37 McMaster Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 4HP

37 McMaster Street is a two-storey, single-bay late Victorian terraced parlour house, built around 1896–1898 on the west side of McMaster Street in the Ballymacarrett district of East Belfast. It was developed by John McMaster to designs by J. Frazer and Son, a practice active between the 1890s and 1910s and responsible for a number of similar terraced streets in Belfast, including Chadwick Street and Meadowbank Place. Number 37 sits at the south end of the west terrace block and, being at the end of a tapering plot, is slightly wider and shallower in plan than most of the other houses in the street. It forms part of a complete street of late Victorian terraced housing and carries group value with the other listed buildings in McMaster Street, which is the only late Victorian workers' terrace in Belfast to have survived in reasonably original condition.

ARCHITECTURE

The roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles, and red brick chimney stacks at both the north and south ends. Rainwater goods are painted ogee-profile cast iron, supported on a projecting polychromatic brick eaves course over an ovolo-moulded corbel course and string course.

The walls are English garden-wall bonded red brick, laid in alternating courses of headers and stretchers, with two polychromatic brick string courses — one of which forms a continuous brick and sill course at first-floor level. The principal east-facing elevation is symmetrical: a central entrance door, flanked by a single window on each side at ground floor, with corresponding windows above at first floor, offset slightly towards the centre. Window openings are camber-headed with polychromatic brick chamfered reveals and voussoirs, and projecting masonry sills. The entrance is accessed via a tiled threshold.

The south gable is rendered and blank. The rear elevation is rendered and contains two blocked windows at first-floor level to the left. The north gable abuts an enclosed yard bounded by a single-storey red brick boundary wall; the exposed section of the gable is blank.

As recorded in 2013, all windows on the front elevation had been replaced with appropriate timber sliding sash windows, and a new timber panelled door with a camber-headed transom light was fitted. Paint had been removed from all brickwork, including the plinth, the brick chamfered reveals, and the camber-headed window reveals. This was an improvement on the condition recorded in 2011, when ground-floor windows were boarded, first-floor timber sashes had no glazing remaining, and the door was also boarded.

CONSTRUCTION AND SPECIFICATION

The house is one of 37 parlour houses built in several phases between 1899 and 1908. Numbers 13 to 37 — all two-storey houses with yards — were valued at £8 each. The houses at the south end of the street, including number 37, are slightly smaller than those at the north end, which were valued higher. The last four houses, numbers 31 to 37, are on a different plan to the rest, being shallower and wider due to the tapering plot.

The houses were built to a notably high specification for working-class housing of the period, with running water and flush toilets — then emerging technologies in this context. Building regulations required a rear entrance, a back yard, and an outside toilet. Gas was piped in for lighting; electricity did not become commonplace until the 1930s, and lamp-lighters and window-tappers were daily visitors to the street. The rent for number 37 was 5 shillings per week, and the estimated cost of construction was £76.

SETTING

The house faces directly onto McMaster Street, opening onto a wide pavement with granite kerbs, original lamp posts, and electric lighting converted from former gas lights. The street was formerly cobbled and is now largely concrete, with small cobbled areas at each end. Original tiled street signage survives at the north and south ends of the street. The rear elevation is enclosed by high-level stretcher-bonded modern red brick walling, with a painted, vertically-sheeted timber entrance door at centre, accessed via a narrow entry running north–south between the back yards of Parker Street and McMaster Street. The street narrows towards Major Street to the south.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

McMaster Street was developed in several phases as the Ballymacarrett district of East Belfast was transformed from an area of fields, cottages, and mansions — with an industrial core — into dense workers' terracing in the late 19th century. This transformation was driven largely by the expansion of Harland and Wolff, whose shipyard on Queen's Island was employing 9,000 men by 1900. Ballymacarrett was also home to ropeworks, linen manufacture, engineering firms, and fertiliser production, all of which traded internationally. The terraces were built to house the workers who powered this prosperity.

Construction of McMaster Street began with numbers 2–14, which were in place by 1899 — two-and-a-half-storey houses. Numbers 1–11, also two-and-a-half storeys, appeared in the 1900 street directory alongside notes of houses then under construction. By the census of March 1901, numbers 1–35 were complete, with number 37 appearing in the 1901 street directory though absent from the census return, likely because it was vacant at the time. The remaining houses, numbers 16–52, were added by 1908. The houses on the western side of the street first enter valuation records in 1900.

The male inhabitants were typically employed in shipbuilding; women commonly worked in the linen or rope industries. Larger families tended to occupy the houses with an attic storey at the north end of the street. The first recorded tenant of number 37 was Robert Campbell, engine driver, who leased the house from the developer John McMaster. In the 1900 valuation the house was said to be four years old, though this appears to be an overstatement. Subsequent occupants included W. J. McCreevy, ironturner (by 1903); Sarah Orr (1906); Alfred Greer, engine driver (1908); Robert Wishart, riveter (1909); and at the time of the 1911 census, James Smyth, fitter, who lived there with his wife and five young children. Later occupants included Mrs A. Young (by 1912), James Tuff, patrolman (1913), J. Stannix, ironturner (1915), and W. Colvan, plater (1918), whose family remained in residence until the Second World War.

During the Belfast Blitz of April and May 1941, over half of the city's housing stock was damaged in four air raids. McMaster Street was not destroyed, but the area was targeted in raids on 7/8 April and 4/5 May. The 1942 street directory records that most houses in the street, including number 33, had been vacated, probably as a result of fire damage. Madge Colvan — likely the wife of W. Colvan — is named in casualty lists compiled after the 4/5 May attack, her injuries recorded as serious. The Colvan family did not return to McMaster Street in 1943 with the majority of other returning residents. By 1944 the house had been taken over by Samuel Wells, labourer, followed by George Agnew, plater, who lived there until at least 1980.

In the 1970s, widespread redevelopment led to the demolition of many other terraces in the area. McMaster Street was listed in 1987 and in 1994 was designated a conservation area by the Department of the Environment. Two houses in the street have been restored by Hearth. The street and its buildings — including number 37 — represent a direct and tangible connection to Belfast's history as a world centre of shipbuilding, and to the social history of working-class life in the city at the turn of the 20th century.