86 Lisburn Rd, Belfast, BT9 6AF

86 Lisburn Road is an end-of-terrace house of mid-Victorian date, built circa 1860–1865, forming the northern part of a group of three buildings historically known as Elmwood Terrace. It stands on the southern side of the Lisburn Road at its junction with Elmwood Avenue, on the axial approach to the Queen's Conservation Area, and is close to All Souls Church. The listing extends to the building itself together with its steps, railings, retaining wall, front boundary wall and pier. The architect is unknown. Although nearby terraces of an earlier date — Royal Terrace (1848) and Queen's Elms (1859), both now demolished — were designed by Thomas Jackson, there are no definitive stylistic indications or other surviving evidence that Elmwood Terrace is also a Jackson design. Articles in the Builder and Irish Builder that have been cited in support of Jackson as architect in fact relate to Queen's Elms.

The building is three storeys with an attic over a basement, rectangular on plan with a small four-storey-with-basement rear return and an attached single-storey outbuilding or coal house, now gone. The exterior walls are red brick in Flemish bond with chamfered brick edgings around all windows. Shallow segmental arches with a soldier course profile sit above each window opening, and there are painted stone sills throughout. Decorative detailing includes a raised four-course band of light grey brickwork in a diaper pattern below the eaves, set beneath a projecting string course of light grey brick with a continuous band of pointed dentils. Above this, projecting timber eaves carry metal guttering. There is a cast iron downpipe to the left extending the full height of the building.

The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A barrel-vaulted roofed dormer faces the front, with modern roof lights positioned either side. Plain render-finished chimney stacks project from the northeast gable on either side of the ridge, connected by a raised rendered parapet wall.

The front windows are painted timber-framed, single-glazed, sliding sash with horns. Upper-floor windows are one-over-one pane, while the top-floor windows are two-over-one. A projecting chamfered string course divides the upper floors from the entrance level. Ground-floor windows, vertically aligned with the outer edges of the windows above, consist of a pair of one-over-one painted timber-framed single-glazed sliding sash windows with horns. The external basement wall has two six-over-three painted single-glazed sliding sash windows with painted stone cills.

The recessed entrance doorway to the right currently has a painted porthole door, noted as a recent intervention. It is coupled with the entrance to number 88, the two being mirrored on a circular stone column with a square plinth to the base, the column adorned with a floriated capital, giving onto a communal stone step approach shared with number 88. Railings feature gold-painted fleur-de-lis topped vertical rails with decorative circular rings at mid-point, enclosing a painted basement lightwell below, accessed by metal open-tread steps.

The rear elevation shares the roof arrangement described above, with a cat-slide roof over the small full-height rear return, built at half-landing level, and a modern rooflight on the bottom right-hand side of the main roof adjacent to a rear rendered chimney stack. Rear exterior walls are red brick in common bond. Fenestration to the main rear block consists of six-over-six painted timber sliding sash windows with shallow flush brick arches above, diminishing in height from ground to second floor. The ground floor has a pair of replaced three-paned windows with horizontal transoms and a central top-hung opening. The basement has a single six-over-three painted single-glazed sliding sash window with painted stone cills. The rear return has a three-over-three painted timber sliding sash window at the top floor. There is also a painted flush timber door with a small top-hung timber window to its left, with an exposed concrete lintel above. The basement area at the rear has white-painted walls with replacement concrete steps and railings providing access.

The northeast elevation consists of a blank rendered gable with two projecting chimney stacks, one either side of the ridge. On each level, fireplace openings have been formed, indicating that the original intention was to extend the terrace further along the Lisburn Road — the so-called "hanging" fireplaces that are visible to this day. Nineteenth-century maps suggest that completing the terrace across the full width of the Elmwood estate would have required blocking the access driveway from the Lisburn Road to the rear stableyard of the mansion Elmwood, which featured a gate lodge surrounded by trees. The gate lodge was demolished and the driveway and most of the trees removed between 1884 and 1902, and it was perhaps not until the death of Edward Harris Clarke in 1889 that these changes were made, long after the impetus to extend the terrace had faded. The reasons for leaving the terrace unfinished are not made explicit in any available records.

Internally, the building retains a notable level of historic fabric. Surviving features include the principal staircase, plasterwork, good joinery throughout, and the basement arrangement with stone steps and original metal railings. The front boundary wall is brick with stone dressings to the coping.

The boundary wall to the terrace has been partially removed on the Elmwood Avenue side but otherwise remains in its original position, with openings as depicted on the large-scale map of 1873. Mounted on the boundary wall is a traditional tiled Belfast street sign for Elmwood Avenue, likely dating to around 1910. A row of trees is shown on the 1884 map in front of the terrace, and trees are maintained in a similar position within the property boundary today.

The terrace was built on land forming part of the grounds of Elmwood, a mansion owned by Edward Harris Clarke, a barrister, Justice of the Peace for County Antrim, and co-director of the Belfast Banking Company. Clarke had trained at Trinity College Dublin and was called to the bar in 1834. He retired from the bar in 1841 and initially became an industrialist in partnership with Narcissus Batt of Purdysburn and his nephew Samuel Batt in chemical works in Ballymacarett. In 1851 Clarke moved into banking, becoming a co-director with his fellow barrister Arthur Sharman Crawford of the Belfast Banking Company, and retiring in 1880 due to failing eyesight. According to Carleton, an early house on the site dated from around 1790, and it was Clarke who rebuilt it as a classical mansion in 1856–1858. The Belfast Bank suffered a partial run in the closing months of 1857 following a collapse in Scottish banking. Subsequent to these events — though without any certain connection being established — Clarke leased a portion of his land facing University Road to Thomas Gaffikin, a linen merchant, who built a terrace of seven dwellings known as Queen's Elms, completed in 1859 and cutting off the direct access from Elmwood to University Road. A hint of reluctance surrounds this arrangement: Clarke stipulated that a row of fine old elms should be allowed to remain, and indeed a row of trees stood in front of the terrace in the 1960s when Queen's Elms was demolished.

