18 McMaster Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 4HP

18 McMaster Street is a two-storey, single-bay late Victorian terraced house built circa 1898 by landowner John McMaster to designs by J. Frazer and Son. It sits on the east side of McMaster Street in the Ballymacarrett area of East Belfast, close to the former Harland and Wolff shipyards. It forms part of a complete and largely intact street of late Victorian terraced housing that survived both the German Blitz of 1941 and the widespread demolition of similar red brick terraces throughout the Ballymacarrett area during redevelopment in the 1970s. The house has group value with the other listed buildings in McMaster Street.

Exterior

The roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles, and a red brick chimney stack sits at the south side. Painted ogee-profile cast-iron rainwater goods are supported on a projecting polychromatic brick eaves course set on an ovolo-moulded corbel course. The walls are constructed in English garden-wall bond — red brick laid with alternating courses of headers and stretchers — and feature two polychromatic brick string courses, including a continuous brick-and-sill course at first-floor level. All polychromatic brickwork has been painted, with the exception of that above the first-floor windows.

The windows are replacement uPVC casements, horizontally divided, and the door is a replacement timber panelled door with a square-headed transom light. Both windows and door are set within camber-headed reveals with polychromatic brick chamfered reveals and voussoirs, over projecting masonry sills.

The principal (west) elevation has the entrance door at the left, accessed via a polychromatic tiled threshold. A window flanks the door to the right. At first-floor level, two windows are positioned slightly offset to the right. The north gable abuts No. 16 McMaster Street.

The rear (east) elevation is partially abutted at the right by a two-storey extension with a pitched roof and uPVC rainwater goods, added sympathetically in around 2000 in accordance with the conservation area criteria established by the Department of the Environment in 1994. The exposed area to the left contains windows at ground and first-floor level. The south-facing elevation of the extension has a glazed timber door at the left and a window at the right at ground level, with two windows of varying sizes at first-floor level. The south gable abuts No. 20 McMaster Street.

Setting

The house sits at the north end of the east terrace block, facing onto McMaster Street. The wide street, formerly cobbled, is now largely concrete with small cobbled areas at each end. The house opens directly onto a wide pavement with granite kerbs, original lamp posts, and electric lighting converted from former gas lights. Original tiled street signage survives at both the north and south ends of the street. To the rear, the property is enclosed by high-level stretcher-bonded modern red brick walling with a painted, vertically-sheeted timber entrance door at the centre, accessed via a narrow entry running north to south between the back yards of Lendrick Street and McMaster Street. The street narrows towards Major Street to the south.

Interior and plan

The plan layout has been partially altered and interior detailing changed during recent refurbishment works.

History

No. 18 McMaster Street first appears on the fourth edition of the Ordnance Survey map for Belfast, dated 1920–21, which confirms that both terraces of the street had been completed by that time. Belfast Street Directories record that while the western terrace (nos. 1–37) and nos. 6–14 on the eastern terrace were constructed in 1898 and 1899, the remainder of the eastern terrace — nos. 16–52, including No. 18 — was not completed until 1908. The land on which the street was built was owned by a John McMaster, whose wedge-shaped plot meant that as the terraces were extended, they progressively became narrower and the gardens smaller.

The architect, J. Frazer and Son (active from the 1890s through to the second decade of the 20th century), also designed several other terraced streets in Belfast, including Chadwick Street (built 1899) and Meadowbank Place, both of which are similar in character to McMaster Street, as recorded in the Dictionary of Irish Architects and the Department of the Environment Conservation Area plan.

The parlour houses of McMaster Street were constructed to new housing and planning regulations specifically designed to improve living standards in Belfast. They were among the first late Victorian industrial terraces in the city to be supplied with running water and flushable toilets, made possible by the construction of a new city drainage system. Gas was also piped into each house for lighting — a new provision at the time — which, together with the improved sanitary facilities, distinguished McMaster Street from the more squalid early Victorian housing typical elsewhere in Belfast. Electricity was not introduced to the street until the 1930s.

The Annual Revisions record that the first occupant of No. 18 was a Mr. Robert Gill, who came into possession of the house in the year the terrace was completed. In 1908 the house was valued at £8 and was let by John McMaster. Robert Gill, a joiner, was recorded in the Street Directories in 1908, followed by a blacksmith named T. Hill in 1910. By the time of the 1911 Census, a Mr. William James Finlay, employed as an upholsterer, had taken up residence; the Census Building Return described No. 18 as a second-class dwelling consisting of seven rooms. Finlay continued to occupy the house until at least 1918. By the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930 the valuation remained at £8, rising to £11 at the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935, at which time the house was occupied by a Mr. A. Jordan, employed as a labourer.

McMaster Street escaped damage during the 1941 Belfast Blitz, when the Luftwaffe targeted the nearby shipyards and caused severe destruction to buildings and residential terraces along the Newtownards Road. Following the war, the Second General Revaluation recorded that ownership of the street had passed from John McMaster to an L. McMaster, an unknown relative. The house's value increased to £12 and remained at that level through to the end of the revaluation period in 1972. Mr. A. Jordan continued to reside at No. 18 from around 1935 until the 1980s, variously recorded in the Belfast Street Directories as a labourer, railwayman, and brassmoulder.

No. 18 is noted as a rarity within McMaster Street in that very few, if any, of its occupants were employed at the nearby shipyards or the ropework factories that were the principal employers in the area.

During the 1970s the Ballymacarrett area was extensively redeveloped, with the demolition of many red brick terraces similar in character to McMaster Street. The preservation of McMaster Street as an intact remnant of late Victorian working-class housing was consequently considered important, and in 1987 No. 18 was listed along with the rest of the terrace. In 1994 the neighbourhood was designated a conservation area by the Department of the Environment, with criteria put in place to ensure that any additions remained in keeping with the original design and fabric of the street. Under these criteria, the two-storey red brick extension to the rear of No. 18 was added in around 2000.