531 Antrim Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT15 3BS

531 Antrim Road is a four-bay, two-storey-with-attic mid-terrace house built in 1879 in the Gothic style, constructed in red brick with blue brick dressings. The architect is not known. It forms part of a terrace of nine houses — originally known as Castleton Terrace — on the east side of Antrim Road between Glandore Gardens and Glandore Avenue, built in three distinct phases. Numbers 529–533 form a group of three closely related Gothic-style houses sharing Ruskinian detailing around the doorcase and windows, and built in the same year. The five houses at numbers 519–527 were erected a year earlier, in 1878, with number 517 following in 1883. The whole terrace of nine was depicted complete on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1901–02.

The plan is rectilinear with a shallow two-storey return to the rear. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with projecting eaves, black clay angled ridge tiles, and ogee cast iron guttering discharging to rectangular section downpipes. The rectangular chimney stack has a corbelled coping and clay chimney pots. Wall-head dormer windows have moulded timber bargeboards on decorative brackets topped with timber finials. Modern rooflights have been added to both the front and rear elevations.

The principal elevation faces west and is four bays wide with an asymmetric arrangement. The red brick walling is laid to Flemish bond with blue brick banding at cill, impost, and eaves level. Window openings to the ground and first floors are segmental-arched, with pairs of red and blue brick soldier courses forming headers topped by projecting hood moulds of alternating angular blue bricks. Windows throughout are double-hung timber sash with 1/1 panes and painted projecting cills. Two wall-head dormers each contain a round-arched window with 1/1 panes to double-hung timber sash windows. A two-storey canted bay projects to the south end of the principal elevation.

The doorcase is particularly notable, featuring a pointed arch opening on colonnettes with floriated capitals supported on a stepped plinth. The arch is formed in alternating bands of three red and blue brick soldier courses with a painted moulded hood on floriated label stops. The door itself is a square-headed timber panelled door with a glazed pointed arch fanlight above, opening onto a single stone step.

The north and south elevations are party walls adjoining numbers 529 and 533 respectively. The rear elevation is red brick with a two-storey shallow lean-to return finished in smooth render, with a square-headed opening fitted with a modern metal door. A narrow alley accessed from Glandore Gardens leads to the rear of the property. The front of the property has paved parking. Rainwater goods to the roof are uPVC.

The interior has been altered at ground floor level, but the upper floors are mostly intact. Some original plasterwork and joinery survive, including the staircase.

The terrace was built on the former grounds of Ashfield House, the home of solicitor Thomas McClelland, which was demolished at the turn of the 20th century, though most of its grounds had already been built over during the 1870s and 1880s. The Antrim Road itself was originally laid out in 1830, and the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 records that this area remained predominantly rural in character as late as the 1850s. By the mid-19th century, however, the growth of Belfast's shipbuilding, rope-making and textiles industries had transformed the townland of Skegoneill into one of the most affluent areas in the city, attracting gentlemen's mansions and wealthy merchants' houses. The terrace was constructed for John Smith, a local builder and contractor.

Number 531 was initially valued at £40 and was first occupied by Joseph Marsh, a local architect recorded by the Dictionary of Irish Architects as the designer of the Irish Temperance League Buildings on Lombard Street (built 1877, demolished 1991) and a standard design for a number of coffee stands throughout the city, also commissioned by the temperance organisation. The house was vacant in 1901, but by the 1911 census it was occupied by Hugh J. Davison, a linen merchant, and was recorded in the census building return as a first-class building comprising 16 rooms. The Smith family retained ownership of the property until the 1970s. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) records that the building's value was increased to £71 and that it was subdivided into two self-contained apartments in 1946, with the ground floor forming one dwelling and the upper floors a separate tenancy. This divided arrangement persisted through the Second Revaluation (1956–72), which maintained the value at £71. The building was listed in 1987 and underwent a general renovation around 1994. At the time of the second survey it was in use as office premises.

The adjoining numbers 519–527 Antrim Road were likely designed by Redfern Kelly (1845–1928), a Belfast-based engineer who predominantly carried out contracts for the Belfast Harbour Commissioners, though no architect has been identified for numbers 529–533. The building has group value with the other listed buildings in the terrace.