12 College Gardens, Belfast

12 College Gardens is a mid-terrace, three-storey-over-basement red brick late Victorian town house, built in 1877, with a two-storey gabled return to the rear. The architect is unknown. It forms part of a block of four houses together with Nos. 11, 13 and 14 College Gardens, the block being largely symmetrical in composition: No. 12 mirrors No. 13, while the wider properties at Nos. 11 and 14 occupy the gable ends. The listing extends to the former townhouse itself, its stone entrance steps, and the cast iron boot-scraper at the entrance.

The house sits near the eastern end of College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled townhouses running between Malone Road and Lisburn Road, within the Queens Conservation Area. The buildings face south and overlook the grounds of Methodist College. The building is currently used as student accommodation and overlaps in use with an adjoining crèche at No. 11.

Architectural Overview

The main roof is covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A replacement red brick chimney, centred on the ridge of the main roof, has a simple concrete cap and multiple circular buff clay pots, shared with No. 11. The eaves are formed with projecting moulded cornices on a plain frieze band, set between projecting moulded string courses. A flat-roofed dormer, centred at the front of the roof above the cornice, is clad in dark grey PVC membrane and contains a four-part casement window.

Wall construction on the south-facing front elevation uses red brick in Flemish bond with painted moulded stucco and stone dressings. The north and return elevations use English Garden Wall bond. Rainwater goods on the south side are cast iron; on the north side and return they are cast metal, with some uPVC replacements noted. Windows on the front elevation are single-glazed double-hung sliding sash with 1-over-1 panes; those on the north and return elevations have 2-over-2 panes, unless otherwise noted.

Front Elevation (South)

The south-facing front elevation is asymmetrical at ground floor level, with the entrance to the left (west) and a single-storey canted bay to the right (east). A dark painted render base plinth with a moulded and chamfered top runs along the base. Both the bay and the door surround are finished in smooth painted stucco, each with a projecting moulded cornice depicting foliage. The ground floor bay windows have stop-chamfered heads and jambs, with heavy bull-nosed cills set within the reveal; there is a serrated edge to the plain frieze below the cornice, and a shallow parapet above to a flat roof.

The entrance door is a square-headed timber-framed door comprising twin round-arched moulded panels with a plain fanlight over a deep moulded transom. The surround has a moulded base on either side, a roll-edged reveal, a raised keystone, and carved stone spandrels below the cornice, all painted. The front door opens onto two stone steps with bull-nosed edges, and a cast iron boot-scraper is positioned to the right side of the top step.

Above ground floor level the walls are predominantly red brick, with projecting moulded stucco string courses acting as first and second floor cills. The upper floor windows are set in segmental arched openings — two windows at each level, equally spaced — with moulded stucco surrounds; those at first floor level have projecting hoods, and those at second floor have lugged surrounds.

Rear Elevation (North)

The north elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews and is asymmetrical and plainly detailed compared to the front. Windows here have shallower stone cills and red brick soldier coursing above them, with a projecting painted timber eaves board. To the right (west), a three-storey mono-pitched return — offset from centre — has one window at each of the first and second floor levels to the left of the return. At ground floor there is a uPVC-framed canted oriel window on a roughcast rendered wall, supported on substantial brackets fixed to the basement wall either side of a sheeted timber half-door. The oriel window has a flat roof clad in lead with a uPVC gutter and downpipe. Brickwork on the north elevation is painted up to the head height of the ground floor openings, including the return, outbuilding, and boundary walls.

The gabled return is built at half-landing level, is detailed similarly to the main rear elevation, and has a single window — offset to the left (east) — at each of the first and second floor half-landings. A flat-roofed enclosure conceals the ground floor of the return. Numerous vent extracts are present throughout. The timber bargeboard is painted white to match the eaves.