Elmwood Terrace was the second terrace to be built within the Elmwood grounds. Valuation records indicate that the land was leased from Edward Harris Clarke, and the terrace was most likely built by Clarke himself before being acquired by James Jenkins. Jenkins was the proprietor of a loan office or pawnbroking business in Mill Street and Marquis Street until his retirement around 1870, and the owner of several houses in Belfast; he is recorded as the immediate lessor of Elmwood Terrace in valuation records at an early stage. Following his retirement from pawnbroking, Jenkins became a member of Belfast Corporation, chairman of the Sanitary Committee, a Water Commissioner, a Justice of the Peace, and a Poor Law Guardian. His son, William Alexander Jenkins, went on to live in the end terrace at 7 Elmwood Avenue for over forty years.

Early records are undated, but Carleton gives a completion date of 1865 for the terrace, consistent with its first mention in the newspapers in 1866. The large-scale map of 1873 shows the terrace as three dwellings, each with a return and small yard, two facing the Lisburn Road and the third facing onto what is now Elmwood Avenue. Numbers 86 and 88 were initially valued at £43 and number 7 at £56; these valuations were reduced to £40, £40 and £50 in 1881, then raised again and subsequently lowered to £45 and £50 following an appeal. Two houses are listed as Elmwood Terrace in the 1865 street directory, one vacant and one occupied by a Colonel Campbell, suggesting the row was only partially complete at that time. The newly built terrace was decorated with flags for the visit of Prince Arthur, third son of Queen Victoria, in 1869, as reported in the Northern Whig of 3rd May of that year.

The first resident recorded at number 86 was Edward Wakefield Pim, a Quaker tea and wine merchant with premises at 27–29 High Street, Belfast. Pim was a Justice of the Peace, a Water Commissioner for thirty-three years — during which time he played a leading part in the development of the Mourne water scheme and published a book on the history of the water supply in Belfast — Honorary Secretary of the Belfast Charitable Society at Clifton House, and Honorary Treasurer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In 1907 his foresight led to the recording of inscriptions on extant headstones in Clifton Street Cemetery, records that have proved invaluable as the headstones have deteriorated over time. At the time of the 1901 census, Pim was resident at the nine-room house with his wife Hannah and two servants — a parlour maid and a cook. He lived at the house for over forty years before moving to Ivy Lodge in Knockbreda Park for the last decade of his life. The house was advertised to let in 1908, a selling point being its outlook over the grounds of the Deaf and Dumb Institution, a Lanyon-designed building constructed in 1845 and demolished in 1963. At that time the house was said to contain three reception rooms and five bedrooms with every necessary accommodation, deemed very suitable for a professional man.

The next noted resident, from 1915 to 1929, was Baptist Gamble, a goods manager with the Great Northern Railway. His son, Baptist William Gamble, also worked on the railway before being commissioned in the Ulster Division at the rank of 2nd Lieutenant; he was wounded at the front in July 1916 but survived the war. The next resident was Jane Bell, recorded from 1932 to 1943, and the 1934 revaluation records the building as having been used as a girls' hostel, possibly serving the nearby university. By 1945 the house had been converted into furnished flats by the owner Mrs Thomas, with a succession of tenants, many of them female and or students, each occupying a floor comprising a sitting room, bedroom and kitchen with a shared bathroom. As the character of the Lisburn Road began to change, the building was converted to offices, occupied from 1970 by Harold Winter and Co, chartered accountants, and subsequently by various other accountancy and architectural firms. From around 1990, as Belfast city centre continued to be affected by the disruption of the Troubles, the building became home to various voluntary organisations including the Spirit of Enniskillen, the Royal Jubilee Trust, Youth Exchange, the Princes Trust, and the Northern Ireland Youth Forum. Today the building provides premises for several businesses and voluntary organisations. A photograph of 1985 shows that the front door had been replaced by that date with an inappropriate modern door.

Although the terrace has lost some original features, notably the original front doors and some internal elements, the sash windows, ironwork, and much internal detailing have survived. The state of preservation is overall unusually good, particularly when compared to other non-listed terraces in this part of the Lisburn Road, and the building contributes significantly to the local streetscape. It is a rare surviving example of a three-storey over basement terrace on one of the main arterial routes into Belfast, standing out among the Victorian terraces that characterise this part of South Belfast, in an area where comparable terraces — including Queen's Elms, Royal Terrace, Cranbrook Terrace, and Wilmont Terrace (north) — have not survived. The decorative detailing in the cornices, doorways, and ironwork, and the segmental window heads and barrel-roofed dormers, distinguish it from the terraces of an earlier era, while the overall composition remains restrained by comparison with later Victorian designs. Together with numbers 88 Lisburn Road and 7 Elmwood Avenue, and with the original boundary walling and railings defining the lightwells, number 86 forms part of a coherent ensemble on this stretch of the Lisburn Road and helps to maintain the visual approach to the edge of the Queen's Conservation Area.