Ulster Bank, 142-146 Albertbridge Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 4GS

Former Ulster Bank, 142–146 Albertbridge Road, Belfast

This is a freestanding, symmetrical, three-storey, three-bay former bank built in red brick and sandstone around 1908–1910, designed by the Belfast architectural partnership Blackwood & Jury. It stands north of the Albertbridge Road, east of Belfast city centre, prominently positioned at the corner of Cluan Place. It displays proportions and detailing typical of the Classical style with some neo-Georgian elements, and much of its architectural fabric survives intact. The building has been sympathetically converted into offices on the upper floors, and retains a partially intact early 20th-century interior.

Architectural Description

The building is square on plan, with a central canted breakfront and bowed entrance bay to the front, a projecting porch to the east, and a two-storey extension to the rear. The roof is half-hipped and clad in natural slate, with red-brick chimneystacks dressed in sandstone. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on ovolo-moulded projecting eaves.

The ground floor is faced in sandstone ashlar, while the upper floors are built in Flemish-bonded red brick. Decorative stonework is prominent throughout: there is an ovolo-moulded cornice between the ground and first floors; a continuous moulded string-course at sill level on all floors; a further string-course at lintel level on the upper floors; and a sandstone cornice surmounted by a balustraded parapet with sandstone segmental pediments to three sides.

The windows to the upper floors are replacement 1-over-1 timber-framed sliding sash units, set in sandstone surrounds with continuous sills and sandstone-and-brick voussoirs surmounted by segmental-headed hood moulds. At the breakfront, each upper floor has a tripartite transomed and mullioned timber casement window with arch details. Tripartite mullioned timber casements also flank the entrance at ground floor level.

Principal (South) Elevation

The principal elevation faces south. Almost the entire width of the ground floor is taken up by a bowed entrance bay with a portico. Above, the breakfront is flanked by paired windows, with a balustraded sandstone parapet and segmental pediment carrying an Ulster Bank plaque on corbel brackets.

The neo-Baroque portico contains an original raised-and-fielded four-panelled timber door with brass door furniture, including a letterbox with inscribed lettering reading "Ulster Bank LTD Mountpottinger". Above the door is a segmental-headed transom light with vertical glazing bars. The doorcase is formed from a carved sandstone segmental-headed lugged surround surmounted by an ornately carved wreath, flanked by black polished granite columns with Ionic sandstone capitals. The portico is completed by a dentilled segmental pediment with an egg-and-dart frieze and moulded cornice.

Other Elevations

The west elevation is two windows wide, with two sets of paired windows at ground floor level and a projecting flue to the centre of the upper floors.

The north (rear) elevation is largely blank at its upper section and is abutted at second-floor level by the two-storey rear extension, which is of no architectural interest.

The east elevation has three sets of paired windows at ground floor level. The upper floors have paired windows to the left and right of centre, framed by cantons and pilasters. The elevation is partially abutted to the right by the single-storey projecting sandstone porch, which opens to the south and contains a six-panel raised-and-fielded timber door in a carved lugged surround with a segmental pediment. A night safe sits below the window at the far left of this elevation.

Setting

The building is prominently sited at the corner of Cluan Place and the Albertbridge Road, set back from the street behind original cast-iron railings with trefoil detail on a sandstone plinth along the south and east boundaries. A Housing Executive development of terraced houses lies to the rear at Cluan Place.

Historical Background

According to the Irish Builder, construction of the bank took place between 1908 and 1910, with completion recorded by January 1910. The contractors were Thornbury Bros., and the carved stonework at the top of the building was executed by Samuel Hastings of Downpatrick, who also carried out the stonework for Crossgar's Catholic Church and later built the Downpatrick War Memorial. The stone used was Mount Charles Stone, and the bricks were Ruabon bricks.

Blackwood & Jury were the favoured architects of the Ulster Bank Company — J. W. Blackwood was the son of one of the Bank's directors — and the partnership, which formed around 1901 and continued to operate until 1973, designed at least 25 Ulster Bank branches throughout Ireland. Paul Larmour described this branch as "a neo-Georgian branch incorporating an almost incoherent jumble of motifs," and noted that while almost all of Blackwood & Jury's Ulster Bank branches are in some form of English Classical style, this building is a notable variation.

The building was first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1910 at a rateable value of £220. At that time it also served as the residence of the Bank Manager. The 1911 Census records the first manager, Matthew William Blockwood, a 55-year-old Presbyterian, as living in the upper floors with his wife Mary (aged 49) and their four children; the building was described in the Census Building Return as a first-class bank and private dwelling containing 14 rooms. The manager continued to occupy the upper floors until the late 1930s, when the outbreak of the Second World War prompted his move to a separate residence.

The Mountpottinger branch was not the first Ulster Bank premises in the area: the first branch of the Ulster Bank Company had been opened in Waring Street in 1836 (in offices now occupied by the Merchant Hotel), and the first Mountpottinger branch was established in 1898 at No. 150 Albertbridge Road, shared with Musgrave & Co. Ltd. Matthew William Blockwood managed that earlier branch too, continuing until 1916 when he was transferred to the Head Office and appointed Bank Secretary. The site purchased in 1908 for the new three-storey building had previously been occupied by a tobacconist's shop and an antiques dealership run by a Ms. Mary Crean, as recorded in the 1901 Census.

By the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935, the rateable value had risen to £275. By the Second General Revaluation in 1956 it had reached £530, before being reduced to £424 under the 1957 Rent and Valuation Act. A further application in 1960 reduced the value to £376, and by the end of the revaluation period in 1972 it stood at £432. These records also show that the first floor was used as a flat in the 1950s and converted into a schoolroom around 1960.

In the 1970s the branch became the data processing department of the Ulster Bank. In 1998 the Mountpottinger branch was amalgamated with the Connswater branch (opened in 1918) and subsequently closed. The building was listed in 1984. After the closure, the upper floors lay vacant for approximately eight years, and at the time of listing the property was on the market.