20 - 22 Castle Place, Belfast

20–22 Castle Place, Belfast

This is a terraced, multi-bay, four-storey red brick commercial building, constructed around 1866 to the designs of Belfast-based architect Thomas Jackson (1807–1890). It was built for Dr. Thomas J. Cantrell as the Ulster Medical Hall, and stands in the commercial heart of Belfast city centre, facing north onto Castle Place. It is one of only two surviving 19th-century commercial buildings on a street that was once described as "the hub of Victorian Belfast."

Architectural Description

The building is irregular on plan and presents a four-window-wide front elevation in red brick laid in Flemish bond, with black brick courses framing each floor. The flat roof is hidden behind a rebuilt grey brick parapet with a lead-lined stone eaves course carried on stone brackets with angled yellow brick. Sandstone console brackets flank the parapet and eaves at either end, with a cast-iron downpipe breaking through at the west end. The original iron cresting at the parapet has been removed.

The upper floors retain their Victorian Gothic character. The window openings are chamfered and pointed-headed — lancet in form — with splayed flush sills set within flush painted stone surrounds and fitted with replacement timber casement windows. On the first and second floors the windows are arranged in pairs and are deeply set, each pair featuring a central polished granite colonette with a stiff-leaf capital. The third floor is punctuated by a series of eight diminutive pointed-headed window openings. Black brick courses frame each storey, giving the façade a strong horizontal rhythm within its Gothic vertical language.

The ground floor is occupied by a replacement timber-clad shopfront with glazed doors, inserted around 1990. The east side elevation abuts the adjoining Castle Buildings, with which the ground floor is now interconnected. The west side elevation abuts a mid-20th-century commercial building. The rear elevation was not inspected.

Historical Background

Castle Place was originally part of High Street and follows the line of the original course of the River Farset, as recorded on the 1685 map of Belfast. Belfast Castle, which burned down in 1708, stood on the south side of the river and gave its name to the surrounding streets, lanes and entries. The western portion of High Street was known as Grand Parade by 1791 — a route used for military processions, including Volunteer marches during Bastille Day celebrations in the late 18th century. The street was renamed Castle Place in the early 19th century, and nos. 20–22 stand on or very close to the original site of Belfast Castle itself.

The building was recorded in the Irish Builder in January 1867 and was designed by Thomas Jackson, described by contemporaries as "primarily a domestic architect, though he turned his hand to buildings of every type, commercial, industrial, educational and ecclesiastical." Jackson was one of the chief architects of mid-Victorian Belfast; his other notable works include the Old Museum at College Square North and St. Malachy's Roman Catholic Church on Alfred Street.

When first completed, the building was valued at £224 and comprised a ground-floor shop with offices on the upper floors. Dr. Cantrell operated his apothecary and chemist business — the Ulster Medical Hall — from the ground floor, while also running a mineral water factory in Arthur Place. The upper floors initially served as a public reading room and a billiards hall. Photographs from around the turn of the 20th century show that the original ground-floor shopfront shared the same Gothic character as the upper floors, with two lancet entranceways framing a central shopfront window.

Dr. Cantrell was the founder of the aerated and mineral water company Cantrell & Cochrane (C&C), which became the largest mineral water manufacturer in Belfast. His first shop had opened in 1852, and he moved to Castle Place in 1866 when the current building was erected. He later formed a partnership with Alderman Henry Cochrane, facilitating the expansion of the business and leading to his departure from the Castle Place premises.

By around 1875–1877, the property had passed to Davidson & Leslie, pharmaceutical chemists, who were one of the largest suppliers of homeopathic medicines in Ireland. By 1877, the upper floors were let to F. A. Piccione & Co., who ran a photographic studio from the top floor, and to William Crawford Jnr. & Co., stockbrokers and insurance agents, on the middle floors. By the 1900 Belfast Revaluation the business had been renamed Davidson & Hardy, though the building continued to be known as the Ulster Medical Hall. The revaluation raised the rateable value to £374 and noted that the upper floors had recently been damaged by fire, with repair work not yet undertaken at the time of assessment. By 1901, the upper floors were occupied by James Sands of the Scottish Imperial Insurance Co., the solicitors W. & R. Hancock, and the London and Paris Photographic Art Studio operated by a Mr. G. Kennedy. Between 1908 and 1910 a dental institute also took space on one of the upper floors, while the top floor continued in use as a photographic studio, by then known as the Castle Studio. The total rateable value had risen to £385 by the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930, and to £660 by the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935, by which point Davidson & Hardy had taken over the upper floors for storage.

The building survived the heavy bombing of Belfast city centre during the Blitz of 1941, when much of the neighbouring High Street was destroyed. Davidson & Hardy's chemist continued to occupy the ground floor until around 1958, when Wallis's clothing store — which also occupied the adjoining No. 18 Castle Place, the westernmost unit of Castle Buildings — acquired the ground floor. The two ground floors were combined into a single retail unit, and the original Gothic shopfront was removed and replaced with a plain modern shopfront. By the end of the Second General Revaluation in 1972, the combined rateable value of nos. 18–22 Castle Place had risen to £660. The building was listed in 1979 as part of a single entry covering nos. 18–22 Castle Place, despite the marked differences in date and style between the two buildings. The premises continues to function as a single commercial property.

Setting

The building faces north onto Castle Place in the commercial centre of Belfast city centre, forming part of a historic street that was once considered the heart of Victorian Belfast.