Buildings at 'John Erskine Ltd. Felt Manufacturers', 135 Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT37 9SY

Buildings at John Erskine Ltd. Felt Manufacturers, 135 Shore Road, Newtownabbey

A group of three single-storey factory buildings with Belfast truss roofs, built at various dates between circa 1915 and 1935 as part of a larger felt manufacturing complex. The buildings were demolished towards the end of 2006.

Building 1, the largest of the group, was constructed in 1918 and measured approximately 38 metres by 22 metres in rectangular plan. It was built entirely of brick with minimal openings, featuring only a large vehicle entrance to the north with a timber sliding door and a matching entrance directly opposite to the south. The roof was a distinctive triple curved structure covered in felt, with a central gabled roof light fitted with corrugated Perspex at the centre of each curve. The roof comprised twenty-one Belfast trusses in total, arranged as seven trusses in each bay.

Building 2, located a few metres to the east of Building 1, dates from approximately 1915 or before 1920. It was long and rectangular in plan, measuring roughly 8.2 metres in width and over three times this in length. The structure was constructed principally in corrugated metal, with small sections of brick on the left-hand side of the west elevation and the right-hand side of the east elevation, and the lower portion of the south gable in concrete block. The west elevation contained a pedestrian door to the left of centre with three very large, unevenly-spaced multi-pane windows. The south gable featured a similar full-width window, and the east elevation displayed a large window stretching over the entire left-hand side and centre. The curved roof was covered in felt and comprised nine Belfast trusses. The building was in relatively poor condition at the time of survey.

Building 3, located a few metres to the east of Building 2, is believed to date from around 1935. It was rectangular in plan, measuring roughly 16.7 metres in width, and was constructed in corrugated metal with sections in timber and much of the base in render. The front west gable contained a pedestrian doorway to the left with a very large window to the right, followed by a very large vehicle doorway with a sheeted sliding door. The south elevation had another slightly smaller vehicle doorway to the left with three large windows to the right. The curved roof was covered in felt and comprised seven Belfast trusses.

The main factory building at the west end of the site contained at least three additional Belfast truss-roofed sections, some of which the owner believed dated from the mid-1890s, though they were heightened during the mid-1900s. The broader complex had grown organically over the years, with Belfast truss sections subsequently surrounded by other pitched roof sections.

Historical Context

The site has housed a factory since approximately 1890. Under the name 'The Northern Counties Asphalte Co.', the site was producing Belfast truss roofs by around 1920 at least, with many of the original factory buildings themselves featuring Belfast truss roofs. The site later became John Erskine Ltd., a felt manufacturer, with the factory buildings serving as stores and workshops for the felt manufacturing business. Felt was the traditional form of roof covering for Belfast trusses.

The Belfast truss was developed in the mid-nineteenth century to meet the demand for efficient, lightweight, and long-span roofs brought about by the industrial revolution. The first known reference to a curved wooden felted roof structure supported by bowstring girders appears in an advertisement in the Dublin Builder for 1866 by the Belfast firm of felt-makers McTear & Co., which continued manufacturing trusses until 1908. A second Belfast felt supplier, Anderson & Co., began producing trusses to a slightly different design in 1886, and in 1896 launched their Mark II version, designed to maximise long spans whilst maintaining light weight. This model was subsequently used by other companies and became widely known as the Belfast truss, a term applied to all timber bowstring trusses where the internal bracing members meet on the top curved member rather than on the bottom as was conventional.

Although individually modest in architectural merit, groups of moderately sized Belfast truss roof buildings of this type are scarce, and this collection held additional historic interest both as representative examples of this roof type and for its connection to the manufacturing heritage of Belfast trusses themselves.