12-14 Lower Garfield Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 1FP

12–14 Lower Garfield Street, Belfast (Avenue Hall No. 2)

This is a two-storey-with-attic red-brick public meeting hall with ground-floor commercial units, built around 1896 in the Queen Anne Revivalist style to designs by the Belfast architectural practice of Graeme, Watt and Tulloch. It forms the south-eastern portion of a larger building group known as Avenue Hall, which also includes Nos 2–10 Lower Garfield Street and 56–60 North Street. The entire block was commissioned by John Donnelly, a local publican who had already established the Deer's Head public house on North Street around 1885. The building is currently vacant and derelict, with all windows and entrances boarded up, and has been in this condition since a fire severely damaged it in the late 1990s.

Architectural Character and Exterior

The building is rectangular on plan, with a concave principal elevation facing north along Lower Garfield Street and a chamfered north-west corner bay. Together with the adjoining terrace, it presents a prominent roofline characterised by free Renaissance-style motifs, lead-capped turrets, pedimented gables and attic dormers. The roof is steeply pitched and slated, with terracotta ridge-tiles. A red-brick parapet extends above the eaves on all elevations except the rear; on the west elevation this parapet is interrupted by a large gable containing a pair of small segmental-headed windows in plain surrounds.

The walling is red brick laid in Flemish bond with stucco dressings. Rainwater goods are generally aluminium ogee-profile, mounted on a moulded projecting eaves course; uPVC goods are fixed to a plain timber fascia on the overhanging eaves of the rear elevation.

Principal Elevation (North, facing Lower Garfield Street)

The principal elevation is asymmetrical and concave, two bays wide with an additional chamfered bay to the far right. The first-floor windows are tall, narrow and now blocked; they are set in moulded stucco architraves with lugged bases and scrolled keystones, and are linked by a continuous cill course. At ground-floor level, the units are separated by panelled timber pilasters supporting a heavily moulded cornice and entablature. Plain brick pilasters rise from corbels at first-floor window-head level and continue up through the cornice to the parapet. All ground-floor units are completely boarded up.

The cornice over the chamfered corner bay at ground floor is curved and is surmounted by a projecting stucco balustrade. To the right of the ground floor is a large tripartite multi-pane window. To the left, the cornice above the now-blocked doorway features a scrolled and broken pediment; the doorway itself is framed in modern tiles.

West Elevation

The west elevation contains a single commercial unit at ground floor with a large bricked-up opening above a continuous polished granite cill. The first floor is otherwise blank except for a single camber-arched one-over-one sash window to the far right. The mouldings associated with the shop unit extend across the right cheek of the south-west return. A narrow alleyway runs south along this elevation, separating the building from the neighbouring property to the west.

East Elevation

The east elevation is abutted by the adjoining terrace (Nos 2–10 Lower Garfield Street and 56–60 North Street).

South (Rear) Elevation

The rear elevation is convex and entirely devoid of parapet or ornamentation. The roofline at eaves level descends from west to east, and much of the elevation is abutted by various red-brick returns. The return to the right is monopitched — roof material undetermined — and breaks through the eaves line; it has a plain flat-arched window to the upper left cheek and two pairs of similarly detailed openings to the right cheek. The remainder of the elevation is obstructed from view by a boundary red-brick wall. A two-storey monopitched return to the left abuts the south-west corner of the right return; its elevation is also abutted by the boundary wall. It has two narrow timber sashes to the right cheek; the left cheek forms part of the west elevation and contains a camber-arched blocked doorway, two flat-arched openings and a pair of similarly detailed windows above.

Remaining windows throughout the building generally have plain surrounds, segmental heads, projecting stone sills, and contain one-over-one timber sashes.

Interior and Uses

The building is arranged so that No. 12 provides the ground-floor entrance and, on the upper floor, one of the two large public meeting halls that together formed Avenue Hall. No. 14 occupies the chamfered corner unit at ground floor and originally operated as a public house.

Historical Background

Avenue Hall was built in 1896 and formed part of a complete block comprising two large upper-floor meeting halls above a series of ground-floor shop units. The architects, Graeme, Watt and Tulloch, were a local firm established in 1895 by Robert Graeme Watt (c.1849–c.1915) and Frederick Henry Tulloch (1863–1953), predominantly known for commercial buildings in central Belfast. They were also responsible for the State Buildings on Arthur Street and the William Ross and Son Mineral Water factory on William Street South.

