46 Sunnyside St., Belfast

46 Sunnyside Street is a two-storey red-brick terraced house built in 1909, located on Sunnyside Street approximately 3 kilometres from Belfast city centre. It forms part of a row of twenty-one nearly identical terraced houses on the south side of the street.

The house is rectangular in plan with a two-storey rectangular return wing featuring a double-pitched roof. The front elevation faces north and contains a painted timber four-panel door with overlight (plain glazing) positioned to the left, topped by a semi-circular head with moulded architrave. To the right is a painted timber 2/2 sliding-sash window with a segmental head and moulded architrave. A smaller similar window is positioned almost centrally on the first floor. The brickwork is laid in English Garden Wall bond with clay ventilation bricks at each level and a projecting moulded brick course at eaves level supporting cast metal ogee guttering. The natural slate roof features a replacement red-brick chimney stack on the right-hand side with a projecting concrete course. The rear (south) elevation has an extension with a double-pitched roof and painted timber boards to verges and eaves, constructed in rustic red-clay brick with painted timber top-hung casement windows at first floor level to the west and uPVC rainwater goods. The extension extends to the original yard wall, now rebuilt in new red and brown brick with a square-headed painted timber boarded doorway.

The windows are painted timber 2/2 sliding-sash single-glazed to the front and painted timber casement windows to the rear. Rainwater goods are cast metal to the front and uPVC to the rear. The roof is natural slate. The side elevations abut adjacent properties: the east side abuts No. 44 Sunnyside Street and the west side abuts No. 48.

A small front garden with concrete block paviours sits behind a replacement red-brick boundary wall and gateway with painted metal railings and a small painted metal arched gate. This boundary treatment was installed around 1988 as part of an improvement scheme encompassing the entire terrace. The rear is bounded to the south by a communal laneway shared with Whitehall Gardens. The rear yard was not accessible during survey; the laneway to the rear is shared with nos. 44-52 and is bounded to the south by a corrugated tin fence enclosing an industrial yard, beyond which stands a large group of red-brick single and two-storey industrial outbuildings.

The house retains external character including its panelled timber front door, sliding sash windows, stucco surrounds, and slate roof. A new-build two-storey extension was added to the rear circa 1990. Despite this extension and the replacement of the original front boundary, the building has significant group value with the remainder of the terrace and represents a good example of modest Edwardian urban terraced housing.

Sunnyside Street itself evolved from a lane first shown on the Ordnance Survey town plan of 1871–73, when it contained only a terrace of six houses on the north side marked as 'Sunnyside' (present nos. 43–53). Marcus Ward's 1879 map designated it 'Sunnyside Street', naming it after the original terrace. The current terrace containing No. 46 developed in phases: nos. 14–24 are shown on the 1903 Ordnance Survey map and were recorded in the valuation book that year; nos. 26–42 were entered into the valuation book in 1904; and nos. 44–52 were first referenced in 1910. Hugh Scott appears to have been the developer of nos. 14–42, listed as lessor in 1906, while John McBride was the lessor for nos. 44–52 in 1910. The architect, if any, remains unknown.

James Matthews, a cabinet maker, was the first recorded occupant of No. 46. The 1911 census recorded the building as a second-class dwelling containing five rooms, then occupied by William Hyde (a carpenter), his wife Esther, and their seven children. The Hyde family remained in residence until at least 1943. From the 1960s onwards, a John Murphy became the settled householder, with the Murphy family apparently continuing in residence until the 1980s. Ciaran T. Acton was noted as occupant in 1995. The property was listed in 1986.

The opening of King's Bridge in 1912 extended Sunnyside Street to its current extent, creating a thoroughfare linking directly through to Ridgeway Street on the other side of the River Lagan. The area remains residential, with small terraced houses built at the end of the nineteenth century and some semi-detached houses from the early twentieth century. The street is a canted busy thoroughfare connecting the Ormeau Road with Annadale Embankment.