15 College Square East, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 6Dd

15 College Square East is a four-storey rendered former townhouse built around 1830, now in use as a shop with offices above. It forms part of a terrace of similar late-Georgian houses lining the east side of College Square East and returning onto Wellington Place, situated opposite the Royal Academical Institution. The building is rectangular on plan, facing west, and is two windows wide on both its principal (west) and rear elevations.

The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles, set behind a lead-lined blocking course and eaves cornice, with lead junctions to the adjoining houses on either side. Original red brick chimneystacks rise at either end, each with a sandstone course and angled clay pots; the northern chimneystack has been partially rebuilt. The external walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined cement render to the front and sides, while the rear elevation is red brick laid in English garden wall bond. The front elevation has square-headed window openings with masonry sills and replacement timber casement windows, and the ground floor is occupied by a replacement aluminium-framed glazed shopfront. The round-headed door opening to the north bay retains a replacement hardwood panelled door and hardwood surround. To the rear, window openings are gauged brick flat-arched with masonry sills and replacement timber casement windows; a single-storey flat-roofed addition dating from around 1990 abuts the rear elevation, along with an additional timber-clad projection at the first half-landing. The north side elevation is abutted by No. 14 and the south side elevation by No. 16. Rainwater goods are UPVC.

The terrace of which this building forms a part — encompassing Nos. 58–64 Wellington Place and Nos. 14–16 College Square East — was constructed between 1822 and 1832–33. It does not appear on a map of Belfast included in George Benn's The History of the Town of Belfast, which recorded that the Royal Belfast Academical Institution stood at the western limit of the town and was at that time still not surrounded by many buildings. Both this terrace and the Wellington Place terrace were, however, depicted on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33. The row is a rare surviving Georgian terrace of a type once commonly found throughout the centre of Belfast; comparable examples include a four-storey terrace on Chichester Street and two three-storey terraces on Joy Street and Hamilton Street. Patton notes that College Square was laid out in the early 19th century and was originally intended as a residential area, a Georgian square surrounded by handsome townhouses, and that No. 15 was originally a red brick structure, the brick subsequently concealed beneath stucco render. Patton further observes that, although much of the original façade of the terrace has been altered, early chimney pots survive, some with a beaded or dropped bead type and some with a dragon's teeth type. A photograph of College Square North dated around 1880, reproduced in J. C. Beckett's Belfast: The Making of the City, shows the terrace before its conversion to commercial use, with ornate doorcases and fanlights above at ground-floor level.

The terrace was built as housing for Belfast's professional classes, a character borne out by the recorded occupants of No. 15. The Townland Valuation of around 1837 recorded the building as occupied by a Ms. Bradshaw, valued at £13 13s. 2d., with a yearly rent of 50 guineas. By 1852 the Belfast Street Directories recorded a Mrs. Rosetta Harrison as tenant, and by the time of the 1860 Griffith's Valuation the occupant was a Mr. Joseph J. Murphy, employed at Linfield Mill — almost certainly in a managerial or senior capacity given the professional character of the street. The valuation noted that No. 15, like the majority of the terrace, was leased from the representatives of the estate of a Mr. James Blair, and that its value had risen to £42. By 1877 Murphy had vacated and a Dr. Brice Smith was recorded as occupant, the first of several medical professionals to reside at the address. Dr. Smith was still in residence in 1880; by 1900 the property had passed to a Dr. James Lindsay. The Belfast Revaluation of 1900 recorded that ownership of the terrace had by then passed to a Ms. Sarah White, who was thereafter noted as lessor; No. 15 at that time comprised eight rooms (including sitting rooms and bedrooms but excluding the kitchen), was fitted with gas, had been revalued upward to £62, and carried an annual rent of over £75. The 1901 Census records Dr. Lindsay (aged 44, Methodist, a medical doctor who had qualified at Queen's College) residing at No. 15 with his mother Ellen (aged 72) and two servants; the census building return described the property as a first-class dwelling with ten inhabited rooms. Dr. Lindsay remained at No. 15 until at least 1907, after which Mr. J. Maguire, a dental surgeon, established a practice at the address from 1908; Maguire did not reside there, and the building was uninhabited at the time of the 1911 census. Maguire operated his dental surgery until at least 1918.

Patton records that in 1890 no fewer than six surgeons lived in the terrace between Nos. 11 and 25, and notes that the mathematical physicist and engineer William Thomson — known as Lord Kelvin — is believed to have been born on the row as early as 1824, although Kelvin was born at the now-demolished terrace of Nos. 17–25, constructed around 1820–25. The commercialisation of the terrace took place in the early 20th century, when the construction of the Municipal Technical Building undermined the aesthetic quality of the square and prompted the exodus of the professional classes to South Belfast and the newly formed terraces on University Square beside Queen's University.

In 1926 the ground floor of No. 15 was converted into an evangelical bookshop. Nos. 14–16 College Square East were purchased by a Mr. Frederick H. Stringer around 1928 and the entire property was converted into commercial premises, with a shop on the ground floor and private office rooms above. The Evangelical Bookshop was originally administered by the Presbyterian Bible Study League; the ground floor was valued at £29 and the upper offices between £9 and £32, giving a total building value of approximately £106 at the cancellation of the Annual Revisions in 1930. The First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935 increased the combined value of the bookshop and offices to approximately £123 10s. The building survived the destruction of Belfast city centre during the 1941 Blitz. By the 1950s ownership had passed to M. Crymble Ltd. — Crymble's Music Shop also occupied No. 58 Wellington Place and held a warehouse at No. 14 College Square East — and by the end of the Second General Revaluation in 1972 the total approximate value of the building stood at £215 10s., with the ground floor shop valued at £139 and the upper offices between £4 15s. and £44. No. 15 College Square East was listed in 1976. At the time of listing it continued to be occupied by the Evangelical Bookshop, which had traded from the site since 1926 — a continuous occupation of over 85 years.