15 Malone Place, Belfast, County Antrim, BT12 5FD

15 Malone Place is a two-storey, two-bay Victorian mid-terrace dwelling built around 1850, forming part of a terrace located off the Lisburn Road, adjacent to Sandy Row, approximately one mile south of Belfast city centre. It is a former end-terrace property, now mid-terrace, with a square plan and a two-storey rear return.

The exterior retains its general historic character, though some features of interest were lost during a refurbishment of the terrace around 2000. Despite this, the overall intact appearance of the terrace makes it a good surviving example of housing of this type, and Number 15 contributes significant group value and makes a positive architectural contribution to the character of the area.

The roof is pitched with natural slate and clay ridge tiles, with replacement galvanised steel rainwater goods and a red-brick chimney. The walls are of red brick laid in Flemish bond, with a replacement projected smooth rendered plinth course and a corbelled eaves course. Windows are 1-over-1 timber sliding sash with horns, painted masonry cills, and flat arches. The entrance comprises a replacement timber panelled door with a fixed rectangular overlight, flanked by replacement surrounds and a canopy.

The principal elevation faces south and is asymmetrically arranged. At ground floor level there is a door to the left and a single window to the right, with two first-floor windows above. The left gable abuts Number 17 Malone Place and the right gable abuts Number 13 Malone Place. The rear elevation is also asymmetrically arranged, though the view is largely obscured. The right bay is abutted by a replacement subservient red-brick two-storey return.

The terrace faces directly onto a narrow street. The opposite side is bounded by a rubble masonry wall forming the embankment of the railway, with a small park enclosed by gated railings. On the opposing side of the Lisburn Road stands the University Road Moravian Church. The former Maternity Hospital lies to the west and a large modern apartment block to the north.

The terrace was built in at least two phases. Numbers 9 to 19, which include Number 15, form the earlier part, dating from the late 1840s. Numbers 21 to 29 were added between 1860 and 1863. The site at the bottom of Sandy Row lay well outside the built-up area of Belfast until the 1850s. Sandy Row itself probably follows a route of medieval origin. On the first edition Ordnance Survey map a small structure is shown on the site, possibly associated with the Malone turnpike which was situated at this junction, but the surrounding area was otherwise little developed at that time, consisting mostly of housing associated with the major roads into Belfast.

Industrial activity gradually spread westwards, and at the time the terrace was built the surrounding landscape was a mixture of factories, brick fields, housing, larger mansions, and much open ground. The most prominent structure in the area was the Union Workhouse and Fever Hospital, dating from 1841 and 1849 respectively, and several residents of Malone Place were employed there at various times.

According to Brett's annotations of the 1850 Hodges and Smith map, on which the terrace makes its first appearance, the site belonged from 1798 to a gentleman named William Irvine. It was purchased in 1826, along with the neighbouring plot, by Arthur Gaffikin, a butcher and property developer who later became the proprietor of a linen business. Gaffikin is commemorated in the name of Gaffikin Street, which runs to the rear of Malone Place. The terrace does not appear in the street directory of 1846–7 but is listed in the 1850 edition, giving a likely construction date in the late 1840s for Numbers 9 to 19. The terrace was built to the rear of a larger house called Malone Cottage, which faces onto Sandy Row — then known as Malone Road — and it is likely that both Malone Cottage and the terrace were developed together by Gaffikin and subsequently sold on.

In Griffith's Valuation of 1860, Sarah Warnock is recorded as landlady, with the houses valued at £10. In 1857 the houses were advertised in the Belfast Newsletter as "neat, well-finished houses in Malone Place, adjoining the Post Office, containing Parlour, Kitchen, Three Bedrooms with Gas and Water at the greatly reduced rent of £11."

Numbers 21 to 29 were developed between 1860 and 1863 by property developer Moses Tate and were valued slightly higher at £11, with Number 29 at £12, though these valuations were later reduced to £10 and £11 in 1888. The Belfast Newsletter of 1862 recorded that "a number of respectable houses have lately been built on the above Ground and others are in progress of erection." Further building land in the area was offered by Arthur Gaffikin, and four slightly larger houses were subsequently built on the far side of Blondin Street between 1870 and 1877. These were taken over as the Midnight Mission Rescue Home, a refuge for women described at the time as "fallen," later accommodating unmarried mothers and functioning as a maternity hospital. The four dwellings were demolished in 1924 and replaced with a new Rescue and Maternity Home designed by William Godfrey Ferguson. In 1973 Malone Place Hospital was absorbed by the Jubilee Maternity Hospital, ceasing to serve maternity functions after 1981, though it has remained the property of the Health Trust.

The first valuation map to show the terrace, dating from around 1860, indicates ornamental railings and a step to the front of each of the original six houses, with a rear return and outbuildings in the yard of each property. A subsequent edition, dating from between approximately 1860 and 1895, shows a boundary post and watering trough at the junction with the Lisburn Road, and a tramline running behind the terrace in Napier Street, which provided employment for some residents of Malone Place.

The houses appear to have been home to people of varying social standing, mostly of the skilled manual, clerical, and supervisory classes. Many trades and occupations are represented, but a large number of residents were employed in the textile industry in some form — in the manufacture of cloth or as drapers, tailors, or in related trades. The Belfast Newsletter contains occasional references suggesting that inhabitants were sometimes involved in the less reputable aspects of Belfast life as the city's population grew. In 1867 Jane Crosbey of Number 17 Malone Place was summonsed to appear in court on a charge of being disorderly in a public street, with magistrates receiving information "as to the character of the house she kept." In October and November 1876 a story ran in the Newsletter over several weeks when a boarder at Number 23 was accused of stealing a top coat, umbrella, watch and chain, and £1 10s from a man staying overnight, the case culminating in a courtroom speech by the defendant and an angry riposte from his wife — the level of attention given to the story suggesting how rare such a crime was in mid-Victorian Belfast.

By the time of the 1901 and 1911 censuses the houses were occupied by large extended families of the respectable, skilled working classes, rarely able to afford a servant, and where teenage children were often contributing a wage to the household.

The houses in the terrace were frequently renumbered during the later decades of the 19th century, making it difficult at times to trace individual residents. As far as can be determined, Number 15 was occupied in 1850 by Edward Brown, a book-keeper, followed by James Dillon, hatter (1852), George Sparling, draper (1858–60), William Lindsay, book-keeper (1860–1), Daniel Murray, builder (1863–4), Mrs Thomas (1865), and Thomas Ellis, described as a "carowner." In 1876 the occupier was Adam Reid, MD and surgeon, whose wife gave birth to a boy at the house that year — Reid may have worked at the nearby Union Workhouse. By 1880 the occupier was Richard Rainey, stonecutter, followed by Mrs Ireland (1884–7), Marshall Coulter, caretaker (1890), Esther Hawthorn (1895–99), and R. McClenaghan, fitter (1900). At the time of the 1901 census John Moffett, a clerk, was living at the house with his wife and eight children ranging in age from three months to seventeen years, none of whom were employed. The family had clearly moved around, with one child born in County Tyrone and two others in Dublin. By 1901 Robert Turley, a printer, was resident, and the 1911 census records him living with his wife and eight children ranging in age from one month to fifteen years, the oldest working as an "office girl."

The house remains in use as a domestic dwelling.