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

Malmaison Hotel (formerly McCausland Hotel), 34–38 Victoria Street, Belfast

This is a terraced, multi-bay, four-storey warehouse block with attic, built in 1867 to designs by the architect William Hastings. The building was constructed as a matched pair of stone warehouses: No. 34 for the seed merchant John Lytle & Sons, and Nos. 36–38 for Samuel McCausland, wholesale tea, sugar and seed merchant. The stonework and decorative carving was carried out by local sculptors the Fitzpatrick Brothers, with Thomas Fitzpatrick executing the carving from detail drawings by James Kendall. Although some fabric and detailing has been lost over time, the building retains considerable character and represents a significant piece of Belfast's mercantile history, associated with two prominent citizens who helped make the city a centre for rye-grass seed collection and export. It is considered among the finest examples of High Victorian commercial architecture in Belfast. The architectural historian Brett describes the style as "rich Renaissance" and singles out the carving as superb. Larmour notes that the McCausland warehouse takes an Italianate classical form, while the Lytle warehouse is more Romanesque in character.

The building is rectangular on plan, facing west onto Victoria Street, with a side elevation and a later extension fronting onto Marlborough Street. The two warehouses were extensively remodelled and interconnected for use as a hotel around 1998, with the architects Edmondson Cosgrove Robinson responsible for the conversion. The conversion received a commendation at the Civic Trust Awards 2000.

External Description

The roofs are pitched natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, set behind decorative parapet walls. Square-profile cast-iron downpipes break through the crown cornices. The main walling is smooth sandstone ashlar with continuous moulded sill courses at each floor level and a sandstone plinth course. Window openings are either round-headed or segmental-headed, with replacement single-pane timber sash windows and decorative carved surrounds throughout.

No. 34 — Lytle's Warehouse

The front elevation to Lytle's warehouse is symmetrical. The parapet features scrolled stone balustrades flanked by squat piers, resting on a continuous crown cornice supported on a series of console brackets. Between the brackets are carved panels, with grotesques to a frieze below, and carved letters reading "MDCCCLXVII" (1867).

The third floor has segmental-headed window openings, and the second floor has round-headed openings, arranged as a group of three in the centre and in pairs at either end. The second-floor windows feature slender polished granite colonettes with foliate carved heads and keystones, resting on a large continuous cable moulding at sill level.

The first floor has five round-headed window openings set in stepped recesses with arch mouldings, keystones, and a continuous impost moulding. The ground floor is arcaded, with moulded arches and elaborately carved keystones rising from stone columns with stiff-leaf capitals and carved birds at the springing of the arches. A continuous stiff-leaf impost moulding runs at this level, and the original cast-iron window frames take the form of Venetian arches with decorative ironwork. The central arch has a pair of replacement double-leaf timber panelled doors.

The firm's trademark — a harp and crown — is depicted on the parapet, and the wrought-ironwork incorporates John Lytle's monogram.

The carving on Lytle's warehouse follows a vegetal and animal theme, described as including owls and eagles, chicks in nests, nibbling squirrels, and rows of tortoise heads peeping out of carved stone foliage.

The north side elevation to Lytle's is four windows wide, detailed in the same manner as the front elevation, with a central datestone to the parapet carved with the date "1867".

The rear elevation to Lytle's is abutted by a four-storey-with-attic redbrick extension built around 1880. This extension has lead-lined dormer windows, an angled brick parapet with stone brackets, and redbrick walls laid in Flemish bond. The window openings are segmental-headed with replacement single-pane timber sash windows and continuous stone sill courses. At ground floor level there is a round-headed arch — possibly a former carriage arch — with a rusticated voussoired stone surround featuring an ancon depicting a Chinese man wearing a coolie hat; this opening is now infilled with a window and a stone panel below. To its left, a later inserted square-headed carriage arch with steel doors provides access to the rear.

