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

16 Upper Crescent is a relatively large three-storey rendered town house, one of ten similar but not identical properties built in 1846 as part of a regency-style crescent. The building now serves as offices and flats. Upper Crescent is positioned to the east of University Road and overlooks a small public park facing Lower Crescent, a comparable development dating to 1852 which is arranged as a straight terrace rather than in crescent form.

The property occupies the eastern end of the row and is among the more ornate buildings in the grouping, distinguished by large two-storey Corinthian columns across its front. The front elevation is asymmetrical and faces roughly north. The ground floor entrance, positioned to the left, comprises a recessed timber panelled door with panelled pilaster jambs and a rectangular fanlight, reached by three stone steps. To the right of the doorway are two tall plain sash windows, with lower lights boarded up. The first floor has three larger windows set upon a cill course, featuring regency-style sash frames with horizontally orientated panes in a 4/8 configuration. The second floor contains three pairs of narrow semicircular-headed sash windows with horizontal glazing bars in a 1/2 pattern, resting on a pronounced cornice-like cill course projection with dentillations. The ground floor level is finished in rusticated render, whilst the upper floors are rendered in plain finish. Four large evenly-spaced Corinthian three-quarter columns span the ground and first floor heights and support a projecting frieze below the second floor cill course level; the outer columns are square. Corresponding panelled pilasters on the second floor rise to form parapet piers with a pierced balustrade-like parapet between them. The front elevation is painted.

The east elevation comprises the gable of the main portion of the house and the face of a two-storey return. To the second floor right of the gable is a pair of windows matching those on the corresponding floor of the front. A sash window on the first floor of the return features 3/3 glazing with arched heads to the upper panes. The entire elevation is finished in painted lined render.

The rear elevation could not be fully observed. The right-hand east side shows the two-storey gabled return, which is blank. To the left, the return merges with another two-storey projection featuring a mono-pitched roof. A recent broad doorway opens to the ground floor of the projection, with a Georgian-paned sash window (6/6) to the first floor. Both the gable and the south face of the projection are finished in plain render. The rear façade of the main portion of the building appears to be entirely in brick and contains one window to the left on the ground floor, another on the first floor and one on the second floor, all fitted with Georgian-paned sash frames. An additional stairwell window between the first and second floors has a similar frame. The inner west face of the return has a Georgian-paned sash window to the left on the first floor, with two open doorways to the ground floor on the inner north face of the projection. Both these faces are largely finished in plain render.

The gabled roof is slated with two small skylights to the rear. A tall rendered chimneystack with projecting coping and uniform pots stands to the west, whilst the return has a small rendered chimneystack to its gable. Cast iron rainwater goods are present.