119 University Street Belfast, Bt7 1Hp

119 University Street is one of a matched pair of substantial late Victorian terraced houses, built between 1890 and 1893 to designs by the noted Belfast architect William J Fennell. It stands on the corner of University Street and Sandhurst Road in South Belfast, close to Queen's University, and is a two-bay, three-storey house with an attic, built in red brick with Dumfries red sandstone dressings. Its neighbour and pair, 121 University Street, stands immediately to the east.

ARCHITECT AND BUILDER

The architect, William John Fennell (d.1923), was a distinguished designer of churches, domestic dwellings and schools. His most notable works in Belfast include the Water Commissioner's Office (1883), 68–70 Royal Avenue (1885), Cooke Centenary Church (1890–92), the Mater Infirmorum Hospital (1894–1900), Cushendall Presbyterian Church (1899), the Whitla Medical Institute (1902) and Harding Memorial School (1911–13). His domestic work comprises a number of suburban villas, largely in the Malone area, several of them substantial semi-detached pairs. Fennell was a member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, and a founder member of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects. He had a considerable architectural impact on this part of University Street, subsequently designing All Saints Church (1897–8), which stands diagonally opposite the current pair of houses.

The houses were built by William Gabbey, a well-known and highly regarded Belfast building contractor who also operated a timber mill in Hope Street from at least the late 1870s, where he produced mouldings wrought to any design and joinery for building construction using the most improved machinery. By the time the present house was constructed, he had built up a considerable reputation as one of the most eminent building contractors in Belfast. His obituary recorded that his houses were noted for the excellence of their finish and their workmanship, and when the house was advertised for sale in 1921 — almost thirty years after it was built, and long after his death — William Gabbey's name was still being used as a selling point. Gabbey lived first in Sandhurst Street and later at Princess Gardens, University Street, and built numerous houses and occasionally commercial premises in the area known as the Plains of Belfast between about 1870 and 1906, as well as further afield including in Dungannon. He is known to have constructed houses in University Street, Magdala Street, Fitzroy Avenue and Agincourt Street, and most notably a terrace of four houses in Botanic Avenue to designs by the architect Vincent Craig (one of which is now listed), as well as the Princess Gardens terrace in which he himself lived (his former home there, built around 1880, is also listed). The gable end of the current house features a double-height bow with similarities to the full-height bows on the Princess Gardens dwellings. Gabbey also built the adjacent terraces in Sandhurst Road and at 109–117 University Street. His son and heir to the business, William C Gabbey, lived at number 117.

Gabbey began building his business from the 1870s, and by the summer of 1879 newspapers reported that his workers — along with their wives and sweethearts, amounting to some 300 people in all — had been treated to a day trip to Newcastle. His success continued through the following decades, and he was noted as one of the seven main importers of roofing slates in the city in 1896. Following an accident at Falls Foundry in 1903, he was selected as a government expert in building matters and retained that position until his death in 1906, it being said at the time of his appointment that no gentleman was more frequently selected as arbitrator and expert in building matters. William Gabbey senior was tragically killed in a railway accident at Carnalea Station in 1906.

Original plans for the house, held by Belfast City Council, are signed by Fennell and dated 1890. The Northern Whig of 2nd September 1890 confirms that plans had been approved for two houses in University Street and Sandhurst Road for William Gabbey. The pair of dwellings entered the valuation records in 1893 at £45 each, suggesting a short delay between design and completion. In September 1893, Gabbey advertised the house in the Belfast Newsletter as a magnificent new house with three large reception rooms and six bedrooms, finished beautifully throughout.

EXTERIOR

The building is constructed in red brick in Flemish bond with Dumfries red sandstone dressings throughout. The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles, and there is a natural slate hipped polygonal roof to the canted bay, also with terracotta ridge tiles and a finial. Tall red brick chimneys with cornices and clay pots rise from the west gable. Windows have been replaced with uPVC double-glazing throughout, and there are modern rooflights at attic level. A sandstone stringcourse runs at cill level. Rainwater goods are painted metal.

The house is set back from the pavement behind brick dwarf walling with sandstone coping and piers, with replacement railings.

