26 Joy Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT2 8LE

26 Joy Street is a mid-terrace, three-storey redbrick Georgian townhouse built around 1840, situated at the junction of Joy Street and Catherine Street North in Belfast city centre. It forms part of a terrace of nine similar houses lining the east side of Joy Street, and is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of late Georgian terraced housing surviving in Belfast. The terrace has been described as "the finest block of Georgian houses in Belfast" and a good illustration of "the grandeur and dignity of the Markets area when it was first developed."

Exterior

The building is rectangular on plan, facing west. The roof is pitched natural slate with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and two rendered brick chimneystacks fitted with clay pots. Cast-iron guttering runs along the brick eaves course, with a cast-iron downpipe below. The walls are laid in Flemish bond redbrick with cement pointing and a moulded plinth course. Window openings are square-headed with rendered reveals, painted masonry sills, and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows. The front elevation is three windows wide.

The front door opening is round-headed, with a moulded surround featuring a keystone, scribed pilasters and impost mouldings. The replacement timber panelled door has decorative panels and a lintel cornice, and opens onto a tiled step. The fanlight above the door is a replacement. An iron bootscraper is set into the wall within a rendered surround.

The north side elevation abuts the neighbouring No. 24. The rear elevation is rendered, abutted by a single-storey return, and has both square-headed and round-headed window openings fitted with replacement 6/6 timber sash windows. The south side elevation abuts No. 41 Hamilton Street.

Restoration work was carried out sensitively by Hearth Housing Association around 1985 — identified in other records as the work of W. D. R. & R. T. Taggart for the Housing Executive, undertaken between 1982 and 1986 — and much of the historic architectural fabric remains intact.

History and Occupancy

Joy Street takes its name from Henry Joy, a relative of Henry Joy McCracken, the United Irishman, who owned a paper mill that formerly stood at the junction of Ormeau Avenue and Cromac Street. The construction of the mill's dam reclaimed acres of land to the south-east of Belfast's town centre around the turn of the 19th century, and Joy Street and the surrounding Markets area was laid out during the late Georgian period on this reclaimed land, gradually developing southwards from May Street.

The terrace does not appear on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33, but is present on the second edition of 1858, indicating it was built sometime between these dates. The construction of neighbouring buildings in the area, such as Nos. 36–46 Hamilton Street, had begun by 1832–33. Joy Street was certainly in existence by 1843, when it was first recorded in the Belfast Street Directories, though at that time the street numbering was different.

In 1851 the house was occupied by Catherine Lawther, a hat and dressmaker. By 1859, Griffith's Valuation recorded the occupant as Mr. John Dornan, the house being let by the owner Ebenezer Crawford (who owned the rest of the terrace) at an annual rent of £18. Griffith's valuer described No. 26 as a three-storey "B+" class dwelling — meaning not new but in sound repair — measuring 7 by 4 yards and valued at £14. Dornan, or members of his family, continued at the address for several decades: Joseph Dornan, likely his son and employed as a professor of music, was recorded there in 1877, and Margaret Dornan was the main occupant in 1880. Annual Revisions indicate the family remained until around 1900. In 1884 the house was reduced in value to £13, with the entire terrace devalued similarly in the same year, though the reason is not recorded.

Around 1901, the house passed to Ms. Agnew McCormack, a Roman Catholic housekeeper who operated a lodging house from the premises. The 1901 census described No. 26 as a second-class dwelling with six rooms and no out-offices; by 1911 the recorded number of rooms had increased to ten. In 1900, around the time McCormack first appears, the house was again reduced in value to £12. By 1906 the value had risen to £13, at which point Ms. Charlotte Harding purchased the entire terrace from Ebenezer Crawford. McCormack left the house between 1901 and 1907, when it was briefly occupied by Ms. Julia McCabe, who later moved to the neighbouring No. 22 at some point between 1908 and 1910. By 1910 the house was occupied by Bernard McKeegan, recorded in the 1911 census as a shoemaker who continued to operate a lodging house from the premises. McKeegan, or a member of his family, occupied No. 26 until the 1930s.

In 1920, Charlotte Harding put Nos. 14–26 Joy Street up for public auction, advertising a yearly rent for the terrace and a number of attached buildings of £416 3s. The 1935 First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland recorded that the terrace had come into the ownership of Mr. Joseph Tyney, who is presumed to have won the auction and who was described in the 1911 census as a manufacturer of ship parts. At the time of the 1935 revaluation No. 26 was described simply as a private dwelling occupied by a J. McKeegan and valued at £19. A second revaluation, carried out between 1956 and 1972, raised the value slightly to £21; by this time the house had passed to Rose Denvir. A member of the Denvir family continued to occupy the house until the 1980s.

Wider context

The grandiose redbrick terraces erected around 1830–40 in Joy Street and the surrounding Markets area were originally occupied by well-regarded merchants. Following the Great Famine, however, a mass influx of working-class labourers into Belfast prompted the merchant class to abandon the area in favour of the new suburbs of Malone to the south. From the 1850s onward, the houses on Joy Street and Hamilton Street were occupied by working-class labourers, with a number of the larger dwellings converted into lodging and boarding houses. The establishment of Queen's College in 1849 brought a significant student population to the area, seeking cheap lodgings, though this continued only until around 1850–70 when students relocated closer to the university. After the student exodus, the lodging houses predominantly became the destination of business lodgers and performers frequenting the nearby music halls.

In the mid-1960s, the Sub-Committee of the Ancient Monuments Advisory Council recommended that Nos. 14–26 Joy Street should be maintained "as an excellent illustration of Georgian Housing in pre-industrial Belfast." No. 26 Joy Street was listed in 1985, along with the rest of the terrace, and continues to be occupied as a private dwelling within a conservation area.