12 College Square North, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 6AS

12 College Square North is a four-storey rendered former townhouse built around 1830, forming the end of a terrace of five similar houses on the north side of College Square North, Belfast. It faces south, is rectangular on plan, and is considered the best surviving example of an 1830s terrace in Belfast. Together with the adjoining properties, it represents a significant surviving fragment of Georgian Belfast, comparable to the houses at 7–11 Wellington Place.

EXTERIOR

The pitched natural slate roof is finished with black clay ridge tiles and sits behind a parapet wall and eaves cornice that returns to the west gable. A rendered profiled chimneystack with clay pots rises from the east party wall. To the rear elevation, cast-iron guttering on iron brackets, a cast-iron box hopper, and a replacement downpipe are fitted.

The walling is painted rendered, finished in ruled-and-lined render with a moulded plinth course, channel-rusticated treatment to the ground floor, and rusticated quoins to the outer corner. The rear elevation is plain cement render.

The south front elevation is three bays wide with square-headed window openings, sandstone sills, and largely original timber sash windows. On the third floor, windows are 6-over-3 pane; on the second floor, 6-over-6 pane with architrave surrounds; on the first floor, horizontally-glazed 2-over-2 pane; and on the ground floor, single-pane. The ground and first floor windows are flanked by slender pilasters and decorative console brackets supporting hood cornices, with continuous sill courses running between them.

The square-headed door opening has a replacement flat-panelled timber door with a lugged architrave surround and a rectangular overlight containing interlacing tracery. The door opening is flanked by slender pilasters and foliate console brackets supporting a dentilated cornice and a shallow pediment with acroteria and a wreath to the tympanum. The door opens onto a replacement paved platform reached by five concrete steps enclosed by replacement steel railings. A former railed front area existed to the south, though the railings have since been removed.

The gabled west side elevation has two irregularly spaced window openings to the ground and first floors, each glazed with 6-over-6 timber sash windows. The north rear elevation is two bays wide and is abutted by a gable-ended two-storey return fronting onto College Place North, along with a steel fire escape. The rear elevation retains an early 6-over-3 timber sash window to the third floor and a 6-over-6 timber sash window to the second floor. The east side elevation abuts the adjoining No. 11 College Square North.

HISTORY

The terrace of College Square North was constructed between approximately 1822 and 1832–33. It does not appear on the 1822 map published in George Benn's The History of the Town of Belfast, which noted that the Royal Belfast Academical Institution lay at the western limit of the town and was not yet surrounded by many buildings. By the time the first edition Ordnance Survey map was produced in 1832–33, the terrace — which included Nos. 9–11 College Square North, the Old Museum, and Nos. 1–6 College Square North — had been completed. According to C. E. B. Brett's Georgian Belfast: 1750–1850, the imposing Regency terrace was developed for a John McCammond, who originally held the lease for Nos. 1–12, while the remainder of the terrace was built for Zachariah Leaf Orrett.

College Square itself was laid out in the early 19th century as a large open square centred on the newly established Royal Belfast Academical Institution. During the mid-to-late 19th century, College Square North was one of the most desirable addresses in Belfast, attracting doctors, businessmen, and other professionals. This changed when the massive Belfast Technical College — now known as the Municipal Technical Institute — was built at the corner of the square between 1900 and 1907, blocking the pleasant view across the Academy's lawns and prompting many professional residents to relocate to South Belfast, particularly to University Square near Queen's University.

The Townland Valuation of around 1830 records that No. 12 was newly completed, valued at £53, and occupied by a Dr. Forsythe — the first of several medical professionals to live at this fashionable address. Forsythe remained until at least 1843 according to the Belfast Street Directories. By 1852, Sir William G. Johnson, a local magistrate and former Mayor of Belfast (having held the mayoralty in 1849), had taken up residence. Griffith's Valuation of 1860 records Johnston still in residence, leasing the property from a Ms. Elizabeth McCammond, with the valuation slightly increased to £60.

Sir William G. Johnston remained at No. 12 until around 1891, when Dr. Andrew McConnell acquired possession, purchasing the property outright from the McCammond estate. The Annual Revisions note that the value dropped slightly to £55 in 1892, with the valuer recording that McConnell had purchased No. 12 at auction for £1,000. By the 1900 Belfast Revaluation the value was returned to £60, though the valuer noted that No. 12 was considered less valuable than the adjoining properties owing to its proximity to College Place North and Neill's Flour Mill to the rear. The revaluation recorded that the house comprised 11 rooms — including sitting rooms and bedrooms but excluding kitchens — and had gas fittings installed.

The 1901 Census records Dr. Andrew McConnell (aged 62, Presbyterian) living at No. 12 with his wife Margaret (aged 60) and their three children. The census building return classified it as a first-class private dwelling with 10 inhabited rooms and a coach house as its sole outbuilding. McConnell died in 1909, leaving the property to his widow, who continued to reside there until around 1918. The Belfast Street Directory for that year records that a Dr. James Blewitt had taken possession of the townhouse, by then reduced in value to £50. Blewitt remained at least until 1935, when he was recorded in the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland. At that point he was leasing No. 12 from the widowed Mrs. McConnell, and the revaluation increased the assessed value to £75.

No. 12, along with the rest of College Square North, survived the heavy bombing of Belfast's city centre during the 1941 Blitz. By the time of the Second General Revaluation, which commenced in 1956, James Blewitt had vacated the property and it had been converted into offices for J. H. Copper & Co. Ltd. By 1966 it had passed to A. J. Hurst Ltd., an electrical and lighting firm, who converted the building into offices and storage space, increasing its assessed value to £248, at which it remained through the end of the revaluation period in 1972. No. 12 is notable among the terrace for having remained in its original use as a private dwelling after the construction of the Belfast Technical College, while neighbouring properties had already converted to other uses; it was not until around 1950 that it too was converted to offices.

The building was listed in 1979. During the troubled decades of the 1970s, the College Square and Smithfield area suffered repeated bomb attacks and vandalism. In 1977, the adjoining No. 8 College Square North was demolished by a bomb, and Nos. 9–11 fell vacant and deteriorated into serious disrepair, while No. 12 was described as being in poor but complete condition. The Hearth Housing Association subsequently acquired Nos. 9–11, repairing and converting them into flats in 1998–99, restoring the terrace's original character. A replica building at No. 8, also by Hearth, closes the gap left by the bomb damage. Hearth was unable to acquire No. 12, and the building was later vandalised, but it was subsequently restored and continues in use as a private dwelling.

SETTING

No. 12 forms part of the terrace of five similar houses lining the north side of College Square North, facing the Municipal Technical Institute opposite. The record was formerly numbered HB 26/50/113A and has been renumbered HB 26/50/102F.