27 Malone Place, Belfast, County Antrim, BT12 5FD

27 Malone Place is a two-storey, two-bay Victorian mid-terrace dwelling built around 1860, forming part of the latter half of a terrace located off the Lisburn Road, adjacent to Sandy Row, approximately one mile south of Belfast city centre. It is a square-plan house with a two-storey rear return, and remains in use as a domestic dwelling.

EXTERIOR

The principal elevation faces south and is asymmetrically arranged. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with clay ridge tiles, red-brick chimney stacks and clay pots, with replacement uPVC rainwater goods. The walls are built in red brick laid to Flemish bond, with a projected smooth rendered plinth course and yellow-brick eaves courses. Windows are timber sliding sash, one-over-one, with horns, painted masonry cills, and yellow-brick flat arches. At ground floor level, a replacement timber door with a leaded overlight sits to the left, flanked by panelled pilasters rising to a pair of foliated consoles supporting a replacement canopy; a single window sits to the right. The first floor has two windows. The left gable abuts number 29 Malone Place and the right gable abuts number 25.

The rear elevation is cement rendered and asymmetrically arranged, with an enlarged ground-floor casement window and replacement casement windows at first-floor level. The left bay is abutted by a subservient two-storey return with lower eaves and ridge levels, fitted with replacement casement windows throughout.

CONDITION AND INTEGRITY

The exterior has retained its essential original proportions and character, though some historic features of interest have been lost. Internally, alterations to the interior detailing have resulted in the loss of some original fabric. The overall intact external appearance of the terrace means that the house is a good surviving example of housing of this type, and number 27 adds significant value to the group as a whole, making a positive architectural contribution to the character of the area.

SETTING

The terrace faces directly onto a narrow street. On the opposite side of the street is a rubble masonry wall bounding the embankment to the railway, and a small park enclosed by gated railings. On the opposing side of the Lisburn Road stands the University Road Moravian Church. The former Maternity Hospital is located to the west, with a large modern apartment block to the north.

HISTORY

The terrace was built in at least two phases. The earlier part dates from the late 1840s, with further houses added in the early 1860s. The site, at the bottom of Sandy Row, lay well outside the urban area of Belfast until the 1850s. Sandy Row itself probably follows a route laid down in medieval times. On the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33, a small structure is shown on the site, perhaps associated with the Malone turnpike which was situated at this junction, but the area is otherwise little developed, consisting mostly of housing associated with the major routes into Belfast.

Industrial activity gradually spread westwards and, at the time the terrace was built, it sat among a mixed-use landscape of factories, brick fields, housing and larger mansions, together with much open ground. The most prominent structure in the area was the Union Workhouse and Fever Hospital, dating from 1841 and 1849 respectively, and several inhabitants of Malone Place were employed there at various times.

According to Brett's annotations of the 1850 Hodges and Smith map — on which the terrace makes its first appearance — the site belonged from 1798 to a gentleman named William Irvine. In 1826 it was purchased, together with the neighbouring plot, by Arthur Gaffikin, a butcher and property developer who later became the proprietor of a linen business. Gaffikin is commemorated in the name of Gaffikin Street, which runs to the rear of Malone Place. The terrace does not appear in the street directory of 1846–47 but appears in the 1850 edition, giving a likely construction date of the late 1840s for numbers 9 to 19.

The terrace was built to the rear of a larger house called Malone Cottage, which faces onto Sandy Row (then known as Malone Road). It is possible that Malone Cottage and Malone Place were built together as a development by Arthur Gaffikin, and were then either sold on or offered as individual building plots. Sarah Warnock is listed as landlady in Griffith's Valuation of 1860, where the houses are valued at £10 and dimensions are recorded. The houses were advertised in the Belfast Newsletter in March 1857 as follows: "To let, neat, well-finished houses in Malone Place, adjoining the Post Office, containing Parlour, Kitchen, Three Bedrooms with Gas and Water at the greatly reduced rent of £11."

Numbers 21 to 29, including the present house, were built between 1860 and 1863 by property developer Moses Tate. They were valued slightly higher than the earlier houses at £11, with number 29 at £12, though these valuations were later reduced in 1888 to £10 and £11 respectively. The Belfast Newsletter of February 1862 noted that "a number of respectable houses have lately been built on the above Ground and others are in progress of erection." Further building land in the area was subsequently offered by Arthur Gaffikin, and a further four slightly larger houses were built on the far side of Blondin Street between 1870 and 1877. These were later taken over as the Midnight Mission Rescue Home, a refuge for women described at the time as "fallen." The home subsequently accommodated unmarried mothers and the buildings became a maternity hospital. The four dwellings were demolished in 1924 and a new Rescue and Maternity Home was built on the site to designs by William Godfrey Ferguson. In 1973 Malone Place Hospital was absorbed by the Jubilee Maternity Hospital, though it ceased to be used for maternity services after 1981 and has remained the property of the Health Trust.

The first valuation map to show the terrace, dating from around 1860, records ornamental railings and a step to the front of each of the original six houses, with a rear return and outbuildings in the yard behind each property. A subsequent edition dating from around 1860 to 1895 shows a boundary post and watering trough at the junction with the Lisburn Road, and a tramline running behind the terrace in Napier Street, which provided employment for some residents of Malone Place.

The houses appear to have been home to people of varying social standing, mostly of the skilled manual, clerical and supervisory classes. Many trades are represented but a large number of residents were employed in the textile industry, either in the manufacture of cloth or as drapers, tailors or other ancillary trades. The Belfast Newsletter records occasional hints that some inhabitants were involved in the less respectable side of Belfast life. In 1867, Jane Crosbey of number 17 Malone Place was summonsed to appear in court on a charge of disorderly conduct in a public street, with magistrates having received information "as to the character of the house she kept." In October and November 1876, a story ran in the Newsletter over several weeks when a boarder at number 23 was accused of stealing a top coat, umbrella, watch and chain and £1 10s from a man staying overnight in the dwelling, culminating in a courtroom speech by the defendant and an angry riposte from his wife — the level of attention given to the story suggesting how rare such a crime was in mid-Victorian Belfast. By the time the 1901 and 1911 censuses provide a fuller picture, most houses were occupied by large extended families of the respectable skilled working classes, rarely able to afford a servant, and with teenage children often contributing wages to the household.

The houses in the terrace were frequently renumbered during the latter decades of the 19th century, making it difficult at times to identify the residents of individual properties with certainty. As far as can be determined, number 27 was first occupied between 1863 and 1865 by John Clarke Graham, a house and rent agent with offices in Donegall Street. From 1867 the occupiers were the Rolleston family, followed by Charles Gilbert, a draughtsman, in 1877. Between 1884 and 1887, Mrs McClurkan operated a boarding house on the property. Subsequent occupiers included S. Bolton, a foreman carpenter, in 1890, and A. McCullough, a mechanic, from 1895 to 1899. From 1900 the occupier was Mrs Mary Chambers, a widow from Rathfriland, who lived with her sister and a niece working as a forewoman. By 1911 she was living with two nieces, one of whom was working as a collar runner. Mary Chambers died while resident at the house in 1921.