583 Ormeau Road, Belfast

583 Ormeau Road is a two/three-storey red-brick late Victorian terraced house, built around 1864 as one of an original group of four dwellings collectively known as Belvoir Place (now nos. 583–595 Ormeau Road, comprising seven houses in total). It sits on the west side of the Ormeau Road, approximately 3 kilometres south of Belfast city centre, just south of its intersection with the Ravenhill Road, in a predominantly residential stretch of red-brick late 19th-century terraced housing interspersed with some 20th-century dwellings of varying styles.

The house is rectangular in plan with an attic level, a two-storey rectangular rear return, and an enclosed yard. The walls to the front are smooth red clay brick laid in Flemish bond; the rear and side walls are laid in English Garden Wall bond. The roof is natural slate, and rainwater goods to the front are uPVC.

Front elevation (east) The front elevation features a white uPVC door with a plain-glazed overlight to the right, and a uPVC top-hung double-glazed window to the left. The doorway is square-headed with a painted masonry head. At first-floor level there are two similar window openings. All window openings have smooth painted plaster reveals and are square-headed with soldier-course headers. The brickwork is laid in Flemish bond, and there is a series of slightly projecting decorative polychromatic brick courses at eaves level, painted white. A natural slate roof sits above, with uPVC guttering. A red-brick chimney stack on the left-hand side has projecting courses in yellow brick and red clay pots.

Rear elevation (west) The rear yard was not accessible at the time of survey and the following description is based on inspection from the rear laneway. At first-floor level the rear elevation of the main house has one square-headed window opening to the right, fitted with a uPVC top-hung double-glazed window, with smooth painted plaster reveals and a soldier-course header. To the left is the original two-storey red-brick rear return. Both the return and part of the rear wall are painted white. The south elevation of the return at first-floor level is blank. The west gable of the return adjoins a single-storey yard wall, and both have a painted smooth render finish. There is one square-headed window opening with a uPVC top-hung double-glazed window on the left-hand side of the gable at first-floor level. The enclosed yard has a square-headed doorway with a painted timber boarded door. Walls are generally red brick in English Garden Wall bond. Roofs are natural slate. There is a modern rooflight on the main roof, metal rainwater goods, and uPVC soil stacks to the rear.

North side elevation This is the end gable of the terrace. It is two storeys with an attic and extends into the two-storey north wall of the rear return, stepping down half a storey at roof level. There are two uPVC top-hung double-glazed windows on this elevation: a square-headed opening at first-floor level on the left-hand side, and a small round-headed opening at second-floor level centrally positioned on the gable of the main house. Window openings have smooth painted plaster reveals and soldier-course headers. The walls are red brick in English Garden Wall bond with a painted smooth plaster plinth at the base. Verges are clipped. The roof of the return is natural slate with plain blue/grey clay ridge tiles and a modern rooflight on the left-hand side. Rainwater goods are metal.

South side elevation This elevation abuts no. 585 Ormeau Road.

Setting and boundaries There is a small front garden with a gravel finish and a concrete path, set behind painted sandstone kerbstones supporting a modern timber boarded fence and gate. To the rear, the terrace is bounded by a laneway, with a long, narrow garden extending westward and accessed through a boarded timber fence.

Although the original windows, door, and front boundary have been replaced — features which detract from the building's integrity — the house retains its overall external character. Notably, the rear yards and original garden allotments of this terrace are remarkably intact, giving the group particular collective value.

Historical background Before the early 19th century, the southern stretch of what is now the Ormeau Road in the vicinity of Rosetta was simply the main route from Belfast — via Ballymacarrett and Newtownbreda — to Saintfield. During the late Georgian period, several small country villas with associated grounds were established along this road, among them Anna's Cottage, Annadale, Cherry Vale, Hay Park, Lagan Vale, Locust Lodge, Ormeau, Raven Hill, and Rosetta House itself, the last built before 1807, probably by the Coulson family.

In 1809 a new bridge was constructed on the site of the present Ormeau Bridge — replaced in 1812–14 — to carry a more direct route from the growing town of Belfast to connect with the existing road, meeting it near the grounds of Rosetta. Originally known variously as the 'New Ballynafoy Road' or the 'Road to Newtownbreda', this new highway remained largely rural for much of the 19th century. The opening of the former Ormeau demesne as Belfast's first public park in 1871 marked the beginning of intensive development along the route and the gradual subdivision of the small estates nearby. Small-scale building had already appeared close to Rosetta House before 1833 — including the still-surviving Rosetta Cottages at nos. 513–529 Ormeau Road — but development accelerated in an increasingly suburban pattern in the latter decades of the century.

No. 583 and its three matching neighbours immediately to the south (nos. 585–589 Ormeau Road), together forming the original Belvoir Place, were built sometime between 1858 and around 1864: they do not appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1858, but are recorded in the 1865 street directory. They may have been completed before 1862, as they appear to be original rather than subsequent entries in the valuation book commencing that year. However, a newspaper advertisement of March 1866 describes them as 'those four new two-storey houses', suggesting construction closer to that date — most likely around 1864. The same advertisement describes them as 'comfortably finished [with] neat gardens in front and rere, and in a most healthy locality, within half an hour's walk from Belfast and close to the Parish Church and Meeting-House.'

The group was probably developed by Thomas Courtney, listed as immediate lessor in the valuation book. In 1871 he added the matching house to the south (no. 591) and the pair of taller dwellings beyond (nos. 593–595). Nearby, Marguerita Terrace (nos. 531–545) was completed by 1882, Rosetta Terrace (nos. 537–563) followed in 1886–87, development along what is now Knockbreda Road began around 1889, and Rosetta Park was laid out from 1887 — the last of these effectively surrounding Rosetta House at close quarters. That old house survived into the late 20th century.

The recorded sequence of occupation of no. 583 is as follows: Richard Deeves, commercial traveller (to around 1868); J. H. Chapman, bookkeeper (around 1868–1871); William Courtney, surveyor and civil engineer — the valuation book records this as Thomas Courtenay, the developer himself (1871 to around 1885); Isaac Harvey, teacher (around 1885–1893); G. Mathewson, nurseryman (around 1893–1898); Charles Clawson (around 1898–1899); and William Bailie, shoemaker (around 1900 onwards). The 1901 census records Mr Bailie living at the house with his wife Mary Ann, though the details relating to the house itself are unfortunately missing. By the 1911 census, the next occupant, Thomas Curliss, joiner (around 1902–1914), is recorded living there with his wife Jane and their five grown-up children; the building is described as a second-class dwelling with eight rooms. The Curliss family were succeeded in the mid-1940s by William J. Melville, labourer (to around 1953), then D. McClure, checker (around 1953–1957), William Melville again (around 1957–1964), William Melvin — possibly the same person (around 1964–1969) — and Mrs Mary Melvin (around 1969–1978). Frank Magill is recorded as resident from around 1978 and was still living there in 1995. The building was listed in 1986.