21 College Gardens, Belfast

21 College Gardens is a mid-terrace, three-storey with attic and semi-basement red brick late Victorian townhouse, built in 1881. The architect is unknown. It forms part of a block of four houses together with Nos. 19, 20 and 22 College Gardens, the block being largely symmetrical to the front, with No. 19 mirrored by No. 22 at the gable ends and Nos. 20 and 21 occupying the centre. The houses face south and overlook the grounds of Methodist College. No. 21 sits midway along College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled late Victorian townhouses running from Malone Road to Lisburn Road, within the Queens Conservation Area.

Exterior

The front (south) elevation is asymmetrical. At ground floor, a projecting bowed bay with three windows sits to the left (west), and the entrance is to the right (east). Above, three windows appear at first floor — two paired over the bay and one aligned with the entrance — repeated at second floor. The attic is lit by a gabled dormer centred on the eaves, containing twin round-arched sliding sash windows. All openings below the attic are segmental-headed and diminish in height from ground to second floor.

The roof is natural slate with red clay crested ridge tiles and a gabled dormer to the front pitch; the dormer has a pierced timber bargeboard and pointed finial. Three modern rooflights are set into the rear pitch. One chimney has been replaced in modern red brick with several circular clay pots. To the front, projecting moulded eaves are carried on scrolled modillions. Below the eaves runs a deep decorative frieze made up of fluted pilasters between alternating panels — each featuring a central roundel with a moulded rectangular frame, and paired raised and fielded panels — with a bestial head moulding at the base of each pilaster. To the rear, the eaves are simpler, with alternating angular bricks.

The walls are red brick in Flemish bond with stucco dressings to the south and west elevations, and English Garden Wall bond to the north elevation and the return. A painted render base plinth with a moulded top runs along the front.

The entrance door is a square-headed timber-framed door of two panels with raised fields and bolection moulding, with a plain glass overlight on a simple transom. It is set within an elaborate concentric arched stucco surround featuring egg-and-dart and chevron moulding, a pitched keystone and simple pilasters, all painted. A broad entrance step is flanked by painted dwarf walls with an open balustrade between square end piers. The front garden has been tarmacked to provide off-street parking with a vehicular entrance shared with No. 22.

The ground floor bay has a cornice and frieze matching that of the main roof eaves, along with a Renaissance-style balustrade. The frieze is continued across the main façade and repeated below the continuous projecting cill at second floor. The ground floor bay windows have deep moulded stucco surrounds with moulded brackets below the projecting cill; the same detail appears at second floor but with simple chevron-moulded stucco in place of brackets. At first floor, plain pilasters rise between cill and impost level, where a continuous stucco band enriched with classical-style mouldings runs between windows; above the band, ornate floral detail appears within the moulded surrounds, with exaggerated pitched keystones.

The rear (north) elevation is treated more plainly, with flat-arched openings, soldier-coursed brick headers and square-edged painted cills, mainly in stone; reveals are rendered and painted. A full-height lean-to projection and a double return built at half-landing level sit to the left (east) side, stepping the building down from four to three storeys. The lean-to projection is blank except for the replaced chimneystack with concrete coping and red clay pots. The main rear windows are replacement timber-framed double-glazed sliding sashes with 1 over 1 panes; the basement window is a side-hung casement. The flat-roofed return has a single-storey flat-roofed abutment at basement level with a former door opening bricked up to the far right; two double-glazed casement windows at ground floor; and at first floor, one small casement offset to the right and a large round-arched sliding sash with 1 over 1 panes fitted with Edwardian-style leaded glass sandwiched between two panes of float glass. Original brick headers and stone cills remain to all openings on the return. The north face of the hipped-roof return features a canted bay window at second floor with replacement double-glazed casement windows, a timber beam with decorative carved ends and exposed rafter tails supporting a uPVC half-round gutter.

