372 Beersbridge Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 5DZ

372 Beersbridge Road is a handsome semi-detached two-bay two-storey cottage built in 1880, most likely designed by the Belfast architects Young & Mackenzie. It is constructed in rock-faced Scrabo sandstone and sits within a row of three pairs of semi-detached cottages to the north of Beersbridge Road, all of which are listed together. The listing extends to the house, outbuildings and walling.

The building has a rectangular plan form facing south, with a projecting entrance canopy on the west side elevation and single-storey returns to the rear.

The roof is a half-hipped natural slate design with projecting eaves. Along the front elevation the rafters are left exposed, and the guttering is bracketed ogee-moulded cast iron, with circular cast-iron downpipes. On the west side, the roof shows exposed purlins, angled red-clay hip tiles and a fleur-de-lis shaped clay finial. There is a rebuilt redbrick chimneystack to the west and an original shared redbrick chimneystack to the east, the latter with corbelled coping and red-clay chimney pots.

The external walls are laid in un-coursed rock-faced Scrabo sandstone with a stone-cut plinth course. A continuous stone-cut sill runs at first-floor level, and the window openings are flanked by stone dressings on painted sills.

The front elevation is asymmetrical. Each of the two bays has a square-headed window at ground floor level, above which sits a flat-headed lucarne — that is, a dormer built off the face of the wall — with a natural slate roof. The ground-floor square-headed openings have a discharging arch over the lintels and contain reglazed 1/1 double-hung timber sash windows with ogee horns. Both the ground-floor and first-floor openings in the east bay consist of paired sash windows.

The west side elevation carries decorative timber bargeboards and is abutted by a projecting entrance canopy with a natural slate hipped roof supported on timber brackets, with half-round cast-iron guttering and circular cast-iron downpipes. The entrance faces west and is recessed, with a replacement half-glazed timber panelled front door fitted with brass door furniture and a fanlight, opening onto a stone step. A stone boot scraper is built into the wall to the right of the entrance. The square-headed window openings on this elevation have a discharging arch over the lintels and contain replacement timber top-hung casement windows. Also on the west side elevation is a stone wall in un-coursed rock-faced Scrabo sandstone with a stone-cut plinth course, cut-stone capping, and a square-headed door opening fitted with a sheeted timber door leading to the back yard.

The east side elevation is abutted by the adjoining house at No. 374.

The rear elevation has a single-storey red-brick extension to the east with a pitched slate roof and angled red-clay hip tiles paired with the adjoining house. Access to the rear was not granted at the time of inspection, but two modern single-storey extensions appear to be present. The rear elevation also has two dormer windows with natural slate roofs and angled red-clay hip tiles, and the square-headed window openings contain replacement timber top-hung casement windows. There is also a timber rooflight and a modern double-leaf eight-paned timber door to the extension.

At the front, the yard is divided between a paved and gravel driveway accessed through a metal gate and a modest landscaped garden enclosed by a hedge. The rear is enclosed by a rendered wall.

Young & Mackenzie are described by the Dictionary of Irish Architects as the most successful architectural practice in Belfast: the leading architects for the Presbyterian Church in the north-east, they also received some of the most important commercial commissions in the city. Their surviving papers record that the firm designed five double cottages for the Bloomfield Land and Building Company Limited along Beersbridge Road — nos 382–400 — in 1878. These ten redbrick dwellings were joined by the neighbouring nos 376–380 in 1880. Nos 364–374 Beersbridge Road, including No. 372, were also built in 1880 for the Bloomfield Land and Building Company and are remarkably similar in design to those documented Young and Mackenzie cottages, though they are considered more impressive, possessing additional dormer windows and using Scrabo sandstone on their facades.

The Bloomfield Land and Building Company had been formed by the landowning Boyd family in 1874 to secure leases for building projects in the east Belfast townlands of Ballyhackamore and Ballycloughan. The construction of this row of cottages formed part of the easterly expansion of Belfast during the late Victorian period, when the town centre was being redeveloped for commercial use and new residential streets were being built beyond the former urban boundary.

No. 372 first appears in valuation records in 1880, when the Annual Revisions set its rateable value at £15. The property was also recorded under the name Garron Cottage, and its first occupant was a Mr Charles Hunt. By 1911 the cottage was occupied by Henry Lennon, a linen merchant; the census building return for that year described it as a second-class dwelling consisting of six rooms. By the time the Annual Revisions were cancelled in 1930 the rateable value had decreased only slightly to £14 10s, before rising to £28 under the First Revaluation of 1935. By that year the property had been purchased by a Mr William Campbell, who continued to hold it through the Second Revaluation of 1956–72.

The cottage was listed in 1984 along with the adjoining properties. A renovation was carried out in 1987, at which time the roof was reslated, the exterior stonework was repointed and restored, and the chimney rebuilt.