West Belfast Orange Hall, 342-344 Shankill Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT13 3AB

The West Belfast Orange Hall is an attached two-storey-with-attic red-brick building dated 1898, designed by William Batt and situated on the south side of Shankill Road in west Belfast. It stands at the west end of Shankill Road between Battenberg Street and Brookmount Street, facing the twentieth-century Spectrum Centre to the north and streets lined with two-storey red-brick terraced housing to the south.

The building is rectangular on plan with a projecting porch to the front, an engaged round tower to the east corner, and a two-storey entrance bay to the southwest. The walling is English garden wall-bonded red-brick on a chamfered and painted concrete plinth. A hipped natural slate roof with angled terracotta ridge tiles covers the main structure, with a lead-clad roof to the cupola. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on dentilled brick eaves with aluminium downpipes.

The principal elevation faces northeast and is arranged almost symmetrically with the round tower at the left corner and a central entrance bay rising to an aediculed glazed oculus piercing a balustraded parapet. A dentilled string-course runs between floors with a moulded string-course at impost level at each floor and to the porch. The first floor has three windows, the central one narrower and framed by paired brick pilasters, with a matching pilaster at the far right. The ground floor is abutted at centre by the projecting porch with two windows to the right and one to the left. Windows are late twentieth-century timber casements with projecting painted sills, set in camber-headed openings with impost mouldings and keyblocks; those at ground floor are round-headed.

The porch features a slate roof, moulded eaves, and corner piers. Double-leaf five-panelled timber doors are surmounted by a round-headed transom light bearing the lettering "WEST BELFAST / ORANGE HALL", set in a chamfered reveal with impost mouldings, archivolt and keyblock. The doors are accessed via a single concrete step.

The round tower at the left is lit by two windows at each floor and rises to an octagonal timber cupola with ogee-arch openings featuring trefoil detailing, surmounted by a lead roof with a tall finial.

The southeast elevation has two sets of paired windows at first floor divided by pilasters, with five windows to the ground floor without impost mouldings. A two-storey entrance bay at the lower left has a round-headed window at first floor with moulded head, decorative stops and keyblock; the ground floor contains a replacement timber door with concrete lintel, fronted by a modern metal roller shutter and accessed by a set of six modern tiled steps. The southwest elevation is abutted by an adjoining building, as is the northwest elevation.

Some replacement fabric, including fenestration, has occurred, but much of the original fabric and detailing remains intact. The building is characterised by classical proportions and restrained classical detailing, with the round corner tower and copper-clad cupola enlivening the design. An attached Caretaker's house adjoins the hall.

The West Belfast Orange and Unionist Hall was built in 1897-98 on what was formerly a vacant plot on the outskirts of the expanding city. The closing years of the nineteenth century saw a period of enormous growth for the Orange Institution, with record numbers of new Orange Halls being opened. An earlier hall in Agnes Street had become inadequate as West Belfast developed rapidly, having become surrounded by houses that obstructed entry and exit and incurred heavy rent and taxes. The decision to erect a new hall was taken in October 1890, and a lease was obtained on the present plot. William Batt, architect of a number of Orange halls including those in Clifton Street and Ballynafeigh, produced designs. Construction was delayed by opposition to Home Rule, and the original design had to be abandoned as too costly. After the second Home Rule Bill was defeated in 1893, fundraising began in earnest. The foundation stone was laid on 19th April 1897 by Alderman McConnell, a well-known supporter of the community in West Belfast who had been instrumental in acquiring the site and contributing significantly to the building fund. The contractors were Campbell & Lowry of Cliftonpark Avenue, with a cost of £2,500, of which £800 had been promised at the time the foundation stone was laid. The opening ceremony took place on 22nd April 1898 when the wife of Alderman McConnell declared the building open.

The building originally consisted of an entrance vestibule, lodge, ante-rooms, reading, arch and box rooms on the ground floor. Upstairs was the large hall and gallery with several ladies' and gentlemen's retiring rooms. The hall was decorated for the opening ceremony with an artistic arrangement of Chinese lanterns, garlands of roses, Indian palms, Japanese sunshades and ferns. The hall was intended to be a focus not only of political work but of social and religious outreach, with particular concern about the vice of intemperance and the proliferation of public houses in the Shankill Road area. A debt of £800-900 remained when the building opened, cleared by subsequent fundraising efforts. The hall remains the home of No 9 District Orange Lodge. Recent improvement works carried out by Belfast City Council included the fitting of new bespoke galvanized railings at the entrance.