The west face of the lean-to projection and double return is visible as a side elevation. The projection has a sliding sash with 2 over 2 panes at half-landing level and a modern sheeted timber door to the basement. The hipped-roof return has escape windows at first and second floor — these are tilt-and-turn casements opening onto galvanised steel landings with escape ladders — plus two windows at ground floor and a single casement at basement level. The flat-roofed return has informally arranged windows: a sliding sash with 2 over 2 panes and a smaller fixed light at first floor; a sliding sash with 1 over 1 panes at ground floor; and two casements at basement level. Remaining soldier-course headers suggest a third basement window that has been bricked up. The east elevation is abutted by No. 20, including the return; the main west elevation is abutted by No. 22.

Rainwater goods to the main roof are ogee-profile cast metal gutters and circular-section rainwater pipes; the hipped roof has uPVC gutters with cast iron rainwater pipes; flat-roofed sections have uPVC gutters and cast iron rainwater pipes. The flat-roofed return is finished with an asphalt membrane. Replacement windows on the front elevation are timber-framed double-glazed sliding sashes; where 2 over 2 panes are used, the effect is achieved with a continuous double-glazed unit per sash, the central glazing bar face-fixed to the glass with additional spacers inside the sealed unit — there is no through astragal.

Setting and boundaries

The house is set back from the tree-lined street by low red brick walling with chamfered stone coping topped by modern painted black metal railings, with a hedge behind. The rear boundary to Elmwood Mews is marked by red brick walling with a pitched terracotta cap; there is a wide opening with a concrete lintel, formerly fitted with a sheeted timber fold-back door (noted in August 2016 as boarded over), and a separate pedestrian door to Elmwood Mews. Square concrete pavers cover the rear yard and the path at the front and side of the house.

Interior

The original staircase survives intact, and much of the historic joinery and plasterwork is retained internally. Subdivision of the upper floors has resulted in some loss of the original plan form.

Historical background

College Gardens originally 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 cutting of the Lisburn Road between 1816 and 1819 and the construction of the Ulster Railway between 1837 and 1839 broke up the integrity of these farms. Around the same time, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of what remained, with small country villas and demesnes being created within the former farmland plots.

The land immediately north and south of College Gardens had belonged to one such villa, 'Vermont', a house predating 1770, possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815 and enlarged again in the 1840s — on the latter occasion by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The construction of Queen's College a short distance to the north-east in 1845 stimulated suburbanisation of the area. In 1865 Vermont was sold for the construction of Methodist College, completed in 1868. A new private avenue was then laid out on the lower ground immediately to the north, with building plots on the northern side. Development proceeded eastward: Nos. 1–6 were built in 1871, Nos. 7–18 in 1877, Nos. 33 and 34 in 1879, Nos. 19–22 in 1881, Nos. 23–26 in 1882, and Nos. 27–32 in 1883.

The developer of everything from No. 11 to No. 32 appears to have been the Reverend George Cron, then minister of the Evangelical Union Church in Wellington Place. The 1884 street directory records the first occupant of No. 21 as Robert Carmichael, a publican. By 1887 a Mrs Ferguson was in residence, followed by J. R. Ferguson, a civil engineer (presumably her husband or son), by 1890, and then John R. Jeffryes, described as Director of the Northern Bank. In the 1901 census, Mr Jeffryes — a retired widower — was living there with his two grown-up daughters, two nurses and two domestic servants; the building was recorded as a first-class dwelling with 14 rooms in use. William Russell, managing director of A. S. Henry & Co. Ltd., is noted as resident in 1907, with his widow, Mrs Margaret Linda Russell, appearing in directories from the following year. The 1911 census records her living there with her daughter, granddaughter and two domestic servants. The Russells appear to have remained until at least the mid-1930s.

During the Second World War, No. 21 and its eastern neighbour No. 20 were taken into government use, returning to private occupation afterwards; a surgeon, J. A. W. Bingham, is recorded as resident in 1951 and remained until at least the early 1980s. The property was listed in September 1979. It was converted to student housing in 1984 and subsequently fell vacant by 2011. By 2013, the building was in very poor condition as a result of water penetration causing wet and dry rot. At the time of a second survey in May 2017, works approved under a 2015 planning application to convert the property to six apartments were underway.