Nos. 36–38 — McCausland's Warehouse

The front elevation to McCausland's warehouse is asymmetrical. The parapet has carved pierced stone balustrades flanked by squat piers, resting on a continuous crown cornice supported on a series of console brackets. The second and third floors have round-headed window openings; the first floor has segmental-headed openings. These are arranged in pairs and single openings, flanked by shallow pilasters with capital mouldings to 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. Blind guilloche panels appear below the first-floor windows.

The ground floor has three square-headed display windows and an off-centre square-headed door opening. The timber-framed display windows are set between cast-iron colonettes and ironwork panels, flanked by large flat-panelled piers embellished with carved herms depicting the five continents — from left to right, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, and America — with their respective fruits, described by Brett as rendered in a "mouth-wateringly juicy manner." Capital mouldings at the top of these piers meet a large cornice framing the ground floor. The entrance has replacement double-leaf timber panelled doors with a deep moulded lintel cornice and a rectangular overlight.

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

The south side elevation is abutted by the adjoining building, formerly the First Trust Bank.

Historical Background

The two warehouses are first shown on the second edition Belfast town plan of 1871–73, on a site previously occupied by "Hogini's Circus," a venue for boxing tournaments as recently as 1864. The buildings entered valuation records in 1867, each listed as a shop, warehouse and yard, valued at £420 and later raised to £540. Both were leased from John and Robert Lindsay.

John Lytle & Sons was established in 1835. John Lytle rose to become a prominent local citizen and served as Mayor of Belfast from 1863 to 1865. The firm built its reputation on the collection and cleaning of rye-grass seed, using machinery that allowed seed to be saved rather than lost with the hay. John Lytle died in 1871 and the firm passed to his sons, both of whom were justices of the peace; David Lytle was also a member of the Harbour Board and Managing Director of the North of Ireland Chemical Company. By the late 1880s the firm sold a wide variety of agricultural and garden seeds, tea, and "Odam's" manures and guano. Their Victoria Street premises included handsomely appointed private and general offices and a showroom on the ground floor, seed re-cleaning operations to the rear, upper floors used for storing tea and seeds, and separate premises in Marlborough Street for storing manures.

Samuel McCausland founded his firm in 1826 and continued to attend the warehouse daily into his nineties, assisted by his son William, who was also a director of the Brookfield Linen Company. McCausland was, like Lytle, a prominent citizen, a justice of the peace, and Mayor of Belfast in 1868. The firm specialised in cleaning rye-grass seed and was also engaged in the wholesale tea and sugar trade and the supply of agricultural and garden seeds. Their Victoria Street premises comprised six offices on the ground floor and stores for seeds, tea and other goods on the upper floors. It is possible the two warehouses were built side by side so the firms could share the cost of seed-cleaning machinery. By the 1880s the firm imported flax and clover seed, oilcake and tea, and exported rye grasses to "almost every quarter of the globe." Samuel McCausland seeds remains in operation, now based in Banbridge.

Alterations and Later History

In 1913, Lytle's building was altered by the removal of the original staircase, which was replaced with a brick strongroom. An engine bed was added to the rear of the warehouse around 1945. Around 1965, a new gateway was added to the rear providing access from Marlborough Street.

The two seed merchants vacated the buildings in the early 1970s. In 1975 the warehouses were acquired by the Roads Service and earmarked for demolition. However, the Department of the Environment Historic Buildings branch listed the building in 1981 and took over ownership. Under the Action for Community Employment (ACE) scheme, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society carried out works to arrest deterioration: eradicating extensive wet and dry rot and repairing roof trusses, roofs, guttering and floor beams. The Laganside Corporation subsequently took over the site and returned the warehouses to the private sector through a developer competition. The building reopened on 1 December 1998 as a 60-bedroom luxury hotel with a completely modernised interior. Little original internal fabric survives other than cast-iron supporting columns and exposed timber beams.

Setting

The building faces west onto Victoria Street. Its north side elevation and the later rear extension front onto Marlborough Street. A small rear yard is shared with the adjoining building to the south.