Ross' Auction Rooms, John Ross & Co., 37 Montgomery Street, Belfast, BT1 4NX

Ross' Auction Rooms

Attached corner-fronted three-storey former assembly rooms, now auction house, built around 1873 and restored following a fire around 1965. The building is located on a prominent corner city centre site on the north side of May Street in Belfast. It comprises three adjoined east-west aligned blocks of square plan, with the south block attached to an adjacent building at the west and an enclosed yard at the north-west. The principal split-level entrance opens from May Street with a secondary entrance at ground floor level on Montgomery Street.

The roofs are covered with natural slate. The south block has a hipped roof with blue and black ridge tiles, lead valleys and cast-iron rainwater goods, with projecting eaves supported on moulded stone corbels. The north block has a pitched roof with stone verge at the east, similarly detailed with ridge tiles, lead valleys and cast-iron goods. Two large brick corbelled chimneys rise from the south block.

The walls are constructed in Flemish-bonded red brick with sandstone stringcourses, projecting cavetto moulded flat sills, chamfered window heads and projecting sandstone plinth courses above ground floor windows. Windows throughout are 1/1 timber sashes with brick reveals. Basement windows are square-headed, ground floor windows are segmental arched, and first floor windows are round-arched.

The principal symmetrical south elevation comprises a breakfront with a central entrance portico featuring replacement metal double doors with a segmental headed plain fanlight. The portico is flanked by paired and stepped square brick piers supporting paired sandstone Corinthian pilasters. The inner pilasters support a torus-moulded round arch containing a sexfoil leaded stained glass roundel. The outer pilasters support large carved stone console brackets surmounted by a projecting canopy with piers and pierced balustrade with cavetto coping. Paired windows sit at the centre over the portico, surmounted by a pedimented entablature detailed with the burning bush and inscribed 'ARDENS SED VIRENS', with a cavetto cornice supporting an acroter and metal finial. The entrance bay is flanked by two sets of paired windows at each floor. Signage reading 'JOHN ROSS & CO.- AUCTIONEERS' is applied to painted brick below the second floor windows. Rectangular windows at street level are enclosed by a red brick plinth wall with sandstone coping, with cast-iron metal railings to the lower windows. The wall at the west of the entrance has been removed with some sections of coping remaining.

The west elevation of the south block is abutted by a three-storey building facing May Street. The north block west gable is partially rebuilt at first floor using grey engineering brick and smooth rendered and painted at ground floor; the gable is blank. A single-storey flat-roof extension abuts the central block.

The north elevation has been smooth rendered and painted at ground floor with sandstone plinth. New and original brick appear at first and second floor, painted. At ground floor, from left, there is a double arrangement of segmental arches with a modern metal roller door and stepped masonry quoins, flanked at left by square-headed 1/1 timber sashes with original decorative painted cast-iron window grilles and plain sandstone sills. A replacement metal door sits at right. First and second floors each contain five square-headed window openings, each containing 9/9 timber sashes, generally replacement. The right window opening at first and second floor is partially blocked with glass blocks. To the left of the first floor windows, an original glazed clay tile street sign reads 'MUSIC HALL / LANE'. The north block west gable contains a metal escape door at left and a multi-pane timber casement at right; two multi-paned timber casements appear at second floor.

The east elevation reads as three distinct blocks, each symmetrical in its own right. The south block is similarly detailed to the south elevation and contains a replacement metal door at centre with stepped sandstone chamfered surround, flanked by paired 1/1 timber sashes with original decorative painted cast-iron window grilles and plain sandstone sills. Windows are surmounted by paired windows at first and second floor. Signage reading 'ROSS'S AUCTIONEERS & VALUERS' is applied to painted brick below the second floor windows. To the left of the first floor windows, an original glazed clay tile street sign reads 'MONTGOMERY ST.'

The central block rises to a flat-roofed belfry and contains the principal Montgomery Street entrance, arranged similarly to that at May Street but plainly detailed without pilasters. Cast-iron downpipes to either side of the entrance gable are recessed into the brick walling. The entrance is surmounted by three square-headed 1/1 timber sashes with a continuous sandstone sill course splayed below each window and continuous header course. Each window is surmounted by a pointed-arched brick recess with brick voussoirs. The second floor contains three oculus lights surmounted by three pointed-arched louvered openings at the former belfry.

The gabled north block east elevation contains two sets of paired ground floor windows, with the windows at right retaining original decorative painted cast-iron window grilles. Two sets of paired square-headed 1/1 timber sashes appear at first floor and two sets at second floor (diminished), surmounted by a pointed-arched brick recess with a raised blank oculus at the centre. Signage reading 'FINE ART CONSULTANTS' is applied to painted brick below the second floor windows. A large oculus opening with sandstone surround sits at the apex, now blocked with grey engineering brick.