25-39 Arthur Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 4GA

25–39 Arthur Street is an attached, symmetrical, multi-bay, two-storey classically styled former bank and distillery headquarters, built in 1894 to the designs of Vincent Craig (1869–1925). Faced in fine granite ashlar and square on plan, the building is arranged around a central glazed dome and faces east onto Arthur Street. It was originally constructed as the head office of Dunville & Co., a Belfast whiskey distillery firm that also administered the Royal Irish Distilleries, and later served as the Trustee Savings Bank. It was converted to use as a bar and restaurant around 2004–05. The building sits within a conservation area and is abutted by late 20th-century office buildings to the south of Arthur Square; the south side elevation is abutted by an adjoining building, as is the north side elevation, and the rear elevation abuts a commercial building fronting onto Callender Street.

Architectural Overview

The roof is a hipped natural slate structure on a quadrangular plan, with a central glazed dome and roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles. Behind a balustraded parapet with moulded coping, tall profiled granite ashlar chimneystacks rise from both side elevations, the parapet punctuated by squat piers terminated by granite urns. A further pair of twin chimneystacks rises from the piers to either side of the central pediment. The walling throughout is granite ashlar with a moulded granite plinth course. Window openings are generally square-headed with moulded architrave surrounds, continuous moulded sill courses, and single-pane timber sash windows.

East Front Elevation

The symmetrical east front is seven windows wide. It is surmounted by an architrave and dentilated modillioned cornice, topped by a shallow pediment containing a wreath-framed roundel to the tympanum. At first floor level, window openings are framed by scrolled console brackets supporting triangular pediments, with a segmental pediment to the central window. At ground floor level, window openings are recessed within cavetto-moulded frames with bowtel-moulded surrounds.

To the right bay is a square-headed door opening with a surround matching the ground floor windows. This opening has double-leaf hardwood doors with raised-and-fielded panels and a square overlight. The central door opening is segmental-headed with a bowtel-moulded surround and double-leaf hardwood doors with raised-and-fielded panels and a plain glazed overlight. This central opening is flanked by Ionic pilasters supporting a lintel cornice, with a pair of elaborate scrolled brackets and a dentilled cornice supporting a deep moulded and panelled granite hood. The door opens onto three nosed stone steps to the street.

Architect

Vincent Craig was articled to W. H. Lynn between 1885 and 1889 and established an independent practice in Belfast in 1891. He is recognised as one of the key proponents of the Art Nouveau movement in Ulster, making this building's uncharacteristically formal and classical treatment particularly noteworthy. His younger brother James Craig became the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Architectural commentators have observed that the building follows an Italian Renaissance palazzo style, though Paul Larmour noted that the main pediment was somewhat inappropriately added, sitting rather oddly on top and appearing to need some breaks in the façade below with which to relate. Patton described it in 1994 as a "classical two-storey building in grey granite, very restrained for Craig," noting the ground floor dentilated cornice extended out to form a hood to the doorcase, the first floor windows with pediments over, and the dentilated main cornice topped by a balustraded parapet marked by urns, chimneys, and a central pediment which has no base.

Historical Context

Dunville & Co. traced its origins to the earlier firm of Napier & Co. of Bank Lane, Belfast. John Dunville joined the company in 1801, became a full partner in 1807 — at which point the firm became Napier & Dunville — and by 1825 had taken full control and renamed it Dunville & Co., moving the business from Bank Lane to offices on Callender Street. Over the following decades the company grew substantially: in 1869 it constructed the Royal Irish Distilleries near Great Victoria Street, employing 450 skilled workers. By 1894, the firm's offices at nos. 16–18 Callender Street were extended to the rear with the erection of the present building on Arthur Street. The original Callender Street headquarters was connected to the new building, though it no longer survives. The building was initially valued at £700 in the Annual Revisions; following the Belfast Revaluation of 1900, this was increased to £800. Records from that year note that construction had cost £16,175 and confirm that the central dome was an original feature. The overall layout of the building has not been altered since its construction in 1894. In 1911, an appeal by the owners reduced the rateable value from £800 to £725. Dunville & Co. was still in occupation at the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland in 1935, at which point the building was valued at £1,080. Much of the company's revenue had depended on whiskey exports to the United States; the American Prohibition (1920–1933), combined with the general commercial downturn following the First World War and the Wall Street Crash, led to the company's decline, and Dunville & Co. was forced into liquidation in 1936.

In 1938, the building was converted into the headquarters of the Belfast Savings Bank by the architects Samuel Stevenson & Sons, a family practice formed in 1924 that predominantly undertook commercial contracts. The Second General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland, conducted between 1956 and 1972, recorded the Belfast Savings Bank still in occupation, with the building valued at £2,840 by the end of that period. The bank vacated the premises around 1990 and the building was listed in 1986. After a period of vacancy, it was converted around 2005 into a French-themed bar and nightclub called Café Vaudeville.

Arthur Street itself was named after one of the Earls of Donegall and during the early 19th century was known for its fine residences. During the commercial redevelopment of Belfast city centre in the Victorian period, domestic dwellings were replaced by retail shops and office buildings. Other surviving examples of this redevelopment period on Arthur Street include the Mayfair Building and the State Buildings. Much historic fabric and detailing survives throughout the building, and it represents an important aspect of the city's mercantile history as well as the changing commercial character of the city centre.