65 University Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NF

65 University Road is a relatively low-proportioned, three-storey, late Georgian-style terraced house built in 1840–41, with a stucco façade and decorative doorcase. It is one of a matching group of four houses, all now converted into flats with stairwell returns to the rear.

The terrace to which the property belongs was originally named Botanic View and sits on the west side of University Road, with Camden Street to the north and Fitzwilliam Street to the south. The terrace as a whole comprises this property and its two identical neighbours, four similar but taller three-storey houses of around 1840–43 (also converted to flats), and a short two-storey brick grouping of 1852 at the southern end (now flats and offices). No.65 is situated roughly to the southern side of the terrace.

The front, east-facing façade is asymmetrical. To the left on the ground floor is the original entrance doorway, which is no longer used for access — the flats are now reached from the rear stairwell return. The doorway consists of a traditional-style panelled and glazed door that in fact functions as a window, with a plain rectangular fanlight above. The whole ensemble is framed by plain pilasters with decorative console brackets supporting a cornice hood with a tympanum-like blocking course over. To the right of the doorway are two flat-arch windows with Georgian-paned sash frames, both six-over-six. At first-floor level, and spaced more widely apart than the ground-floor windows, are two further windows of the same type but marginally larger in appearance. Two similar but shorter six-over-three sash windows sit at second-floor level, aligned with those on the first floor. The front façade is finished in plain render with simple moulded surrounds to the windows. The render is painted, with the window surrounds and doorcase picked out in a darker shade than the main wall surface.

To the right of the rear elevation is a full-height return. On the west face of this return there is a four-over-four Georgian-paned sash window at the first half-landing and a two-over-four sash window at the second half-landing. On the ground floor of the rear façade of the main part of the building — that is, to the left of the return — there is a modern timber panelled door to the right and a narrow four-over-two sash window to the left, with a shallow projecting hood above both. At first-floor level there is a larger six-over-six Georgian-paned sash window, with a shorter six-over-three sash window above at second-floor level. The entire rear elevation is rendered and painted to match the front. The main gabled roof is slated, with a slated lean-to roof over the return that merges with the main roof. There is a tall rendered chimneystack to the south with a string course and decorative matching chimney pots. Both the front and rear have a verge course with recent-looking moulded guttering and modern square downspouts. To the front, a small garden is enclosed by low rendered walls and planted with shrubbery.

Historical background

Before the early 19th century, the present University Road formed the main route south from the small but growing town of Belfast towards Dublin, climbing along the Malone Ridge and turning south-west towards Lisburn. Long, narrow strip farms stretched westward from this road, sloping down towards the lower ground of the Bog Meadows. By the mid-18th century, many of these farms were leased by the Donegall estate to Belfast merchants and worked by undertenants, whose largely modest farmhouses were scattered along the road. In 1819 the present Lisburn Road was laid out, cutting through the farms, and by 1839 the Ulster Railway had been driven through their lower fields. From 1823 onwards, the Donegall estate began granting perpetual leases on land to the south of Belfast, and with the integrity of the Malone farms broken up, the area was opened to developers.

John Alexander was one such developer. His family had held a lease on 31 acres in the townland of Lower Malone since the early 18th century, and in 1823 acquired the land outright from Lord Donegall for £480. It was on this land that Alexander built the three-storey portions of the Botanic View terrace — the present nos.53–65 University Road — between 1840 and 1843. He also parcelled out adjacent portions of the holding to other developers, which led to the construction of Fitzwilliam Place (nos.71–75) in 1846–48, dwellings along the newly laid out Fitzwilliam Street (nos.2–8) in around 1849–50, and Camden Terrace along the newly laid out Camden Street in 1849–52. The two-storey southern portion of Botanic View was also in place by 1852. These new dwellings, together with others just to the north such as Fountainville Terrace, Upper and Lower Crescent, Prospect and Claremont Terraces, and University Square to the east, marked the beginning of the suburbanisation of south Belfast and the movement of the town's professional and commercial classes away from its centre. The character of Botanic View's earliest residents reflects this shift: Belfast directories of the late 1840s and early 1850s record a surgeon, an engineer, a drawing master, and various businessmen among the occupants.

The whole of Botanic View remained in the ownership of the Alexander family until 1881, when nos.53–65 were sold to Robert Kelso Mathewson. In 1950 these properties passed into the ownership of Queen's University, with no.67 acquired by Queen's in 1963. In 1982 the University sold the entire grouping to The Malone Housing Association. Up to that point the properties had largely continued in use as private dwellings, some latterly occupied by University staff and students, although no.55 and nos.57–59 served respectively as a temporary post office and a branch of the Ulster Bank in 1971–72, and no.59, having sustained damage in a bomb blast, was demolished in 1979.

In the mid-1980s, Malone Housing Association converted the whole group into flats. As part of this work, no.59 was rebuilt, and together with nos.53, 55, and 57 it provides three flats each; six flats are shared between nos.61, 63, 65, and 67. All of the original rear returns were demolished to make way for new stairwell projections, with a single stairwell shared between each former house. In March 2000 the entire group was re-conveyed to Queen's University.

The artist Paul Henry was born at no.61 in 1871.