585 Ormeau Road, Belfast

585 Ormeau Road is a two to three-storey red-brick late Victorian terraced house built around 1860, located on the Ormeau Road just south of its intersection with Ravenhill Road, approximately 3 kilometres from Belfast city centre. It forms one of a row of seven similar terraced houses on the west side of the Ormeau Road, built during a period of rapid southward expansion of Belfast from the city centre along main thoroughfares including the Ormeau, Lisburn and Malone Roads.

The house is rectangular on plan with a two-storey rectangular return and enclosed yard to the rear. The roof is natural slate with uPVC guttering. The walls are constructed of smooth red clay brick laid in Flemish bond to the front and English garden wall bond to the rear.

The front elevation faces east and features a replacement varnished timber door with glazed margin panels and glazed overlight to the right, and a painted-timber top-hung single-glazed window to the left. The doorway is square-headed with a painted masonry head and a modern hood consisting of a slimline canopy supported on scrolled metal brackets. At first floor level are two similar windows. Window openings have smooth painted plaster reveals and are square-headed with soldier course headers. The brickwork is decorated with a series of slightly projecting polychromatic brick courses at eaves level, painted white. A replacement red-brick chimney stack with projecting brick course and red clay pots sits on the left-hand side.

The rear elevation faces west. At first floor level on the right-hand side is a square-headed door opening with a modern painted timber glazed door serving a set of metal fire-escape stairs. Above this is a large rectangular uPVC clad flat-roofed dormer with a uPVC double-glazed window. To the left is the original two-storey return, finished in smooth painted render. The south elevation of the return at first floor level is blank. The west gable elevation adjoins a single-storey yard wall and contains one square-headed window opening with a painted timber top-hung single-glazed window at first floor level on the left-hand side, and a pointed-arch headed window with painted timber window at ground level, also on the left-hand side. An enclosed yard with square-headed doorway features a painted timber boarded door. The yard wall has a masonry coping embedded with broken glass and barbed wire fencing above. The return has clipped verges and natural slate roofs. uPVC rainwater goods and soil stacks are located to the rear.

The north side elevation abuts 583 Ormeau Road; the south side elevation abuts 587 Ormeau Road. Both are part of the same terrace group.

The front boundary comprises a small front garden with concrete path set behind replacement red-brick walling mounted with scrolled metal railings. Replacement red-brick piers with concrete pyramidal caps support a small scrolled metal gate. The rear of the terrace is bounded by a laneway, beyond which stands a modern single-storey garage with cement render finish, concrete tile roof, painted timber soffit and bargeboards, metal garage door and painted timber windows. A long narrow garden extends westward from the garage.

Historically, this house along with three matching neighbours (583 and 587-589 Ormeau Road, originally known as 'Belvoir Place') were built between 1858 and around 1864. They do not appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1858 but are recorded in the 1865 street directory. They may have been completed before 1862, as they appear as seemingly original entries in the valuation book commencing that year. However, a newspaper advertisement of March 1866 described them as 'those four new two-storey houses', suggesting construction closer to 1864. The same advertisement praised them as 'comfortably finished [with] neat gardens in front and rear, and in a most healthy locality, within half an hour's walk from Belfast and close to the Parish Church and Meeting-House.' The group was probably developed by Thomas Courtney, listed as the immediate lessor in the valuation book, who in 1871 added the matching house to the south (591) and a pair of taller dwellings beyond (593-595).

The house and its adjacent neighbours retain their external character despite replacement of original windows, doors and front boundary. The yards and original garden allotments to the rear of the terrace are remarkably intact, forming a distinct group. The house retains its significance as an example of modest late Victorian urban terraced housing of the period when Belfast was rapidly expanding southwards.