1- 5 Castle Lane & 23-29 Cornmarket

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Attached multi-bay three-storey with attic red brick commercial building, built c.1888 to the designs of Robert Watt with replacement shopfronts to the ground floor. Semi-circular on plan and fronting onto Arthur Square.

Curved natural slate roof with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles, lead valleys and a red brick chimneystack to the southwest. Roof set behind red brick parapet wall with moulded sandstone coping rising as three decorative Dutch gables and two dormers with hipped slate roofs having exposed rafter feet, a pair of brackets and timber casement windows. Red brick walling laid in Flemish bond with slender brick pilasters flanking all window openings to the first and second floors. Full-span painted masonry cornice to the base of parapet with terracotta dentilled course below. Deeply set gauged brick segmental-headed window openings with chamfered surrounds, continuous hood mouldings, moulded red sandstone sills and single-pane timber sash windows to the second floor, timber casement windows to the first floor. Full segmental pediments surmount the gables having square-headed window openings arranged in pairs with bracketed aprons. The central gable is curvilinear while the outer gables are triangular. Decorative sweeping terracotta apron panels to second floor windows with swags and festoons. The south and southwest curved elevations have replacement timber shopfront with stone-clad shopfronts to the east and northeast curved elevations with two shallow canted bays to the northeast elevation.

Gabled west elevation abutted by adjoining infill structure.

Rear elevation not seen.

Gabled northwest elevation with blind bays.

Setting

Located on the northwest side of Arthur Square.

Roof: Natural slate
RWG: Cast-iron
Walling : Red brick
Windows: Timber sash / timber casement

Historical information

The present building dates from 1888-9 and was built to designs by Robert Graeme Watt, who was later to form a partnership with F H Tulloch as Graeme Watt & Tulloch (www.dia.ie). The contractor was William McCammond JP (Belfast Newsletter).

The restaurant is first shown on the third edition OS map of 1901-2 and was built for the Grand Restaurant and Cafe Company Ltd. Predicted to be one of the most popular dining rooms in the city on its opening in May 1889, the concern was compared with the leading cafes and dining rooms of London (Belfast Newsletter). Purpose-built, unlike many other establishments in the city, the new premises offered many advantages, chiefly spaciousness and a high standard of interior decor. The building was set out on four floors over ‘spacious cellars’, with a ‘beautifully-fitted buffet and luncheon room’ and a separate smoke-room and ‘liquor divan’ on the ground floor. On the first floor was a ‘spacious, lofty and superbly decorated’ grand dining-room, a ladies’ dining-room and a billiard room (Industries of the North). On the second floor were the manager’s offices and the kitchen which prepared Bombay duck, bear’s ham and bird’s nest soup, among other delicacies (Patton), while the attic storey provided sleeping accommodation for the staff. The public rooms were decorated with encaustic tiles and faience by the Burmantofts Company (Industries of the North) and the cost of the building was estimated at £8,000 (Patton).

On the ground floor facing Corn Market were two shops which were let out initially to Valentine & Co, tea and sugar importers, and McAlister’s family and dispensing chemist (Street Directory 1892). By 1899 the main building had been taken over by Mooney and Co Ltd as a licensed house and shop, while part of the ground floor had been divided into a further shop (27 Corn Market) which, together with part of the first, second and third floors, had become the XL Vegetarian restaurant and cafe, catering for the contemporary interest in scientific approaches to diet. The proprietor, L McCaughey, had established a vegetarian restaurant in High Street c1885 which was immediately successful and by c1890 was serving 400 meals a day at premises elsewhere in Arthur Square (Industries of the North). Number 27 Corn Market was further subdivided c1900 to give new premises (29 Corn Market) which housed the XL pastry shop, later Gardiner’s confectioner and tobacconist, until the 1980s.

The Belfast Revaluation of 1900 lists the premises of Mooney & Co and of the XL Restaurant at £475 each, while the two shops at 23 and 25 Corn Market were valued at £65 each. Mooney’s public house remained in the building until c1980, and the XL restaurant until 1950. From the 1980s the main part of the premises was given over to clothing stores, and numbers 27 and 29 Corn Market have been a Thornton’s Confectioners and housing for Ulster Bank cash machines respectively, since the 1990s. The third shop, 23-5 Corn Market, formerly two premises that have been combined, has passed through a number of proprietors but is currently in use as a noodle bar.

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/7/B/9/35 Belfast Revaluation 1900
4. Street Directories 1870-1995
5. Belfast Newsletter 11th May 1889

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. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993
3. www.dia.ie – Dictionary of Irish Architects online

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Attached multi-bay three-storey with attic red brick commercial building built c1888 to the designs of Robert Watt for the Grand Restaurant and Cafe Company Ltd. Commercial buildings with decorative red brick curved façade addressing a minor civic square. Although compromised by the replacement shopfronts to the ground floor and interior remodelling of the ground and first floor, much historic fabric and detailing survive and the building was among the first purpose-built public restaurants in the City, and including shop units, it reflects the continuing prosperity of the late Victorian era. It is also an interesting example of the work of an architect of note.