56-70 Castle Street Belfast BT1 1HD

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Substantial, mainly red-brick, three-storey, retail / office corner block in the vaguely Renaissance-inspired manner of many early 20th century urban commercial structures, built c.1927-28 possibly to designs by David Wright Boyd. One large shop now occupies the whole of the ground floor with modern painted timber and laminate cladding covering much of the façade at this level.

SETTING At the corner of Castle Street and Queen Street, within Belfast City centre, with the long N elevation facing into the former, and other buildings abutting to the S and W.

GENERAL / N and E ELEVATIONS The block is basically rectangular in plan, but with a slight splay to the SE, and is topped with a flat roof hidden by a parapet. The ground floor, originally divided into several retail units, (seemingly four units with other doors giving access to the upper floor properties), filled with modern glazing with roller shutters, the pilasters separating the bays clad in timber and the deep signboard / frieze area over similarly clad but with laminate signage in places.

The upper floors are in brick with cement render (or stone?) stringcourses and have rows of uniform (and somewhat deeply-set) window openings all now with replacement timber frames. The windows to the first floor have segmental heads, whilst those above are flat-headed and separated by pilasters, every second one of which projects further and rises through the parapet to a pyramidal (stone or cement) final topped with a ball. The parapet also has a diaper pattern in blue-grey brick over each window.

To the SE corner of the building (facing into Queen Street) is a somewhat incongruous full height bowed bay in a late Art Nouveau manner. This is largely finished in cut sandstone with a tall recessed central doorway to the ground level with a deep segmental-arched fanlight, the latter flanked by porthole-like windows with moulded swags over, with larger, conventionally shaped windows either side of the entrance itself. The doorway has a timber door with several panels (possibly a replacement). To the first floor are three two-light windows, with the upper lights of each having segmental heads. To the second floor are three single-light windows, with segmental heads and replacement timber frames, with the pilaster / jambs to this level having moulded ‘colonette’ features. The bay is topped with a rusticated parapet with the ‘colonettes’ continuing through a stringcourse to this level. There is a iron corner guard at the left-head edge of the bay which is stamped 'The Millfield Foundry 1928'.

S ELEVATION Much of this elevation is butted by the lower, two-storey, neighbouring building to this side, (no.3 Queen Street, which appears to have been built c.1955-60 as a store for the shop then occupying the ground floor of nos.56-70, a role it still fulfills). To the left-hand half of this elevation there are rows of windows, (similar to street fronts), to the upper floors (five windows to the first floor, six to the second floor); they all appear to have frames as those to the fronts.

Historical information

This block was constructed sometime between 1924 and 1928. The location itself – formerly nos.2-16 Mill Street – had, up until the late 1910s, been occupied by several buildings, including a public house and shops all latterly in the hands of Patrick McPolin. By 1922 these had been demolished and the plot is still recorded as vacant ground in the street directory of 1924. By 1928 (by which time this end of Mill Street had been renumbered as part of Castle Street) buildings are once again recorded on the site by the valuers, so the present structure is likely to have been completed in that year or shortly before this. The identity of the architect is not known; the building is possibly the work of David Wright Boyd, for the 'Irish Builder' reported that he was working on shops and stores in Mill Street in February 1924.

The block may have been developed by the firm of Charles McCloskey & Co. handkerchief manufacturers, as it is named as the lessee in the valuation books. It originally contained four shops, two of which were initially held by Michael Sharpe with the others in the hands of Edward Bradley and Nathan Rapaport. To the first floor (and accessed from Queen Street) was a ‘wareroom’ occupied by milliners Hall, Higham & Co., with a similar space on the second floor eventually let c.1931 to R. Atkinson & Co., poplin manufacturers, with the aforementioned McCloskey & Co. occupying this floor during the late 1930s.

During the following decades the building went through a number of different tenants, among them architect Daniel J. MacRandal, who had offices on the first floor in the later 1940s and 1950s and who went on to serve as President of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects. During the later 1950s, grocers Lipton Ltd., whose shop was at the eastern end of the building, added a store to the south, the present no.3 Queen Street, and by the mid-1960s they were occupying the whole of the ground floor. Liptons was acquired by J. & J. Foods (Mace) in 1975 with the present shop taking over the ground floor premises in 1997.

References – Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL12B/43C/38, 42 Annual valuation revision books, St Annes ED (Belfast) – 1913-30
2 Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory – various dates 1920s-90s
3 'Irish Builder' - 23 February 1924
4 ‘Belfast Telegraph’ – 20 August 1975, p.11

Evaluation

Substantial, mainly red-brick, three-storey, retail / office corner block in the vaguely Renaissance-inspired manner of many early 20th century urban commercial structures, built c.1927-28 possibly to designs by David Wright Boyd. One large shop now occupies the whole of the ground floor with modern glazing and painted timber and laminate cladding covering much of the façade at this level, whilst all of the window frames elsewhere have been replaced. The building does not meet the criteria for listing.

General comments

Previously HB26 LQ 340