51 Malone Road, Belfast

51 Malone Road is a mid-terrace, four-storey, two-bay red brick late Victorian town house, built in 1886–87 to designs by William Eaton, an architect then based on Botanic Avenue, Belfast. It forms part of a terrace of nine broadly identical houses running between Malone Avenue and Eglantine Avenue on the west side of Malone Road, originally named Windsor Gardens and built for a developer named James Johnston, possibly the insurance agent of that name recorded in contemporary directories as operating from Waring Street. Together, Nos. 37–53 Malone Road constitute one of the most impressive terraces within the Malone Road Conservation Area. The group is rectangular on plan, aligned on a north–south axis with gabled ends, and the Malone Road frontage is particularly striking for the rhythm created by each house having a full-height bowed bay window with a conical slate roof, enriched by a wealth of ornate detailing. No. 51 is listed as part of this wider group (the remaining properties being listed as HB26.28.059A–G and I inclusive). The building is now in commercial use as offices and a yoga studio, but its domestic scale is remarkably intact and it retains fine historic detailing both externally and internally.

EXTERIOR

The main roof is covered in natural slate, with bands of fish-scale slates to the bowed bay. Red terracotta ridge tiles and finials finish the main building, with black clay ridge tiles to the return. A large red brick chimney, centred on the ridge of the main roof, has simple corbelled brick coursing to its cap and eight circular yellow clay pots. Cast iron guttering is supported on scrolled terracotta brackets, with a projecting eaves course to the front elevation; the bowed bay rises above the main eaves line and is highlighted by a cornice of classical ornamentation in stuccowork beneath the gutter.

The walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond with painted stucco dressings. The return and the mono-pitched outbuilding are built in English Garden Wall bond. Windows throughout are double-hung sliding sash with single glazing and 1/1 panes, except where noted otherwise.

FRONT ELEVATION (EAST)

The front elevation is two bays wide, with the bowed bay offset to the left and the entrance to the right. Moulded projecting cill and string courses, and a painted stucco plat band, run across all floor levels. The bowed bay is finished in painted stucco walling, with the exception of some brick header courses between each floor. Both the bay windows and the segmental-arched door have incised decoration in stuccowork above the openings, with an edge roll moulding. Above the painted stucco plat band, the door surround has a moulded stucco hood with label stops, supported on pink marble colonnettes with a dressed sandstone plinth and capital; there is a plain fanlight above a square-headed five-panelled replacement timber door. Toothed stucco quoins sit below the plat band, and a decorative terracotta panel appears above the door head. The marble colonnettes and terracotta panel are repeated on the first- and second-floor windows above the door. The carved sandstone capitals feature fruit at ground-floor level, foliage at first-floor level, and flowers at second-floor level. The second-floor bay windows are double glazed timber sliding sashes.

SOUTH ELEVATION

The south face abuts No. 53 Malone Road. The south elevation of the three-storey return has informal fenestration and simple detailing: brick with soldier-coursed window heads and projecting brick headers to the eaves, supporting a uPVC half-round gutter discharging to a cast iron downpipe. At ground floor, both the return and the mono-pitched building have painted brick walling, now enclosed within the glazed lantern. One original single-glazed timber-framed sliding sash window with 2/2 panes survives at ground floor; the remaining ground-floor openings have been widened to accept modern doors and glazed screens. At first-floor level, above ground, the return has one window offset to the right and two to the left. At second-floor level the arrangement is similar: the window nearest the left is a timber sliding sash with 2/2 panes, and next to it is a horizontal slit window, timber-framed, divided into three lights and blocked up internally.

WEST ELEVATION

The west elevation faces a shared alleyway. The three-storey return to the left (north) has clipped eaves to the gable end and no chimney, and is otherwise blank. To the right of the return, the main building has one opening at each level: modern timber-framed glass double doors at ground floor, and timber sliding sashes to the upper floors, with 2/2 panes to the second floor and attic. To the left, above the return, there is a further sliding sash window with 2/2 panes.

NORTH ELEVATION

The north face abuts No. 49 Malone Road. The north elevation of the return is detailed in the same manner as the south elevation. At both first- and second-floor half-landing levels, sliding sash windows with margin panes overlook the yard of No. 49.

PLAN FORM AND REAR

The building is rectangular on plan. A three-storey gabled return is built at half-landing level to the rear on the left (west) side, without a chimney. To the right of the return, a single-storey mono-pitched appendage, possibly a former outbuilding, extends almost the full length of the rear yard. Parallel to the return and this mono-pitch, a modern glazed lantern encloses the remainder of the yard at ground-floor level; this appears to have been installed in 1989, prior to the building being listed in November 1991. The rear yard is bounded by the end wall of the mono-pitched structure and modern red brick walling with a flush timber door to the alley. To the north boundary, the walling extends beyond the building and returns westward; it matches the brick and bond of the return, suggesting it is original. One or two curved terracotta copings survive on this walling.

SETTING

No. 51 stands set back from a tree-lined street, with a paved front garden bounded by low rendered walling with a canted concrete coping. The front garden of No. 51 contains a mature tree and is otherwise surfaced in precast concrete paving slabs, with concrete steps leading to the entrance door. The building is located directly opposite Fisherwick Presbyterian Church, and from this aspect, at the corner of Chlorine Gardens, it makes a particularly impressive appearance.

HISTORY OF OCCUPANCY

The terrace was built on land that had formed the grounds of Eglantine Hill, a house in existence before 1832, bounded by Malone and Lisburn Roads to the east and west and by what are now Malone and Eglantine Avenues to the north and south. Construction took place between 1886 and 1888, and all properties are recorded as occupied in the earliest available street directory, dating from 1890.

The first recorded occupant of No. 51 was George Benson, a manufacturer whose handkerchief works on Fountain Street appears to have operated under the name of Benson's Patent Hemstitching Machine Co. By 1900, Henry Agnew, described as a merchant, had taken over the lease. In the 1901 census the property is recorded as a first-class dwelling containing fifteen rooms, occupied on the night of the census by Mr. Agnew, his wife Eleanor, their two sons, and a domestic servant. From 1907 the resident was Cecil Topping, described variously as a merchant and later as a lard and oil manufacturer; in 1911 he shared the house with his mother, Ellen Topping, and two domestic servants. By 1915 the occupant was R. C. Howard, of Mitchell and Co. Belfast Ltd., followed by a Dr J. McElroy by 1918, and W. C. McCartney, a rent agent, by 1925. By 1932 the property was in multiple occupancy, divided between Mr McCartney and three others. During the 1960s the flats were converted to office use; by the latter part of that decade the architects Dalzell and Campbell were based in part of the building, and by 1974 the Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA) was operating from here. The building remained in multiple occupancy through the 1990s, with Tyrone Brick Ltd using part of it as a showroom from at least 1990 to 1996.