Malmaison Hotel, 34-38 Victoria Street, Belfast, BT1 3GH

Malmaison Hotel

A terraced pair of four-storey stone former warehouses with attic, dated 1867, designed by William Hastings. Number 34 was built for John Lytle & Sons and numbers 36-38 for Samuel McCausland. The building is rectangular on plan, facing west onto Victoria Street, with a side elevation and extension fronting onto Marlborough Street. It was extensively remodelled and interconnected for use as a hotel around 1998.

The pitched natural slate roofs with black clay ridge tiles sit behind decorative parapet walls. Square-profile cast-iron downpipes break through crown cornices. The walls are finished in smooth sandstone ashlar with continuous moulded sill courses at each level and a sandstone plinth course.

The Lytle's front elevation to the west is symmetrical. Round and segmental-headed window openings are fitted with replacement single-pane timber sash windows and decorative carved surrounds. The parapet features scrolled stone balustrades flanked by squat piers, resting on a continuous crown cornice supported on console brackets with carved panels between and grotesques to a frieze below. Carved letters spell 'MDCCCLXVII'. Segmental-headed windows occupy the third floor, round-headed openings the second floor arranged in a group of three to the centre and paired to either end. The second floor windows have slender polished granite colonettes with foliate carved heads and keystones, resting on a large continuous cable moulding at sill level. Five round-headed window openings to the first floor are set in stepped recesses with arch mouldings, keystones and continuous impost moulding. The arcaded ground floor features moulded arches and elaborately carved keystones rising from stone columns with stiff-leaf capitals and carved birds at the springing of the arches. Continuous stiff-leaf impost moulding frames original cast-iron window frames in the form of Venetian arches with decorative ironwork. The central arch contains a pair of replacement double-leaf timber panelled doors.

The McCausland's front elevation to the west is asymmetrical. The parapet has carved pierced stone balustrades flanked by squat piers, resting on a continuous crown cornice supported on console brackets. Round-headed window openings occupy the second and third floors, segmental-headed openings the first floor, arranged in pairs and single openings flanked by shallow pilasters with capital mouldings at each sill course and surmounted by a large scrolled console bracket to the crown cornice. Windows on all floors are flanked by pilasters, with polished granite colonettes to the paired windows on the second and third floors and blind guilloche panels below first floor windows. Three square-headed display windows occupy the ground floor with an off-centre square-headed door opening. Timber-framed display windows with cast-iron colonettes and ironwork panels are flanked by large flat-panelled piers embellished with carved herms depicting the continents, with capital mouldings meeting a large cornice framing the ground floor. A replacement double-leaf timber panelled door has a deep moulded lintel cornice and rectangular overlight.

The north side elevation to Lytle's is four windows wide, detailed as per the front elevation, with a central date stone to the parapet carved with '1867'. The rear elevation to Lytle's is abutted by a four-storey redbrick extension with attic, built around 1880. This extension has lead-lined dormer windows, an angled brick parapet with stone brackets and redbrick walls laid in Flemish bond. Segmental-headed window openings are fitted with replacement single-pane timber sash windows and continuous stone sill courses. To the ground floor is a round-headed arch, possibly a former carriage arch, with rusticated voussoired stone surround featuring an ancon depicting a Chinese man with coolie hat, now infilled with a window and stone panel below. A later inserted square-headed carriage arch to the left provides access to the rear with steel doors.

The five-storey rear elevation to McCausland's is six windows wide with redbrick walling laid in English garden wall bond. It has gauged brick segmental-headed window openings with replacement single-pane timber sash windows and stone sills. Two of the bays are slightly recessed, indicating former loading bays.

The south side elevation is abutted by the adjoining First Trust Bank building. The building faces west onto Victoria Street with its north side elevation and extension fronting onto Marlborough Street, and a small rear yard shared with the adjoining building to the south.