9 College Gardens, Belfast

9 College Gardens is a mid-terrace, three-storey, two-bay red brick late Victorian town house, built in 1877 to designs by William Batt, architect. It forms part of a symmetrical block of four large town houses — numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10 College Gardens — in which numbers 8 and 9 mirror each other in plan and elevation, with the wider properties at numbers 7 and 10 forming the gabled ends. The building is located at the eastern end of College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled town houses running between Malone Road and Lisburn Road, within the Queens Conservation Area. The houses face south, overlooking the grounds of Methodist College. The property is currently used as student accommodation and is connected internally to the adjoining number 8. The listing covers the former town house together with its entrance steps and dwarf walling to the front and the yard walling to the rear.

Architectural Overview

The building is well proportioned, with polychromatic brick detailing and sandstone embellishment to the front façade, making it a good example of late Victorian domestic architecture. The roof is natural slate (Bangor Blue) with black clay ridge tiles. A large red brick chimney is centred on the ridge, with a corbelled cap formed in brick specials and sixteen circular red clay pots, shared with number 10. The projecting stone eaves feature corbelled brick specials in the form of roll-edged dentils on cogging and stretcher courses. There are two modern skylights to the rear (north) roof slope. Rainwater goods are cast iron to the south elevation and uPVC to the north and return.

The main walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond, with blue brick string courses and alternating soldier courses. The rear north elevation and return are in English Garden Wall bond.

Windows are generally single-glazed, double-hung sliding sash with 1-over-1 panes unless otherwise noted.

Front Elevation (South)

The south-facing front elevation is asymmetrical, with the entrance positioned to the right and a two-storey canted bay with a lead roof to the left. A projecting rubble stone base plinth with a chamfered blue brick top runs along the base of the façade. Dressed sandstone cills and lintels are carried across as two string courses of blue brick with a red course between, and the window reveals are stop-chamfered.

The central entrance is a round arch formed in alternating red and blue soldier courses in groups of three, with a dressed sandstone hood mould and carved label stops — the label stop to the right is shared with number 8. Above the square-headed, panelled timber double doors is a plain fanlight. The doors are flanked by grey marble colonnettes with dressed sandstone capitals, collar, and base, set on toothed quoins. Carved foliage detail appears on the label stops, bases, and capitals. The alternating blue and red brick soldier course is repeated as a segmental relieving arch to the window above the door, with an angled blue brick hood over.

Rear Elevation (North)

The north elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews and is asymmetrical, with a three-storey return to the right and one window per floor to the left. The ground floor window on this side has multi-paned stained and leaded glass, and the first floor has a sliding sash with 2-over-2 panes. The detailing here is plainer than the front: shallower stone cills, red brick soldier courses above the windows, and projecting headers at eaves level. The return has clipped eaves and a single window offset to the right on each floor, all with 2-over-2 panes and diminishing in height; it is otherwise blank.

East and West Elevations

The east elevation is fully abutted by number 8, including the return. The west elevation of the main building is abutted by number 10; the west face of the return is plainly detailed in the same manner as the north elevation. The west face of the return has informal fenestration: a single window at north and south ends on all levels (2-over-2 panes), with additional openings between — a tripartite window and a flush modern door at ground floor; twin windows, offset to the left with translucent glass, at first floor; and a single window with translucent glass at second floor. An Arts and Crafts style stained and leaded fixed light occupies the ground floor opening nearest to the main building.

Three-Storey Return

A three-storey return is built at half-landing level to the rear, north side. This is adjoined to the equivalent return at number 8, forming a wide shared gable.

Interior

The plan form has been altered slightly following the building's subdivision and connection to number 8, but some original historic interior detail remains intact.

Setting

The building is set back from the tree-lined street by a front lawn with mature hedging on the south side of College Gardens. Stone entrance steps, dwarf walling, and a lawned garden are to the front. A gate opens onto College Gardens, with a tarmac-surfaced path leading to the house. To the rear, the property overlooks Elmwood Mews, a shared alley running the full length of College Gardens and connecting to Elmwood Avenue. Yard walls in red brick laid in English Garden Wall bond, with a rounded terracotta coping cap (missing in part), divide the yard from numbers 8 and 10 and run along the southern boundary, raised in part. Concrete steps descend to a basement at the north end of the yard, which contains a bin store and exits to Elmwood Mews through a sheeted timber ledged-and-braced door. Simple metal guarding and a handrail to the basement steps are painted black. Outhouses also contribute to the character of the rear setting.

Historical Background

College Gardens — originally called College Gardens Avenue — occupies land that, prior to the early 19th century, formed part of a series of strip farms running from what is now the Malone and University Roads to the Bog Meadows, probably laid out in the early 17th century. The integrity of these farms was broken up by the cutting of the Lisburn Road in 1816–19 and the construction of the Ulster Railway in 1837–39. Around the same time, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of what remained of the farms, with the building of small country villas — many of them simply older houses upgraded — and the laying out of small demesnes within the former farm plots.

The land immediately north and south of College Gardens belonged to one such villa, known as Vermont, a house predating 1770 and possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815, then enlarged again in the 1840s by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The construction of Queen's College a short distance to the north-east in 1845 triggered the suburbanisation of the area. In 1865, Vermont itself was sold for the building of Methodist College, which was completed in 1868. A new private avenue was then laid out on the lower ground to its immediate north, with building plots along the northern side. Construction of the street 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.

Number 9 was built in 1877 to designs by William Batt for merchant John H. Atkinson, on one of the building plots in what was advertised early that year as a healthy and fashionable locality suitable for high-class residences. Recorded occupants include Henry Reid from at least 1884 to around 1889; William Shaw, stockbroker, around 1889 to 1891; P. C. Cowan, County Surveyor of Down, from 1891 to 1898; and Mrs. Margaret Rodgers from 1898 to around 1925. In the 1901 census, Mrs. Rodgers is recorded as living there with two domestic servants, the building itself classified as a first-class dwelling with thirteen rooms in use. G. D. F. McFadden, a surgeon, was the next occupant, succeeded by Dr. R. Marshall from around 1940 to around 1972. After remaining vacant for several years in the mid-1970s, the property was integrated with number 8 around 1975 to serve as student accommodation, a use it continues to fulfil. Number 8 College Gardens was listed in September 1979. Grant aid was awarded in 2011 for repair works to the front windows, stonework, brickwork, and rainwater goods.