23 College Gardens, Belfast

23 College Gardens, Belfast

This end-of-terrace, three-storey-over-basement red brick late Victorian townhouse was built in 1882, architect unknown. It forms part of a symmetrically arranged block of four single-fronted townhouses — numbers 23 to 26 — in which number 24 mirrors number 25, and numbers 23 and 26 form the gabled ends. The building also has an attic. It sits towards the western end of College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled townhouses running between Malone Road and Lisburn Road, within the Queens Conservation Area. The houses face south and overlook the grounds of Methodist College. The street demonstrates the evolving architectural styles of the period, unified by consistent height and scale despite varied influences. Number 23 is currently used as offices in combination with number 24, to which it is connected by a modern bridge link constructed during an extensive refurbishment around 2013–14.

The building carries a significant historic association: Vere Foster, the renowned educationalist who campaigned for teachers' rights and served as a former president of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, was associated with the property. A blue commemorative plaque from the Ulster Historical Circle is fixed above the entrance. The applied gold lettering on the inner face of the fanlight glass reads '23' and 'I.N.T.O.', reflecting its later occupation by that organisation.

Exterior — General The roof is finished in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. Two large red brick chimneys are centred on the ridge, each with a simple corbelled cap and several circular clay pots: one is shared with number 24 and has been partly replaced; the other sits at the gable end. There is a modern flat-roofed dormer to the front pitch and two rooflights to the rear pitch, one modern and one conservation-style. The front and returned sides of the gable carry projecting moulded stucco eaves with fluted corbel brackets on a plain frieze band; the rear eaves feature alternating angled headers at the projecting eaves line.

Rainwater goods to the main south-facing roof are cast iron ogee-profile gutters with square-section aluminium downpipes. The bowed bay and rear and return sections have circular-section uPVC downpipes. The front walls are red brick in Flemish bond with painted moulded stucco dressings. Rear and return walls are red brick in English Garden Wall bond.

Windows throughout are single-glazed double-hung sliding sashes with 1-over-1 panes to the front and 2-over-2 panes to the rear, unless noted otherwise.

Front Elevation (South) The south-facing front elevation is Italianate in style with classical proportions, though asymmetrical in composition. To the right is an aedicule framing the entrance; to the left is a single-storey bowed bay with five windows and an openwork parapet. The entire ground floor is finished in painted stucco, with red brick walling above and moulded stucco dressings including continuous projecting cills at first- and second-floor levels.

The sliding sashes in the bowed bay have been fitted with replacement double-glazed units with timber slips and metal security bars across the external reveals. The three windows at each upper floor diminish in height and are all segmental-arched: the first floor has plain stucco surrounds with projecting hoods — pedimented to the middle window and shallow-pitched to the side windows; the second floor has moulded stucco surrounds with corresponding brackets below the cill course. The bowed bay has a projecting base plinth with a moulded top, cill, head and cornice with a plain frieze. Painted stucco toothed quoins appear at the south-east corner.

The entrance door is a timber-framed four-panelled door with a plain glass fanlight. The panels have bolection mouldings to fielded and pitched panels. The doorcase is flanked by Corinthian-style pilasters and topped by a deep moulded pediment with a foliated tympanum bearing the date 1882. A single-storey flat-roofed extension set back to the east side is built in matching red brick in stretcher bond, with one segmental-headed double-glazed sliding sash window with a concrete cill, and a uPVC roof membrane dressed over a projecting eaves board.

Rear Elevation (North) The north elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews. It is asymmetrical, with a full-height projection built at half-landing level, abutted by a double return comprising a three-storey hipped-roofed part and a two-storey flat-roofed part, all offset to the right and built over the basement. There is a single window at each floor to the main building left of the return; the second-floor window retains its historic glass. A painted metal grille provides basement ventilation in place of a window, and a modern polished metal flue extends from the basement to above eaves level.

The rear is plainly detailed compared to the front: brownish-red brick with soldier courses above flat-arched windows and simple stone cills. There is evidence of a former chimney removed from the centre of the full-height projection. The hipped-roof return has a single window at second-floor level centred on the ridge and is otherwise blank. The flat-roofed return is informally arranged, with a timber-framed top-hung casement window offset to the right and a small metal-framed fixed light to the left at first-floor level. Below first-floor cill height the walling is smooth rendered and painted, with no openings at ground floor and a single recessed basement doorway with a curved reveal to one side only.

East Elevation (Gable End) The east gable is largely blank. It carries the same projecting moulded eaves on corbelled brackets and a plain painted timber band flush with the verge. There are small round-arched sliding sash attic windows near the eaves on both the north and south sides. The chimney is centred on the apex as described above, and painted toothed quoins are returned from the front façade. A flat-roofed single-storey extension abuts the east boundary with number 24, where the walling is blank and smooth rendered.

