18 College Green, Belfast

18 College Green is a three-storey red-brick asymmetrical terraced house built in 1878, facing south on College Green, to the north-east of the main quadrangle at Queen's University, Belfast. It forms part of a longer Victorian terrace incorporating numbers 2 to 26 inclusive, which overlooks the Theological College of the Presbyterian Church within the Queen's Conservation Area. The building has group value with the adjoining numbers 20 and 22 College Green, and its significance lies primarily in that group value and in the integrity of the overall composition of College Green, which is among the most striking terraces in the conservation area.

The terrace as a whole now houses Queen's University's School of Social Science, Education and Social Work (formerly the School of Life Long Learning), encompassing numbers 12 to 24 (number 16 is missing). The former individual houses have been connected internally by means of two-storey gabled extensions added around 2004, which replaced the original rear returns.

MATERIALS AND ROOF

The roof is natural slate, duo-pitched, with black clay ridge tiles and two rectangular red-brick chimneys centred on the ridge. Both chimneys have corbelled brick copings and several octagonal yellow clay pots; one chimney is shared with number 14 and the other with number 20 College Green. The single-storey canted bay has a leaded roof. Rainwater goods are cast metal replacements: an ogee gutter to the south elevation, a half-round gutter to the north, and circular rainwater pipes. The principal south-facing walls are red brick in Flemish bond with painted masonry dressings; the rear north-facing walls are red brick in English Garden Wall bond and are largely rebuilt.

Windows throughout are single-glazed timber-framed sliding sashes with 1-over-1 panes, unless otherwise noted.

SOUTH ELEVATION

The south elevation is the principal façade. It is asymmetrical, with the entrance to the left (west) and a single-storey canted bay to the right at ground floor level. There are two segmental-arched windows at both first and second floor, diminishing in height. The entire ground floor is rendered in smooth render and painted, terminating in a square-edged string course that runs between the first-floor cills. There is a deep plinth to the ground floor with a moulded top, painted in a contrasting colour.

The entrance is a timber-framed four-panelled replacement door — with plain glass in a segmental-arched overlight — set within a projecting doorcase. All ground-floor openings and the outer edge of the doorcase have stop-chamfered head and jamb reveals. Above the door is a cornice hood embellished with waterleaf and dart moulding, though this detail is partially obscured by several accumulated layers of paint. The windows in the ground-floor canted bay are replacement single-glazed double-hung sliding sashes. First-floor windows have moulded surrounds topped by ornamental decoration. Second-floor windows have the same surround, with corbel brackets below projecting cills.

The eaves are heavy and overhanging, supported on corbelled yellow brick specials alternating with three courses of angled yellow brick. The eaves are terminated at the western gable end by a corbelled stone kneeler with a club motif. The west and east elevations abut numbers 14 and 20 College Green respectively (number 16 is missing), and the original return has been removed.

NORTH ELEVATION

The rear elevation faces north and is almost entirely rebuilt following the removal of the original return around 2004, when an extension shared with number 20 was added. One full-height bay survives to the right (west) side of the extension, retaining a sliding sash window at each of the ground, first, and second floors. The walling here is mainly salvaged red brick in English Garden Wall bond, with soldier-coursed headers to openings carried on galvanised steel lintels, and a single-course corbelled brick eaves in header bond. Based on Ordnance Survey maps, the original return abutted this rebuilt section. The sliding sash windows at all three floors are replacements, albeit sympathetic ones, fitted with Georgian-wired glass; cut-stone cills, possibly salvaged from the original building, appear to have been reused in these openings. Above the gabled extension to the right side, a projecting brick nib corbels out at second-floor level, covered with lead flashing at eaves level — possibly a remnant from the original return or a former chimney. To the left of this corbelled brick is an additional sliding sash window.

SETTING

Number 18 sits midway along College Green, which runs between Botanic Avenue to the west and Rugby Road to the east. The southern boundary is lined with a concrete dwarf wall and modern metal railings matching those of adjacent properties. There is a small front garden gravelled with large reconstituted stone paving slabs forming a graded front path. The rear yard is bounded by a replacement red-brick wall with brick-on-edge coping to match the gabled extensions at adjoining properties. The yard provides shared amenity space for numbers 12, 14, and 18 (number 16 is missing) and comprises ramped paths to a ground-floor terrace and planted beds with red-brick retaining walls topped by modern painted metal handrails and uprights.

HISTORY

College Green was laid out in 1866 on what was then the semi-rural 'Plains' of Malone, the land to the east of the recently established Queen's College (completed 1849) and around and beyond the Union Theological College (completed 1853). The founding of Queen's prompted several decades of development in the vicinity, with regularly planned streets filled with mainly High Victorian terraced housing for the professional and merchant classes moving southward from a rapidly commercialising and industrialising Belfast city centre. Numbers 6 to 8 were the first houses built along the new thoroughfare in 1866, followed by numbers 2 to 4 (College Green House, originally 'Culfeightrin House', rebuilt around 1882) and numbers 24 to 26 in 1870 to 1871, numbers 10 to 12 and 20 to 22 in 1876, and numbers 14 to 18 in 1878. The street was originally conceived as part of Fitzroy Avenue and was considered as such for the first few decades of its existence; the name 'College Green' was applied only to Culfeightrin House and numbers 2 to 8 on the 1871 to 1873 Ordnance Survey map.

Number 18 dates from either 1876 or 1878 — the valuation book is not entirely clear on this point — and appears to have been built by the estate of the late Robert Corry, the Belfast timber merchant who had developed part of College Green in the mid-1860s, and previously, in the 1840s and 1850s, the Upper and Lower Crescent. The identity of the architect is uncertain. James Keay (or Keary) is recorded as the immediate lessor in 1876 or 1878, with Samuel Ferguson named as the occupant in the 1880 street directory. By 1887 a Miss McKey was in residence, followed by William McCauley before 1890, W. S. McNaughten by 1892, Reverend S. McComb (of Elmwood Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church) by 1895, and by 1897 Miss Jane Dunne, who in the 1901 census was recorded as living with a domestic servant in a first-class dwelling with 10 rooms in use. The property was unoccupied at the time of the 1911 census. N. K. Taylor, described as a 'buyer', took over the tenancy at some point before 1918 and remained until around 1937. Mrs Millen is noted as householder in 1943, Mrs Campbell in 1955, R. J. Winters (an accountant) by 1960, and Mrs Norah Winters by 1964.

Sometime between 1964 and 1969 the property was acquired by Queen's University and became offices for the Faculty of Law and data processing. In the later 1970s it became part of the QUB Audio Resources Centre, already based in the neighbouring number 14. The building was listed in 1979. Along with numbers 12, 14, and 20 to 24, it was the subject of a major renovation by Queen's University around 2004, with a large extension added to the rear and the interior integrated with those of its neighbours at numbers 12 to 14 and 20 to 24. It is now used as Queen's University's School of Social Science, Education and Social Work, formerly the School of Life Long Learning.