48 McMaster Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 4HP

No. 48 McMaster Street is a two-storey, single-bay late Victorian terraced house built around 1898 by developer John McMaster to designs by J. Frazer and Son, situated on the east side of McMaster Street in the Ballymacarrett area of East Belfast. It forms part of a complete and largely intact street of late Victorian terraced housing and carries group value with the other listed buildings along McMaster Street. The house is of local historical and architectural interest, and sits within a conservation area designated by the Department of the Environment in 1994.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles and a red brick chimney stack at the south side. Painted ogee-profile cast-iron rainwater goods are supported on a projecting polychromatic brick eaves course sitting over an ovolo-moulded corbel course. The principal walls are laid in English garden-wall bond — red brick with alternating courses of headers and stretchers — and feature two polychromatic brick string courses, including a continuous brick and sill course at first-floor level. The rear walls are finished in painted smooth render.

Windows are replacement horizontally divided timber casements at ground floor and uPVC casements at first floor. The door is a replacement uPVC unit with a square-headed transom light. All windows and the door are set within camber-headed reveals with polychromatic brick chamfered reveals and voussoirs, and have projecting masonry sills.

The principal (west) elevation faces McMaster Street. The entrance door sits at the left, accessed via a concrete threshold, and is flanked by a window to its right. Two windows at first-floor level are offset slightly to the right. The north gable abuts No. 46 McMaster Street. The south gable abuts No. 50 McMaster Street.

The rear (east) elevation was only partially visible at the time of survey. At ground floor, the right-hand portion is abutted by a two-storey extension with a pitched roof; the exposed section to the left has a single window at each floor level. The extension's south elevation contains a replacement door at the left, flanked by a window to the right, with two windows at first floor. The east gable and north elevation of the extension are blank. Access to the enclosed rear yard is gained from a narrow entry running north–south between the back yards of Lendrick Street and McMaster Street, via a timber-sheeted entrance door set within high-level brick walling on all sides.

SETTING

No. 48 sits at the south end of the east terrace two-storey block, facing directly onto McMaster Street. The street was formerly cobbled and is now largely laid in concrete, with small cobbled areas retained at each end. The house opens directly onto a wide pavement with granite kerbs. Original lamp posts with electric lighting (formerly gas) remain in place, and original tiled street signage survives at both the north and south ends of the street. The rear elevation is enclosed by high-level stretcher-bonded modern red brick walling, with a painted vertically-sheeted timber entrance door at the centre. The street narrows towards Major Street at its southern end.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

No. 48 McMaster Street first appears on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map for Belfast, surveyed in 1920–21, which confirms that both terraces of McMaster Street had been completed by that time. Belfast Street Directories record that while the western terrace (nos 1–37) and nos 6–14 on the eastern terrace were constructed in 1898 and 1899, the remainder of the eastern terrace — including nos 16–52, of which No. 48 is part — was not built until 1908, a decade after construction of the street had begun.

The land was originally owned by John McMaster, who held the wedge-shaped site on the south side of the Newtownards Road. Because of the site's geometry, the terraces became progressively narrower and the rear yards progressively smaller toward the southern end of the street. As one of the southernmost houses, No. 48 consequently has a noticeably smaller yard than those at the northern end.

The Annual Revisions record that the first occupant was a Mr Alex Girvan, who worked as a fireman and came into possession of the house in 1908, the year the terrace was completed. At that time the house was valued at £8 and let by John McMaster. By 1911 a John Cooke, a blacksmith employed in the nearby shipyards, was recorded as occupant. The 1911 Census Building Return described No. 48 as a second-class dwelling consisting of seven rooms. Cooke had vacated by 1918, when James McMurray, an iron turner in the shipyards, was recorded as occupant in the Belfast Street Directory. McMurray remained at the address until at least 1935. By the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930 the rateable value remained at £8, but by the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935 it had risen to £11.

By 1940 a Mr Robert Sanford, a riveter in the yards, had taken possession. During the Second World War, McMaster Street escaped the destruction caused by the Luftwaffe's 1941 raids on the nearby Harland and Wolff shipyards, which caused extensive damage to buildings and residential terraces along the Newtownards Road. After the war, the Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland recorded that ownership of the street had passed from John McMaster to an L. McMaster, a relative of unknown relationship. The value of No. 48 was increased to £12, remaining at that level until the close of the revaluation period in 1972.

Robert Sandford lived at the house until his death in 1960, after which his widow, Mrs Eileen Sandford, came into possession and continued to occupy the house until the 1980s, having vacated it by 1990. Electricity was not introduced to the street until the 1930s.

The terraced houses on McMaster Street were designed as parlour houses and were constructed under new housing and planning regulations intended to improve the standard of living for working-class people in Belfast. As a result, they were among the first late Victorian industrial terraces in the city to be provided with running water and flushable toilets, made possible by the construction of a new city drainage system. Gas piping supplying lighting to each house was also a new practice at the time, and together these provisions distinguished McMaster Street from the more squalid housing conditions common in Belfast during the early Victorian period.

The architect, J. Frazer and Son, was active from the 1890s through to the second decade of the twentieth century and also designed other terraced streets in Belfast including Chadwick Street and Meadowbank Place, which are similar in character to McMaster Street. Chadwick Street was built in 1899, shortly after the first phase of McMaster Street had been completed.

During the 1970s, the Ballymacarrett area was extensively redeveloped and many red brick terraces comparable to McMaster Street were demolished. McMaster Street survived this period of clearance as an intact remnant of late Victorian working-class housing. No. 48 was listed in 1987 along with the rest of the terrace. The conservation area designation followed in 1994, with criteria established to ensure that any additions or alterations to the terrace would be in keeping with its original late Victorian design and fabric.