72-74 ROYAL AVENUE, BELFAST, (aka Gresham Chambers)

Gresham Chambers, 72–74 Royal Avenue, Belfast

This four-storey terraced commercial building with attic was constructed in 1887 to designs by Belfast architect William John Gilliland (1855–1929), who had established his independent practice in 1879. It was built for the Gresham Life Assurance Company and is one of the original buildings erected following the major redevelopment of Royal Avenue in 1880–81. The building stands on the west side of Royal Avenue, which was laid out as a long open boulevard by surveyor J. C. Bretland, a scheme that required the demolition of almost all pre-existing buildings on Hercules Street and the relocation of approximately 4,000 people. Along with the adjoining properties at nos. 58–88, Gresham Chambers was among the last buildings to be completed on the newly created western side of the boulevard. It sits within a conservation area and is bounded on both its north and south sides by listed buildings.

Architectural Character

The building is an exuberant example of the Queen Anne Revival style, constructed throughout in ornate red terracotta with richly detailed mouldings. The front (east) elevation faces directly onto the Royal Avenue pavement and is symmetrical, three pairs of windows wide. It is divided by gauged brick piers running full height, which separate paired windows with varying arch forms at each level. At first-floor level the windows are bipartite and round-headed, set within round-arched architraves with cinquefoil tracery. At second-floor level the windows are bipartite and square-headed, recessed within a segmental arched architrave. At third floor and attic level the windows have shallow segmental arches. The windows are generally two-pane timber sashes with horns; the first-floor windows are replacement timber casements, and two additional single-pane timber windows flank the dormer.

The terracotta façade is richly decorated with geometric ornament, foliate capitals to the window architrave columns, string courses between each floor, and a roundel frieze. The name "GRESHAM LIFE OFFICE" is inscribed in floral-decorated panels above the first-floor arches. Above the projecting cornice of the central bay, pilasters frame the gabled dormer. The dormer itself features trefoiled gablets with finials and diamond infill to its apex, and slightly advances over a machicolated cornice with animal gargoyles at each end. The dormer apex has a lead ridge.

The roof is natural slate, pitched behind a parapet with a concealed parapet gutter. There is a gabled dormer to the front elevation and a pitched dormer to the rear. Tall, deep brick chimneys with stepped cornices rise from each gable.

The south elevation is entirely abutted by the adjacent listed building. The north elevation is likewise fully abutted by the neighbouring listed building to that side. The rear (west) elevation is plainly detailed in cement render. The right dormer is centred over two fourth-floor windows, below which there is a lean-to extension. To the left side there is a canted, full-height projection with a monopitch roof. At ground-floor level on the rear there is a modern lightweight-constructed shop unit. The rear elevation is accessed directly from Haymarket Arcade.

The ground floor of the front elevation has a modern shop front, including a modern door.

Historical Use and Occupancy

Upon completion in 1887, the building comprised a ground-floor shop valued at £75 and upper-floor office space valued at £76, giving a total rateable value of £151. The ground-floor shop was initially occupied by John Warnock, a clothing retailer, who continued trading there until approximately 1910 despite his death in 1895. The upper floors were leased out as offices to a variety of firms; among the early tenants was Gilliland himself, who maintained his architectural office here during the 1890s.

By 1896 the total rateable value had risen to £208, and following the Belfast Revaluation of 1900 it increased further to £368. In 1901 the first floor was occupied by R. N. Kennedy and John Bain, both insurance agents for the Gresham Life Assurance Company; the second floor served as the company's main Belfast branch headquarters; the third floor appears to have been unoccupied; and the fourth floor was used as caretaker's apartments.

The upper-floor occupants changed frequently over the following decades. By 1918 the Gresham Life Assurance Company had also taken over the ground-floor shop while retaining its first-floor offices. By the close of the Annual Revisions in 1930 the rateable value had fallen to £247, but under the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935 it rose again to £367, with the Gresham Life Assurance Company still owning and occupying the building.

Royal Avenue sustained bomb damage during the Belfast Blitz of 1941, though it is not recorded whether nos. 72–74 were among the buildings affected. By the 1950s the building had been purchased by the Friends Provident and Century Life Office, a life insurance firm. The ground floor was by then occupied by Hipps Ltd., a tailors, who also used the first floor as storage, while the upper floors remained in office use. By the end of the second general revaluation the total rateable value stood at £1,040.

The ground-floor shop continued to be occupied by a clothing company until the 1970s, when it fell vacant — recorded as boarded up in 1976 — before being reoccupied by another clothing retailer the following year. The building was listed in 1989. In recent years the ground floor has been converted to a café use.

The building is noted by historian M. Patton as a "highly ornate gabled four-storey red terracotta building" possessing an arcade of three wide round-headed windows at first-floor level, with ornamental arrises and eyebrows, supported on piers with diapered colonnettes and subdivided into two round-headed lancets with a five-lobed roundel above and a central barley pier.