East and West Elevations

No. 11 abuts the east elevation of the main building. The east face of the return is detailed plainly, as the rear. Openings are informally arranged: one door and two windows at ground floor, two windows at first floor, and a single window at second floor half-landing level, generally offset to the left (south). A flush modern door opens onto concrete steps at ground floor, with square hollow-section metal uprights and handrail. A single window to the left of the door has metal security bars fixed to the outer reveal; paired windows sit to the right of the door. All ground floor windows have 1-over-1 panes. A projecting timber eaves board, painted white, supports a half-round gutter. No. 13 abuts the west elevation, including the return.

Setting and Grounds

The building is set back from the tree-lined street by timber hit-and-miss fencing and a low brick wall with a hedge behind, on the south side of College Gardens. It is part of a terrace of four similar townhouses, rectangular on plan and aligned east–west parallel to the road. A semi-mature deciduous tree stands in the front garden, which is otherwise surfaced in resin-bonded coloured safety matting. A concrete-surfaced path leads to the entrance with hit-and-miss fencing on both sides; stone steps are retained by modern buff brick low walling.

The rear yard is paved mainly with concrete flags. A mono-pitched outbuilding, set at 90 degrees, abuts the rear (north) wall to an alley. The east boundary of the yard at No. 11 is formed by variegated reddish-brown brick walling with a curved terracotta cap. The north boundary has two sections: on the left, variegated reddish-brown brick walling with a curved terracotta cap forms an asymmetrical gable (shared with No. 11), with remnants of a former chimney and a timber window frame with glass missing; on the right, modern cement-rendered walling forms a flat-roofed basement structure with a concrete coping and a sheeted timber door to the outer ends.

Historical Background

College Gardens takes its name from Methodist College, which was completed in 1868 on land previously occupied by a villa called Vermont — a pre-1770 house that had been possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815 and enlarged again in the 1840s, on that occasion by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The land itself had, prior to the early 19th century, formed part of a series of strip farms running from what is now Malone Road and University Road to the Bog Meadows, probably laid out in the early 17th century. The integrity of this earlier landscape was disrupted by the cutting of Lisburn Road in 1816–19 and the construction of the Ulster Railway in 1837–39. Around the same period, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of the remaining farmland, with small country villas constructed or upgraded and small demesnes laid out within the former plots. The building of Queen's College to the north-east in 1845 then sparked the suburbanisation of the area more broadly. Vermont was sold in 1865 for the building of Methodist College, and a new private avenue was laid out on the lower ground immediately to its north, with building plots on the northern side. Construction proceeded in phases: present Nos. 1–6 were built in 1871; Nos. 7–18 in 1877; No. 33 and 34 in 1879; Nos. 19–22 in 1881; Nos. 23–26 in 1882; and Nos. 27–32 in 1883.

No. 12 belongs to the 1877 block of four. Although the architect is unknown, the developer of this block and those extending westward as far as No. 32 appears to have been the Reverend George Cron, then minister of the Evangelical Union Church in Wellington Place; his monogram appears to be on the entrance keystone of all properties in this particular block.

A Mrs Russell is recorded as the occupant in the street directory of 1880, followed by the Reverend Francis Graham in 1884 and Miss Elizabeth Andrews in 1887. The 1901 census records Miss Andrews living there with three siblings and two domestic servants, the house being described as a first-class dwelling with 13 rooms in use. One sister and two servants were still in residence with her in 1911, a situation that appears to have continued until around 1920. Mrs Eva Rolston is named as householder in 1924, with a surgeon, G.D.F. McFadden, in residence by 1932.

At some point in the 1950s, both No. 12 and the adjoining No. 11 were acquired by Methodist College to house their preparatory school, Fullerton House, giving the building social and cultural importance as well as local interest. It remained in the College's ownership — known as Ker House from around 1962 — until the later 1970s, when it was taken over by Queen's University Belfast for student accommodation. The property was listed in September 1979.

Alterations

The main chimney was reconstructed and works to the roofs were undertaken in 1989. Planning permission was granted in 2006 for replacement roof coverings, windows, and repointing. A major scheme of works to Nos. 11 and 12 was undertaken by Queen's University in 2012. The current use as student accommodation has resulted in subdivision of the upper floors, causing some loss of plan form, though some historic detailing remains intact.