No. 12 Lower Garfield Street: The upper meeting hall was completed in 1896 and valued at £100 in 1897, at which point it lay vacant. By the 1900 Belfast Revaluation its value had been reduced to £90 and it was noted to be fitted with gas installations. By 1907 the hall had been taken over by a Mr John Smith from Glasgow, who converted it into a billiards room known as the Palace Billiard Hall; the conversion raised the rateable value to £178, a figure that remained unchanged through the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930. John Smith continued to operate the billiards hall at least until 1935, when the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland raised the rateable value to £330. The building survived the heavy bombing of Belfast's city centre during the 1941 Blitz. By the 1950s Smith and the Palace Billiard Hall had vacated, and by 1956 the upper hall had been acquired by Sinclair's Department Store — a drapers firm whose main store was located at 89–101 Royal Avenue — which used it primarily as storage space. The rateable value stood at £540 by the end of the Second General Revaluation in 1972. Sinclair's continued to use the hall as a warehouse until its main store was closed in 1972, following a bomb attack on the Royal Avenue premises the previous year.

No. 14 Lower Garfield Street: The ground-floor corner unit was initially valued at £48 in the Annual Revisions. It was vacant in 1897, but by 1900 had been established as a public house by John Donnelly. The 1900 Belfast Revaluation raised the value to £89 and recorded that the lease had been purchased in 1899 by a local publican, Robert Weir, at a cost of £1,500; Weir paid John Donnelly annual rent of £60, and the premises were also fitted with gas installations. The unit became known as the Garfield Bar and remained open until the late 20th century. In 1935 the First General Revaluation slightly increased its value to £90. By the 1950s the bar was administered by a Ms Sarah McMahon, and by 1972 the rateable value had risen to £384.

The wider building group was listed in 1991. A fire in the late 1990s caused severe damage and the building was subsequently abandoned. As of the time of writing, only the shop at No. 8 (part of the adjoining listed group) remains in occupation.

Street History

Lower Garfield Street itself was laid out in the 1890s on the line of a former Y-shaped lane known as Round Entry, which had connected Hercules Lane with North Street. Round Entry had a notorious reputation: contemporary accounts describe it as a dangerous alleyway where, in the words quoted by Patton (1993), "deeds of villainy are perpetrated … and unwary youths were inebriated, robbed, and then turned out guilty, ruined, stricken, with a sting in their conscience and a stain upon their character." Round Entry was cleared along with Hercules Lane during the 1880s redevelopment that created Royal Avenue. The straight Garfield Street was laid out first in the 1880s, while the curving Lower Garfield Street was formed a decade later, providing a more respectable passage between North Street and Royal Avenue. The street was named in memory of the American President James A. Garfield (1831–1881), who was assassinated in 1881 but survived for 80 days before dying of his wounds; the naming of the street reflected widespread international expressions of sympathy in the months before his death. Lower Garfield Street is now pedestrianised and is the sole surviving section of the original Garfield Street, the remainder of which was demolished in the 1980s to make way for the CastleCourt Shopping Centre.

In September 2012, plans for a £360 million redevelopment of the area between Royal Avenue and the Cathedral Quarter were approved by the Department of the Environment. According to artist's impressions published at the time, the scheme included the restoration of Avenue Hall, though at the time of writing the project had not proceeded beyond the initial planning stage.

Setting

The building addresses the south-eastern end of Lower Garfield Street with its concave curved elevation and forms part of a large terrace in conjunction with the adjoining premises at Nos 2–10 Lower Garfield Street and 56–60 North Street. The chamfered north-west corner is separated from the neighbouring building to the west by a narrow alleyway running south parallel to the west elevation. To the rear, a single-storey red-brick boundary wall encloses the perimeter, beyond which lies a large open area used for car parking. The building group constitutes an important element of townscape in an area that has lost many historic buildings in recent decades, and its roofscape is visible from some distance. It relates visually to the Deer's Head public house on the opposite side of Lower Garfield Street and to the North Street Arcade, located a short distance to the north-east.