Front elevation (north): The two-bay façade has a three-storey projecting canted bay on the right side and the main entrance on the left. The front doorway has a moulded sandstone architrave and a decoratively carved sandstone pediment featuring a crest depicting a pelican standing on a rose branch, with the motto PROBITAS FONS HONORIS — meaning Integrity is the fountain of honour — carved on a scroll below. A smaller carved pediment appears to the first-floor window above the doorway and to the centre bay of the first-floor bay, each with a carved WG monogram. The front door appears to be a replica of the original and has six panels with a segmental overlight. Access is via four replacement concrete steps with modern handrails to each side. Windows on the two lower floors have segmental heads; those on the second floor have straight heads. Chunky sandstone brackets support a projecting sandstone eaves cornice.

The carved initials WG appear in the stonework above the first-floor windows of both houses, and the crest and motto carved above the doorways are those used by William Gabbey. Fairbairn's Book of Crests identifies the pelican and rose branch with this motto as belonging to Moses Gubbay Esq of Poona, East India. It is unclear whether William Gabbey was genuinely descended from the Gubbay family or had simply chosen to adopt part of a coat of arms belonging to someone with a similar name.

Gable elevation (east): Fully abutted by 121 University Street.

Gable elevation (west): Facing onto Sandhurst Road. The three-storey gable is on the left with a two-storey return on the right, which abuts No. 2 Sandhurst Road. There is a shallow projecting chimney breast on the left side and a two-storey bow window with a flat roof on the right, with a pair of window openings on the second floor above. Decorative fretted timber bargeboards run to eaves level and to the apex of the gable, supported on sandstone and timber brackets. The west facade of the return has paired window openings to both ground and first-floor levels and two replacement doors on the right side accessing a rear store and yard, with a single window opening above. Chunky sandstone brackets support a projecting sandstone eaves cornice. There is stone coping to the plinth with a rendered plinth below.

Rear elevation (south): A rear return to the left has single-storey stores and access to Sandhurst Road via an alleyway. The rear wall of the main block has painted brickwork to ground-floor level and brick above, with splayed brick voussoir heads to the first-floor windows and arched voussoirs to a large half-landing window opening above. There is a single window opening at high level on the east wall of the return.

INTERIOR

Although the exterior makes a considerable impression, it is the interior that most powerfully conveys the quality of the building. The original ornate, high-quality decorative plasterwork cornicing has survived and is of an exceptional and exuberant standard, considered to be among the finest in Belfast. The 1921 sale advertisement drew specific attention to the interior as a selling point, noting that in arrangement, material and workmanship the greatest care had been bestowed, that the rooms were large and the ceilings lofty, and that the hall and landings were most artistically finished. The original joinery has also survived and was no doubt formed from timbers cut in Gabbey's Hope Street steam mill.

The 1900 Belfast Revaluation plan records the building as containing eight sitting rooms and bedrooms plus one attic room, fitted with gas and a bathroom, with the cost of construction estimated by the valuer at £877. The plan does not differ greatly from the arrangement today, suggesting that the original footprint has been largely retained.

HISTORY AND OCCUPANCY

Although Gabbey put a clear visual stamp on both houses, he does not appear to have lived in either of them. Both were recorded as vacant in street directories and valuation records until 1896, when they were let to tenants and number 119 acquired the name Somerset House.

The first recorded tenant was the Reverend William Park, who lived at the house until around 1905. Rev Park had been installed as minister at Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church in 1873, a position he occupied for 52 years, and had served as Moderator of the General Assembly in 1890 before moving to the house. During his time there he served as convener of the Foreign Mission from 1886 to 1902, which may explain his absence when the 1901 census was taken. His son William, an electrical engineer, and daughter Susan were recorded as present at that time, along with a housemaid from County Tyrone and a cook from County Londonderry. Rev Park (d.1925) was awarded an honorary LLD by Queen's University Belfast in 1921.

Following Gabbey senior's death in 1906, his son William C Gabbey took over the business and the property at University Street, letting the house from 1906 to around 1915 to John Williamson, a tanner and master boot manufacturer with premises at 46 Royal Avenue. The 1911 census records Williamson at the house with his wife and four young children and a general domestic servant, Isabella Scarlett from County Monaghan.

William C Gabbey was, like his father, a prominent Belfast citizen. During the First World War he played a significant part in supporting servicemen, being the leading spirit in founding the Sailors and Soldiers' Service Club and a committee member of the Sailors' and Soldiers' Help Society. He donated his own money and raised further funds through the Rotary Club, of which he was president for the 1914–15 term. His property at 119 University Street was used by the Ulster Volunteer Force during the war, ultimately becoming the property of their Trustees. It is unclear whether Gabbey sold the property to the UVF during his lifetime or left it to them in his will — he died in 1919 — but his close association with servicemen's charitable causes suggests a motivation for doing so. The UVF had established a military hospital in the Exhibition Hall in the Botanic Gardens in 1914, subsequently extended into the grounds of Queen's University in 1915. The hospital treated soldiers from the fronts in France, Belgium, Gallipoli, Salonica and the Middle East, and also contained a workshop making artificial limbs. The wooden hospital buildings continued in use until 1926. Number 119 University Street was used as a nurses' home for UVF hospital staff between around 1917 and 1919, and also offered maternity services, with some babies being born there during that period.

