11 College Square North, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 6AS

11 College Square North is a four-storey, three-bay, rendered terraced townhouse built around 1830, forming part of a terrace of five similar houses on the north side of College Square North, Belfast. It is considered the best surviving example of an 1830s terrace in Belfast. Despite the loss of much original fabric, the plain Georgian character of the group survives, and it carries significant historic interest as a remaining fragment of Georgian Belfast, comparable to the houses at 7–11 Wellington Place.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house is rectangular on plan, facing south onto College Square North. The pitched roof is not visible from the street and is set behind a parapet wall with a moulded eaves cornice. A profiled rendered chimneystack with clay pots rises from the west party wall. The roof is slated, with cast-iron guttering on iron brackets to a red brick eaves course at the rear, and cast-iron downpipes.

The front elevation is finished in painted ruled-and-lined render with a moulded plinth course, channel-rusticated stonework to the ground floor, and a moulded string course at first-floor sill level. Window openings are square-headed throughout, with sandstone sills and replacement timber sash windows without horns. Architrave surrounds are present to the ground, first and second floors, with hood cornices to the ground and first floors only.

The doorcase is particularly fine. The square-headed door opening has a replacement flat-panelled timber door with a lugged architrave surround and a rectangular overlight with interlacing glazing bars. The opening is flanked by slender panelled pilasters and foliate console brackets supporting a dentilled cornice and a shallow pediment with acroteria and a wreath to the tympanum. The door opens onto a replacement paved platform approached by five replacement nosed stone steps, all enclosed by replacement iron railings that return to enclose the front area.

The rear north elevation is cement rendered, two windows wide, with two round-headed window openings to the half-landings and a single-storey lean-to extension. The west side elevation abuts the adjoining No. 12 and the east side elevation abuts No. 10.

SETTING

The house forms part of a terrace of five similar houses lining the north side of College Square North, directly facing the former Municipal Technical Institute. A common parking area to the rear is enclosed by rendered walls and opens onto College Place.

HISTORY

The terrace was not shown on the map included in George Benn's The History of the Town of Belfast (1822), which recorded that the Royal Belfast Academical Institution still lay at the western limit of the town with few surrounding buildings. The terrace had been completed by the time of the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33. According to C. E. B. Brett's Georgian Belfast: 1750–1850, the imposing Regency terrace was developed for John McCammond, who originally held the lease for Nos 1–12, while the remainder was erected for Zachariah Leaf Orrett.

The Townland Valuation of around 1830 recorded the newly completed No. 11 as valued at £52 and occupied by Mr John Sloan, a banker. Sloan continued in residence until at least 1843; by 1852 his widow was recorded as occupant, suggesting he had died by that point. By 1860, Griffith's Valuation records that the property had passed to Bernard Hughes, a local baker and liberal politician whose bakery business was known as the Railway and Model Bakeries. Hughes leased the property from the Ulster Banking Co., and the house had risen in value to £60. Hughes lived here until at least 1868, but by 1877 he had moved to a dwelling in Holywood. The Annual Revisions continued to record Bernard Hughes as occupant until 1886, when he was replaced by his relative (possibly his son) Edward Hughes. The Hughes family appear to have purchased the property outright in the late 19th century, as Edward Hughes was recorded as lessor from around 1900 until the cancellation of the Annual Revisions in 1930.

From 1877, while still nominally associated with the Hughes family as owners, the house was occupied by Dr John Fagan — a family friend of Bernard Hughes and an executor of his will — who resided there until around 1900, during which time the property's value was slightly increased to £61 in 1886. By the Belfast Revaluation of 1900, the house had passed to Dr James Moore, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, who remained until at least 1910. The 1900 revaluation noted that No. 11 contained eleven rooms (including sitting rooms and bedrooms but excluding kitchens) and was fitted with both gas and electrical lighting. The 1901 Census records James Moore (aged 29, Unitarian) living there with his sister Robertina (aged 24); the census building return described it as a first-class dwelling of ten inhabited rooms with a coach house as its sole outbuilding. By 1911, Dr Moore had been succeeded by Mr John Tully (aged 40, Roman Catholic), a hotel commissionaire, who lived there with his wife Annie Kate (aged 36). Tully had vacated by 1912, when the building was converted to office use by the Ulster Arts Club (established 1903), reducing its assessed value to £55. One of the upper offices was occupied by the Ulster Literary Society. The Ulster Arts Club had left by at least 1935, when the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland recorded the offices as occupied by A. J. Hurst Ltd., an electrical and lighting firm, with the value greatly increased to £111 15s.

College Square North survived the heavy bombing of Belfast's city centre during the 1941 Blitz. The second revaluation of Northern Ireland, commencing in 1956, found the building still in use as offices. In 1964 it was occupied by the Down and Connor Marriage Advisory Service and purchased by the Church of Ireland, with the value raised to £280, though it remained exempt from taxation until the end of the revaluation period in 1972.

College Square was laid out in the early 19th century around the newly established Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Throughout the mid-to-late 19th century, College Square North was one of the most desirable addresses in Belfast, attracting doctors and businessmen. However, when the massive Belfast Technical College was constructed at the corner of the square between 1900 and 1907, cutting off the pleasant view of the Institution's lawns, many professionals relocated to South Belfast, to areas such as University Square beside Queen's University.

BERNARD HUGHES

The most celebrated resident of No. 11 was Bernard (Barney) Hughes (c.1805–1878), born in Armagh, who first found employment as a baker's assistant in 1820 before moving to Belfast in 1826. He became manager of a bakery in Church Street in 1833, opened his first company on Donegall Street in 1840, and by 1870 was the owner of Ireland's largest baking and milling company, the Railway and Model Bakeries. Hughes also became Belfast's first Roman Catholic elected representative around 1850. A philanthropist, he donated the land on which St Peter's Cathedral was built and contributed funds for the construction of St Mary's Hall on Bank Street. The Dictionary of Ulster Biography noted that his roles as municipal politician, industrial reformer and Catholic lay spokesman had won the admiration of all sections of the increasingly divided city, and that his attempts to defuse the bitter sectarian riots of 1857 and 1864 brought him into conflict with both the Catholic Church and the Tory hierarchy, earning him the respect of Orange and Green alike. Hughes died on 22 September 1878 and is buried in Friars Bush graveyard in South Belfast. On 8 June 2007 an Ulster History Circle plaque was unveiled at No. 11 to commemorate him; it reads: "BARNEY HUGHES / 1808–1878 / Master Baker / Philanthropist / lived here."

CONDITION AND RESTORATION

The terrace suffered significantly during the troubles of the 1970s. In 1977 the adjoining No. 8 College Square North was demolished by a bomb, and over the following decades most of the remaining terrace lay vacant and fell into serious disrepair, with only No. 12 continuing to be occupied. Nos 9–11 were restored by Hearth Housing Association in 1998–99 and converted into modern flats, with the renovation restoring the terrace's original character. A replica building, also by Hearth, at No. 8 closes the resulting gap. No. 11 was first listed in 1979 along with the rest of the terrace. The listing covers the house and its railings, and the building lies within a conservation area.