The east face of the full-height rear projection has one window at each half-landing level: a replacement timber-framed casement at ground floor; original sliding sashes with 1-over-1 panes at first and second floor; and 2-over-2 panes at attic level. All are plain except the second-floor window, which has square leaded stippled glass panes. The east face of the double return has informally arranged windows: two original sliding sashes survive at first floor — one with 1-over-1 panes and another with 2-over-2 — and a small historic casement sits between them. Other windows have been replaced with top-hung timber-framed casements, though the openings appear to be original, retaining soldier-coursed headers, rendered reveals and stone cills. There is a replacement sheeted timber door, painted, at basement level.

West Elevation The west elevation of the main building is abutted by number 24. The west face of the full-height projection and return is largely blank, with a smooth rendered base plinth, a casement window at ground floor near the main building, a modern zinc-clad bridge spanning the yard at number 24, and an adjacent two-part modern casement window; both windows have precast concrete lintels and cills.

Setting The building is set back from the tree-lined street by mature hedging and planting. Mature hedging and modern metal railings define the boundary with the adjacent front gardens of numbers 22 and 24 respectively. A dwarf wall, rendered and curved on plan, terminates in circular pillars with conical caps to either side of the entrance — these, together with the entrance walling, are included within the extent of the listing. The front garden and path to the rear are paved with precast concrete flagstones, with mature planting in gravel beds and a cherry tree next to the front gate.

To the rear, the building overlooks Elmwood Mews, a shared service alley running the full length of College Gardens and connecting to Elmwood Avenue. The boundary with number 22 is defined by red brick walling in English Garden Wall bond with a curved terracotta cap and simple metal railings over. A modern red brick wall with a galvanised steel lintel and metal roller shutter provides a wide vehicular entrance to an off-street parking area within the rear yard, shared with number 24. Modern concrete steps retained by red brick walling lead from a fire exit within the flat-roofed ground-floor extension down to a tarmacked yard at basement level.

Interior Although the building has been converted to office use and the plan form is slightly altered, a good deal of original joinery and authentic historic detailing survives, including the original staircase.

Historical Background College Gardens — originally known as College Gardens Avenue — occupies land that before the early 19th century formed part of a series of strip farms running from what is now Malone Road and University Road to the Bog Meadows, probably laid out in the early 17th century. The cutting of the Lisburn Road between 1816 and 1819 and the construction of the Ulster Railway between 1837 and 1839 broke up this agricultural pattern. Around the same time, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of the remaining farmland, with the building or upgrading of structures to create small country villas with small private grounds within the former farm plots.

The land immediately north and south of College Gardens had belonged to one such villa, Vermont, a pre-1770 house possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815 and enlarged again in the 1840s — on the latter occasion by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The construction of Queen's College to the north-east in 1845 triggered the suburbanisation of the area, and in 1865 Vermont was sold for the building of Methodist College. That institution was completed in 1868, and a new private avenue was laid out on the lower ground immediately to its north, with building plots on the northern side. Development proceeded from the eastern end: numbers 1 to 6 were built in 1871, numbers 7 to 18 in 1877, numbers 33 and 34 in 1879, numbers 19 to 22 in 1881, numbers 23 to 26 in 1882, and numbers 27 to 32 in 1883. The developer of everything from number 11 to number 32 appears to have been Reverend George Cron, the then minister of the Evangelical Union Church in Wellington Place, though the identity of the architect remains unknown.

The 1884 street directory records the first occupant of number 23 as William Davis, described as a warehouseman. He vacated the property around 1894, and it remained empty until around 1899, when Robert Hardy Lawrie is recorded as householder. The 1901 census shows Mr Lawrie — a Scots-born excise officer — living there with his Belfast-born wife Mary, their four grown-up daughters, a house guest and two domestic servants. The building was noted in the census as a first-class dwelling with 14 rooms in use. The Lawries left around 1909 and were succeeded by William Masterson, a tea merchant, who in the 1911 census was living there with his wife Mary Matilda and a domestic servant. The Mastersons had moved on by 1918 and were followed by a succession of medical doctors and surgeons: Howard Stevenson by 1924, G.R.B. Purce by 1932, and H.P. Hall by 1943. Dr Hall appears to have died around 1962 and the property remained with his widow Kathleen, who by 1969 was sharing part of the building with Faber, Oscar and Partners, consulting engineers. By 1974 the Irish National Teachers' Organisation was also in occupation, and by 1986 that organisation is recorded as the sole occupier. The building was extensively refurbished around 2013–14, at which time the bridge link to number 24 was constructed.