42 McMaster Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 4HP

42 McMaster Street is a two-storey, single-bay late Victorian terraced house, one of a complete street of similar houses in the Ballymacarrett area of East Belfast. The eastern terrace of McMaster Street, of which this house forms part, was constructed in 1908, a decade after the street's first phase of construction began in 1898. The street was built by landowner John McMaster on wedge-shaped land he owned on the south side of the Newtownards Road, and designed by J. Frazer and Son, a practice active from the 1890s into the early 20th century that also designed comparable terraced streets in Belfast including Chadwick Street and Meadowbank Place. Because the land was wedge-shaped, the terraces become progressively narrower and their gardens smaller towards the southern end of the street.

The roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles and a red brick chimney stack at the south side. Rainwater goods are painted ogee-profile cast iron, supported on a projecting polychromatic brick eaves course over an ovolo moulded corbel course. The walls are English garden-wall bonded red brick, laid with alternating courses of headers and stretchers, with two polychromatic brick string courses including a continuous brick-and-sill course at first floor level. All windows on the front elevation have been replaced with 1-over-1 camber-headed horizontally divided timber sliding sashes. The entrance door is a replacement timber panelled door with a camber-headed transom light. Both windows and door sit within camber-headed reveals with polychromatic brick chamfered reveals and voussoirs, and project over masonry sills. Paint has been removed from all brickwork, including the plinth, brick chamfered reveals, and camber-headed window reveals.

The principal (west) elevation faces McMaster Street, with the entrance door at the left accessed via a concrete threshold and a window to its right; at first floor level two windows are offset slightly to the right. The north gable abuts No. 40 McMaster Street. At the rear, the ground floor is abutted on the right by a single-storey lean-to extension running from the north boundary wall. The enclosed yard is accessed from an entry via a timber sheeted entrance door to the east, and is enclosed by high-level brickwork on all sides. The south gable abuts the neighbouring property.

The house sits in the middle of the east terrace block. The street, formerly cobbled, is now largely concrete with small cobbled areas at each end. The house opens directly onto a wide pavement with granite kerbs, original lamp posts, and electric lighting converted from former gas lights. Original tiled street signage survives at the north and south ends of the street. The rear elevation is enclosed by high-level stretcher-bonded modern red brick walling with a painted vertically sheeted timber entrance door at the centre, accessed via a narrow entry running north to south between the back yards of Lendrick Street and McMaster Street. The street narrows towards Major Street to the south.

The parlour houses on McMaster Street were constructed to new housing and planning regulations specifically designed to improve living standards in Belfast. They were among the first late Victorian industrial terraces in the city to be supplied with running water and flushable toilets, made possible by the construction of a new city drainage system. Gas piping for lighting was also provided — a new practice at the time — which, together with the improved sanitary provision, distinguished McMaster Street from the more squalid early Victorian housing common elsewhere in Belfast. Electricity was not introduced to the street until the 1930s.

The first occupant of No. 42 was a Mr Charles Matthews, who came into possession when the eastern terrace was completed in 1908, at which point the house was valued at £8 and let by John McMaster. Matthews had vacated by 1911, when a Mr Robert Henry Doherty, a fitter employed at the nearby shipyards, took possession. The 1911 Census Building Return described the house as a second-class dwelling consisting of seven rooms. A Mr Maguire subsequently resided there until the 1940s. By the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935 the value had risen to £11. By 1950 the house had passed to a Mr T. W. Logan, a compositor, who remained in possession through the Second General Revaluation of 1956, which recorded that ownership of the street had passed from John McMaster to an L. McMaster (relationship unknown) and that the house's value had increased to £12, where it remained until the end of that revaluation period in 1972. Logan left around 1970, when a Mrs Cushley came into possession and remained until the 1980s.

McMaster Street survived the 1941 Belfast Blitz, when the Luftwaffe targeted the nearby Harland and Wolff shipyards, causing extensive destruction to buildings and residential terraces along the Newtownards Road. The street also survived the widespread demolition of similar red brick terraces in the Ballymacarrett area during redevelopment in the 1970s. The entire terrace was listed in 1987, and in 1994 the neighbourhood was designated a conservation area by the Department of the Environment, with criteria established to ensure that any additions remain in keeping with the original design and fabric of the street. No. 42 was one of two houses on the eastern terrace — the other being No. 22 — acquired by Hearth Housing Association for restoration after a period of vacancy and disrepair. The restoration project was carried out in 2000–01 by McNally Contractors Ltd. of Randalstown, who gutted the interior, restored the original floor plan, and repointed the brickwork.

No. 42 McMaster Street has group value with the other listed buildings in McMaster Street and is of local interest. It provides a physical link with Belfast's industrial past, having been built to house workers from the nearby Harland and Wolff shipyards and ropework factories that were the principal employers in the area.