After the war, in December 1919, the house was occupied by Captain M S Morgan, who led a jazz band called St George's, also known as St George's Alabam Jazz Band. Based in London and made up of demobbed servicemen, St George's was among the earliest jazz bands to perform in Ireland — only a few months before, in February of that year, a Mr Thompson's band had been advertised as the only jazz band in Belfast. At a performance at the newly opened 100 Club in Belfast, St George's were described as an excellent London combination. Jazz had burst onto the Belfast scene initially as a dance step in late 1918, being described by an early listener as strange and jangling, and criticised by one Irish orchestra leader as suggestive and indecent. By late 1919 it had become something of a craze. The next resident, Miss Doak, maintained the musical theme by offering pianoforte lessons at the house in 1921.

The UVF Trustees attempted to sell the house in 1921, the advertisement listing all rooms with dimensions and describing the property as situated in an attractive and healthy residential district, admirably adapted for a private nursing home. A further attempt to sell was made in 1926, but the house appears to have remained with the UVF Trustees until the 1940s.

Following partition in 1921, while Stormont was under construction (completed 1932), various government departments were housed in buildings across Belfast. The Ministry of Labour occupied 119 University Street in part during the late 1920s and early 1930s, specifically housing the Medical Referee's Office. Medical referees were appointed by the Home Office in Northern Ireland to assess claims made under the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897, which allowed workers to claim compensation for workplace injuries.

When the Ministry of Labour relocated to Stormont, the house became a nursing home. The Balminster Nursing Home, run by Miss Hannah Beattie SRN, opened in 1932 and advertised its suitability for surgical, medical, maternity, chronic and mental patients. Valuation records of 1934 show the home contained bedrooms for five patients and rooms for a matron and two trained nurses. An operating theatre had been installed on the first floor at a cost of £70. The home also advertised the Zotofoam bath, a medically promoted bubble bath in which electrically generated bubbles were claimed to raise body temperature and metabolic rate and assist weight loss.

In 1936 the house was sold and became St Elmo Private Nursing Home, again principally a maternity home, with newspaper notices recording births there between 1938 and 1941.

In October 1941 the house was taken over by the government for a second time, becoming the Ministry of Information's Travellers' Censorship Office. The role of the Censor was to examine any literature, documents, letters, photographs, portraits or other material that a traveller wished to take from Northern Ireland into Eire, and to remove or censor anything that might prove prejudicial to the State. Travellers who visited the Censor before their journey received an envelope containing the examined documents, labelled, sealed and accompanied by a permit, reducing the risk of having papers confiscated at the border. When the Ministry of Information was dissolved in 1946, the building passed to the Ministry of Finance, which vacated it in May 1947.

The building was offered for sale in 1948 and by 1955 had been converted into three flats, occupied by civil servants, nurses and teachers. As Belfast became less attractive to residents during the Troubles, the house was sold again in 1970, advertised as suitable for conversion to offices. It subsequently housed offices for professionals and businesses associated with the construction industry, including a consulting engineer, civil engineering contractors, and a subsidiary of a Kent-based industrialised building systems company. Advertising contractors and an office supplies firm were also based there during the 1980s. In the mid-1980s the building became a veterinary practice, and in 1994 it was converted into offices and counselling rooms as the Belfast headquarters of the Nexus Institute (now Nexus NI), using funding from the Department of Health. This charity supports adults who have experienced sexual abuse. Nexus remained at University Street until 2021, when they relocated to the Malone Road. The building is currently used as a foodbank.

SETTING

The house stands on the south side of University Street at its corner with Sandhurst Road, in close proximity to Queen's University. University Street is one of the main roads linking the Ormeau Road to the east with the university area to the west and is characterised by red brick terraces. A 20th century hotel building stands opposite, and All Saints Church — also designed by Fennell — lies to the immediate north-west. The corner position allows the full-height canted bay to the north elevation and the double-height bow to the west gable to be seen together to considerable effect, with the fretted bargeboards completing the composition.