527 Antrim Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT15 3BS

527 Antrim Road is a three-storey with attic mid-terrace house built in 1878 in the Georgian Revival style, possibly to designs by the Belfast-based engineer and architect Redfern Kelly (1845–1928), and constructed for local builder and contractor John Smith. It forms part of a terrace of nine houses on the east side of Antrim Road, between Glandore Gardens and Glandore Avenue, five of which — formerly known as Castleton Terrace and comprising numbers 519 to 527 — are very closely related in design and were erected simultaneously as the first phase of the wider terrace. The building has group value with the other listed buildings in this terrace.

The attribution to Kelly is based on the striking resemblance the terrace bears to numbers 416–428 Antrim Road directly opposite, a three-storey two-bay terrace also possessing ground-floor bay windows and entablatured doorways supported by Ionic columns with fanlights over, which Kelly built the following year. Kelly is otherwise known principally for his engineering work for the Belfast Harbour Commissioners, including the deepening of the Victoria Channel, the reconstruction of the Alexandra Graving Dock following its collapse in 1905, and the construction of the Thompson Graving Dock.

The nine houses of the terrace were built on the former grounds of Ashfield House, the home of solicitor Thomas McClelland, which was demolished at the turn of the 20th century, though most of its grounds had been built over during the 1870s and 1880s. The Antrim Road itself was originally laid out in 1830, and by the 1850s the land to the north of the Belfast Waterworks and Limestone Road remained predominantly rural. As Belfast's population grew and its shipbuilding, rope-making, and textiles industries expanded, the townland of Skegoneill rapidly became one of the most affluent areas in the city, attracting gentlemen's mansions and wealthy merchants' houses. This terrace was built for that merchant class, and its well-proportioned facades with stuccoed detailing to the ground floor and fine entablatured entrances are characteristic of the period. The entire area had been developed with terraced streets by the turn of the 20th century, as shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1901–02.

Number 527 was initially valued at £36 and first occupied by William Fitzsimmons, a local accountant. By 1911 it had passed to a Ms Annie Foster, whose census building return described the house as a first-class dwelling consisting of 13 rooms with a coal house as its sole outbuilding. Ownership of the terrace remained with the Smith family until the 1970s. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by a Mr David Walker Redmond and had risen in value to £38. By the Second Revaluation (1956–72), the building had passed to a Mr S. Rea and its value had increased further to £40. Numbers 517–533 Antrim Road were listed in 1987. In 1991, number 527 was converted from a private dwelling into office premises, and during the second survey it was occupied by an accountancy firm.

The building is rectilinear on plan with a three-storey return to the rear. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with angled black-clay ridge tiles. The eaves project on block modillions and are finished with a painted moulded cornice and plain frieze. Half-round metal guttering discharges to circular downpipes. The red-brick chimney stack is rectangular in section with a corbelled coping and clay chimney pots. A dormer window has projecting eaves, moulded timber bargeboards on corbels, and slated cheeks.

The two-bay principal elevation faces west. The ground floor is finished in smooth render, with red brick laid to English bond on the upper floors. Window openings are square-headed throughout, fitted with 1/1 top-hung timber casement windows. The window openings to the upper floors have painted and moulded architraves, and the first-floor windows have a flat moulded hood. A painted moulded string course runs at second-floor cill level. To the north bay at ground-floor level is a square-headed door opening with an entablature supported on columns with fluted Ionic capitals, an elliptical arched fanlight above, and a panelled timber door opening onto two paved steps. A three-sided canted bay window with a raised parapet and moulded cornice occupies the ground floor of the southern bay; its square-headed window openings now have modern shutter boxes and secondary glazing, and a rectangular hopper discharges to a circular metal downpipe.

The north and south elevations adjoin the neighbouring properties at numbers 529 and 525 Antrim Road respectively. The rear elevation is in red brick laid to English garden wall bond and comprises the back of the main house and the projecting return. Square-headed window openings have a flat arch above and projecting cills, and are fitted with 1/1 top-hung timber casement windows. The ground floor of the return is rendered to the south side, and a single-storey brick-built lean-to boiler house is attached to the west, also rendered to the south, with a segmental arched door opening fitted with a timber sheeted door. An original single-storey lean-to outhouse abuts the gabled rear return.

Materials throughout are as follows: natural slate to the roof; metal and uPVC rainwater goods; smooth render to the ground floor and red brick laid to English bond above; and top-hung timber casement windows.

To the front, the building shares a tarmacked parking area with numbers 523 and 525 Antrim Road, enclosed by a modern dwarf brick wall and painted metal railings with a plain metal gate on metal upright posts. The rear yard is enclosed by red brick walling, some of which has been rendered, and a square-headed door opening with a sheet-metal door leads from the yard to a narrow alley accessed from Glandore Gardens. The principal elevation, the less formal gabled rear return, the original brick yard walls, and many other external features all survive in good order, and a substantial proportion of the original interior detailing is also retained.