Hatfield House Bar, 130 Ormeau Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT7 2EB

Hatfield House Bar

A multi-bay, two-and-a-half storey late-Victorian red-brick semi-detached public house, built around 1890, located east of Ormeau Road south of Belfast city centre. The building has an L-shaped plan with two two-storey returns to the rear.

The roof is pitched with natural slate and terracotta ridge tiles, with red-brick chimney stacks. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on an ornate eaves course. The walling is English garden wall-bonded red-brick with a first floor sill course and corner pilasters to the gabled bay. The principal elevation incorporates carved terracotta panels, and features a decorative egg-and-dart dentilled course to the flues and dentilled pediments to wall-head dormers. Windows are predominantly 1/1 timber-framed sliding sash to the upper floors and a two-storey canted bay on the left. The ground floor has a segmental-headed tripartite timber tracery window to the south. Painted smooth rendered lintels frame windows at the west elevation.

The principal elevation faces west and is asymmetrically arranged, incorporating an adjoining former terrace dwelling to the north. It is six windows wide, with a two-storey canted bay at the left and a wider gabled bay at the right. A symmetrical pub-front, dating from around 1910, incorporates the ground floor of the central and right bays. This front features decorative carved timber with ornately carved and painted quatrefoil panels and keystones to round-headed openings. Bowed windows to the left and right are framed by pilasters with ionic capital heads; those to the far left and right are set back with scrolled console brackets. Faience tiles to the window plinths include ornate tiled panels depicting cherubs with vines and exotic birds. The recessed entrance has a mosaic tiled floor reading "Hatfield Bar", with replacement timber-panelled doors to twin curved entrances. The signage fascia, painted with lettering reading "Wines / Hatfield House / Spirits", is surmounted by a faience balustraded parapet topped by curved metalwork reading "Braithwaite & McCann Spirit Merchant".

The north elevation is abutted by a modern extension. The rear elevation is partially concealed, with two-storey returns abutting it at the left and right. The left return has two windows to the second floor and a stairwell window at ground floor left. The south elevation has two windows at the first floor, a replacement timber-panelled door at ground floor left, and an elongated window at ground floor right. A timber signage fascia with painted lettering reads "Stout, Ales & Spirits". The south elevation also features a slightly projecting pedimented dormer with paired windows to the right of centre, three irregularly arranged windows to the first floor, and two tripartite windows to the left at ground floor divided by brick pilasters. Replacement timber-panelled and double-leaf doors to ground floor right are set in segmental-headed surrounds. Three timber signage fascias with painted lettering read "Wholesalers", "Fine Wines", and "Off Sales".

The building is corner-sited at the junction of Ormeau Road and Hatfield Street, which comprises late nineteenth and early twentieth-century red-brick terraced housing. An enclosed yard and gated alley occupy the rear. Cast-iron railings on a replacement red-brick plinth front the building and extend along the south. A large three-storey modern extension has recently been constructed to the north.