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Exterior description and setting

Attached corner-sited multi-bay three-storey red brick public house, built c.1899, with rendered pub shopfront spanning both elevations. L-shaped on plan with the principal elevation facing east onto Donegall Street and south side elevation fronting onto Union Street.

Pitched artificial slate roof, hipped to the corner with black clay ridge tiles, red brick chimneystacks, ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering to corbelled red brick eaves course and cast-iron downpipes. Red brick walling laid in English garden wall bond with continuous terracotta impost mouldings, continuous painted masonry sill courses and Giant Ionic order red brick pilasters. Gauged brick segmental and round-headed stepped window openings with original leaded glazing and replacement timber casement windows.

Front east elevation is four windows wide having segmental-headed window openings to the second floor, round-headed to the first floor with roll-moulded surrounds and dentilled course below second floor windows. Giant Ionic brick pilasters flank all window openings. Decorative Arabesque terracotta panels above and below second floor windows with hood mouldings and decorative terracotta spandrel panels to the first floor windows. Painted masonry pub shopfront comprising three square-headed window openings on panelled stall risers flanked by pilasters with ribbed egg-and-dart capitals. Two round-headed door openings with grotesque keystones, architrave surrounds and replacement timber panelled doors, all surmounted by full-span fascia with paired brackets and a single decorative pediment over the principal entrance.

South elevation is five windows wide, detailed per principal elevation with additional square terracotta foliate panels. The rendered shopfront extends across the neighbouring two-storey red brick building abutting the west gable with a red brick chimneystack abutting the gable.

Rear elevation not seen.

Rendered north side elevation abutted by adjoining infill building.

Setting

Corner-sited building at the junction of Donegall Street and Union Street rising above the adjoining terraces.

Roof: Artificial slate
RWG: Cast-iron
Walling : Red brick
Windows: leaded glazing & timber

Historical information

The present public house was constructed c1899 for Felix Donnelly, publican, the Donnelly family having run a licensed house on the premises since at least 1884, and is first shown on the fourth edition OS map of 1901-2. The licensed house, shop, billiard room and yard enter valuation records in 1899 and valuer’s notes record that the cost of construction was £1,800 including £400 for fittings. The building originally comprised the licensed premises (number 106) and a small shop to the right (number 108) that can still be read on the front elevation. Living accommodation for the pub was accessed by a side door on Union Street which also led to the billiard room on the first floor. The initial valuation in 1899 was £140 for the pub and £30 for the shop.

Felix Donnelly, spirit merchant and widower from County Tyrone, is recorded in the 1901 census as resident above the pub with his four sons, the oldest of whom was a bar assistant. The two middle sons were a theology student and a chemist’s assistant. The family employed a cook and two further bar assistants who all lived on the premises. The street directory for 1900 records that the shop at number 108 was sublet to Edward Kelly, tobacconist. Edward Kelly had died by the time of the census in 1901 and his widow Catherine Kelly, ‘tobacco merchant’ had taken over the business. She lived above the shop with her six children, her sister and sister-in-law (1901 census).

In 1908 the pub was taken over by Michael Rogers and the Rogers family ran the business until the 1970s, followed by the McElhatton family. The pub is situated close to the offices of many of the main newspapers and is traditionally popular with journalists, hence its name (Patton). The shop at number 108 was run as a separate business, a tobacconist, until the 1930s, then a ‘snackery’ and a catechetical book store in the 1950s but was incorporated into the pub c1970.

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/7/B/9/15 Belfast Revaluation 1900
4. PRONI VAL/12/A/7/L/12-58 Valuer’s Notes 1899-1911
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/1-45 (1863-1930)
6. Street Directories 1870-1995

Secondary Sources

1. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Attached corner-sited multi-bay three-storey red brick public house, built c.1899, with rendered pub shopfront spanning both elevations. The external detailing of this commercial building typical of the High Victorian period. Although of some interest due to its history, it does not meet the statutory and policy tests as a building of special architectural or historic interest.