Robinson'S Bar, 38-40 Great Victoria St., Belfast

Robinson's Bar, at 38–40 Great Victoria Street, Belfast, is a terraced three-storey rendered building originally constructed in 1846 as the Dublin and Armagh Hotel. It stands on the east side of Great Victoria Street, one of three similarly scaled buildings in a row, now surrounded by multi-storey late 20th-century developments.

The building was constructed by James Keyland — after whom Keylands Place to the rear is named — at the same time as the neighbouring Crown Bar building. Its erection coincided broadly with the growth of Belfast as a railway destination: Ireland's second railway line, between Belfast and Lisburn, had opened in 1839, and by the 1870s there were four hotels situated opposite the Great Northern Railway Station, serving the new influx of Victorian-era travellers.

The hotel's early occupants are documented in historical records. The 1852 Belfast Street Directory recorded James Keyland himself as occupant. By Griffith's Valuation in 1859, the property had passed to a James Watson, who leased it from Henry Joy — a landowner who held much of the land south of Belfast's town centre at that time. The valuation described it as a three-storey Class A building (meaning not of cut stone), constructed some seventeen or eighteen years previously, measuring 20 by 11½ yards, valued at £82 and let to Watson at £43 annual ground rent. Watson purchased the building outright by 1863 and sublet it to a John Bain, who continued to operate the hotel until at least 1880.

In 1889 the hotel was purchased by William Robinson, after whom the bar is named. Robinson converted the premises to licensed use in 1895, carrying out alterations to the rear which increased the property's rateable value to £135 by 1896. The 1901 Census recorded Robinson — a 48-year-old Roman Catholic wine merchant — living at the property with his wife and three children, employing domestic servants and bar assistants. The census Building Return described a first-class public house of ten rooms with a single outbuilding used as a store. By 1910 the premises were still listed in the street directory as the Dublin and Armagh Hotel, though after 1906 the annual valuation revisions described it as a licensed house and shop, incorporating Nos 4–8 Keylands Place to the rear. The property's rateable value was reassessed at £305 in 1906, following which Robinson appealed successfully, and it was reduced to £220 by 1912, remaining at that level until the end of the annual revisions in 1930.

Robinson changed the name from the Dublin and Armagh Hotel to Robinson's Bar in 1914, dropping the hotel status. The business remained in the Robinson family until the 1940s, when it passed to the O'Neill family, who also owned The Garrick in Chichester Street. In the 1980s the bar was purchased by Crofts Inn, a subsidiary of Guinness. Before its destruction by fire, Robinson's Bar had a timber ship's stern attached to its rear elevation, serving as the centrepiece of a modern themed extension known as the Robinson Crusoe Lounge.

The building was listed in 1978 along with the neighbouring 42–44 Great Victoria Street. In 1991 a firebomb attack destroyed the first and second floors. The front elevation was completely demolished and rebuilt in an early Victorian style — though not as a replica of what had been there — and a large three-storey extension was added covering the entire rear of the site. Robinson's Bar reopened in 1993 following approximately £2 million of repair and reconstruction work, with its Victorian character maintained. A survey image taken before the fire records that the original hotel facade had pilastered columns similar to those on the Crown Bar's front elevation.

As a rebuilt structure with altered detailing, the building is not considered of special architectural or historic interest in its own right. However, its scale and proportions are considered complementary to, and extremely important in relation to, the adjacent Grade A listed Crown Bar.

The current rebuilt structure dates from around 1992 and presents a four-bay, three-storey front elevation to Great Victoria Street. The roof is pitched slate with a rendered chimney stack to the south gable, fitted with octagonal clay pots, set behind a parapet wall with a drip cornice and painted fascia. The external walls are painted cement render. Window openings are square-headed with concrete sills and 6/6 timber sash windows. The first floor windows have applied pediments to their openings.

The ground floor is occupied by a decorative stucco moulded pub shopfront, which spans the full width of the building and is divided into four bays by tapered Ionic pilasters on panelled plinths. These support a fascia and dentilated cornice surmounted by alternating triangular and segmental pediments, in turn divided by urns. Canted display windows flank the principal entrance and incorporate etched glass. The two square-headed entrance bays have double-leaf timber panelled doors and etched fanlights.

The north side elevation is abutted by an adjoining eleven-storey building. The south side elevation is abutted by the adjoining building at No. 44. To the rear, a large three-storey extension fronts onto Keylands Place with a redbrick elevation designed to resemble a 19th-century warehouse.

The building is located within a conservation area and is in commercial use as a public house. It was formally delisted on 6 December 2017.