated 1910 to designs by James A Hanna. Although the loss of original windows compromises the external appearance of this building, much historic fabric survives with decorative stone detailing, in a loosely Jacobethan idiom, repeated in the adjoining buildings. A major and unusual complex of buildings(HB26/50/303A-D) reflecting the growth in the textile industry in the early Twentieth century. The later changes in use to office and public administration are also reflective of the changing circumstances with respect to industry in the City centre.This group is the work of an architect of note and among the most interesting of the Edwardian era and the years immediately following.