16 Upper Crescent, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NT

Number 16 Upper Crescent is a relatively large, three-storey rendered town house, built in 1846 and now converted to offices and flats. It sits at the east end of Upper Crescent, an elegantly curving row of ten similar — though not identical — late Regency-style dwellings set to the east of University Road in south Belfast. The crescent faces northward over a small public park towards Lower Crescent, a comparable development of 1852 which, despite its name, is arranged as a straight terrace rather than a curve. Number 16 is one of the more ornate properties in the row.

The front elevation faces roughly north, is asymmetrical, and is divided across its height into three zones. The ground floor is finished in rusticated render; the upper floors are in plain render. The entire front is painted. At ground floor level, the entrance is set to the left: a recessed timber panelled door with panelled pilaster jambs and a rectangular fanlight, reached by three stone steps. To the right of the door are two tall plain sash windows, their lower lights boarded up. At first floor level, three larger windows sit on a continuous cill course, fitted with Regency-style sash frames with horizontally oriented panes in a 4-over-8 configuration. At second floor level, three pairs of narrow semicircular-headed sash windows, each glazed 1-over-2 with horizontal glazing bars, rest on a more pronounced, cornice-like cill course projection enriched with dentillations.

Four large, evenly spaced Corinthian three-quarter columns span the ground and first floor heights and support a projecting frieze below the level of the second floor cill course. The two outer columns are square pilasters rather than round. At second floor level, four panelled pilasters correspond with these columns below and rise to form parapet piers, between which runs a pierced, balustrade-like parapet.

The east elevation shows the gable of the main body of the house alongside the face of a two-storey return. At second floor level on the right side of the gable is a pair of windows matching those on the front. On the first floor of the return there is a sash window with a 3-over-3 configuration, the upper panes having arched heads. The whole elevation is finished in painted lined render.

The rear elevation could not be seen in its entirety during inspection. On the right-hand (east) side is the two-storey gabled return, which is blank. To the left, the return merges with another two-storey projection with a mono-pitched roof. At ground floor level of this projection there is a recent-looking broad doorway; above it, at first floor, is a Georgian-paned 6-over-6 sash window. Both the gable and the south face of the projection are finished in plain render. Internal evidence indicates that the main rear façade has one window to the left on the ground floor, another to the left on the first floor, and one to the left on the second floor, all with Georgian-paned sash frames. There is also a stairwell window between the first and second floors on the left, with a similar frame. The rear façade of the main portion of the building appears to be wholly in brick. On the inner (west) face of the return there is a Georgian-paned sash window to the left at first floor level, with two open doorways at ground floor level on the inner (north) face of the projection. Both of these faces appear to be largely finished in plain render.

The roof is gabled and slated, with two small skylights to the rear. There is a tall rendered chimneystack to the west, with a projecting coping and uniform pots; the return has a smaller rendered chimneystack to its gable. Rainwater goods are cast iron.

Upper Crescent and its surroundings

The selling off of much of Lord Donegall's Belfast estate in the early to mid 19th century opened up large areas of land around the town for development. The lands to the south, along the Malone Ridge, were particularly attractive to developers and led to the building of many fine late Georgian-style terraces from the mid 1830s onwards, a trend accelerated by the establishment of the prestigious Queen's College in the area in the later 1840s. These new grand terraces were occupied by Belfast's professional and business classes, who left their older residences in the town centre — properties that were gradually converted to shops and offices.

Upper Crescent was perhaps the grandest terrace development undertaken to the south of the town: an elegantly curving row of three-storey dwellings in a late Regency style, built in 1846 by timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry. The authorship of the design is uncertain, though Dr Paul Larmour has suggested that Charles Lanyon may have been involved. Corry himself undertook the building work and took up residence in the house at the east end; for the first few years the row was known as Corry's Crescent. Immediately to the south of the crescent, where a church and small park now stand, Corry held a large lawn as a garden. Shortly after it was laid out, however, he had it ploughed up and used for growing vegetables to relieve local workers suffering as a result of the Great Famine. To the north of this garden ran an old watercourse flowing northward into the Basin, a reservoir east of the Dublin Road. To the east were smaller gardens belonging to other occupants of the crescent, and further to the east and north-east ran Albion Lane, a narrow semi-rural laneway stretching from the north end of Bradbury Place to the east end of the present University Terrace.

In 1852 Corry built another terrace to the north of his garden, just south of the old watercourse. This new development — the erroneously named Lower Crescent — was much in the same style as the one to the south and was occupied by a similar mix of professionals and businessmen, though by as early as 1860 the ground floors of some properties were already in use as offices. In the later 1860s a railway line was cut immediately to the north of Lower Crescent, following the line of the old watercourse. In 1873 the large sandstone building originally known as Victoria College for Girls was added to the west end of the terrace; by the close of the decade two houses had been added to the east end, the most easterly of which, Rivoli House (designed by William Hastings), originally contained a dance academy run by a Frederick Brouneau. The new railway line cut across Albion Lane and presaged the laying out of a new, broader thoroughfare, Botanic Avenue.

Upper Crescent also saw further building in the 1860s and 1870s. Two large properties designed by William Hastings were erected to the west end in 1869, one of which — Crescent House, now the Bank of Ireland — also fronted onto University Road. In 1878–79 two further houses were added on the ground between those of 1869. Between 1885 and 1887 the large Presbyterian church, the present Crescent Church, was erected to plans by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson on the west side of Robert Corry's former garden, and in 1898 a two-storey terrace, the present Crescent Gardens, was built on the site of the smaller garden plots to the east end.

During the first half of the 20th century most properties in Upper and Lower Crescent, as well as Crescent Gardens, remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many had been given over to business use or divided into flats, with the former Rivoli House — later renamed Dreenagh House — becoming the Regency Hotel. This trend continued and by the beginning of the 21st century none of the properties were occupied as private dwellings. In the mid 1990s three of the 1860s to 1870s houses at the west end of Upper Crescent were demolished and replaced by a modern office block. In 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent was built over in preparation for a new development.

The history of Number 16

As noted above, Number 16 was originally occupied by Robert Corry himself, the man responsible for building both Upper and Lower Crescent. Corry's family remained there until at least the 1880s. By 1899 the house was listed in the directory as vacant, but was occupied by one A. P. Shepard by 1910; by 1920 a Miss Shepard — presumably his daughter, granddaughter, or niece — had succeeded him, and she remained in residence until the 1950s. From around 1955 Number 16 and its two immediate neighbours to the west, Numbers 14 and 15, served together as the Ulster Nature Cure Clinic. In the 1960s all three were acquired by the nearby Queen's University and converted to student residences. The major internal alterations to the building were probably carried out at that point, though the earlier use as a clinic likely entailed some changes of its own — possibly including the creation of doorways between what had previously been three separate properties.