553 Ormeau Road, Belfast

553 Ormeau Road is a two-storey terraced house with attic, built at the end of the nineteenth century as part of a terrace of nine dwellings on the upper Ormeau Road, approximately 4 kilometres from Belfast city centre. It is situated in a mainly residential area and has group value with the other eight houses in the listed terrace at numbers 547 to 563 Ormeau Road.

The house is rectangular in plan with a two-storey return and a small front garden and enclosed rear yard. The ground floor is rendered in smooth painted plaster, while the first floor is constructed of red clay brick laid in Flemish bond. The return has rendered gable ends and red clay brick on its two sides. The roof is covered with natural Bangor Blue slates to the main house.

The front elevation displays considerable Victorian architectural detail. The ground floor has smooth painted render with the original four-panelled door to the right, featuring a glazed overlight and set beneath a hood supported on ornate brackets. To the left is a canted bay with original 1/1 top-hung painted timber windows. The first floor is separated from the ground floor by a plaster string course and contains two 1/1 windows (now uPVC top-hung). Beneath the decorative brick cornice, which forms a notable feature, there are two rows of blue brick. A pitched roof dormer sits on the wall head with a replacement top-hung timber window and fixed semi-circular light above. A Velux-type roof-light sits to the right of the dormer, and a large clay brick chimney stack rises from the ridge to the left.

The side elevations abut adjacent properties at numbers 551 and 555 Ormeau Road. The rear elevation has a lower two-storey return to the left. The main part of the building has smooth unpainted lined render and includes 1/1 uPVC windows and two Velux-type roof-lights in the rear roof slope. The return's gable is rendered while both sides expose original red clay brick. The rear yard is separated from a small rear garden by a tall red clay brick wall with clay copings. The rear garden's boundary to the lane is formed by a timber fence and tall hedge. The small front garden contains mature shrubs and is divided from the pavement by a replacement timber fence between brick pillars. An original clay tiled path in chequerboard pattern leads to two concrete steps at the front door.

Windows to the front ground floor are 1/1 painted timber top-hung, whilst front and rear first-floor windows are 1/1 uPVC. Cast iron rainwater goods serve the front elevation, with uPVC to the rear.

The terrace, originally known as Rosetta Terrace, appears to have been developed in two phases: the four southernmost dwellings (present numbers 557 to 563) were completed in 1886, whilst numbers 547 to 555 were finished the following year. The developer was H. Scott, a pawnbroker listed in contemporary directories with premises at 117 Shankill Road, who also developed properties on Sunnyside Street in the early 1900s. The architect's identity is not known.

An October 1886 letting advertisement describes one of the houses completed that year as a "large house" offering three reception rooms, five bedrooms, hot and cold water, and "all modern improvements" in a "warm, healthy situation, with gardens; trams pass door". A July 1887 advertisement for the five dwellings finished that year describes "those new houses; well finished; two reception rooms on ground floor and six bedrooms".

The original occupant of number 553 was John Keenan, listed in directories as a commercial agent and later commission agent. The 1901 census records him as a "drapery agent" living at the property with his wife Sarah and five mainly grown-up children. By the 1911 census, four children remained with two grandchildren, the house being noted as a second-class dwelling containing nine rooms. The Keenan family retained the property until approximately 1963, after which Eugene Killen, a bank official, became resident. Mr Killen was still occupying the house when the last Belfast street directory was published in 1996. The building was listed in 1986.