Imperial Buildings, 70-74 High Street, 19-21 Skipper Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 2BE

Imperial Buildings, designed by W.J. Gilliland in 1907, is a four-storey commercial building with attic, located on the north side of High Street at the corner of Skipper Street in Belfast. The structure was substantially reconstructed from the second floor upwards following bomb damage in 1941, with some architectural details lost in that process.

The building features a hipped natural slate roof with flat-topped dormers set behind a solid parapet, from which rises a gabled dormer. An octagonal corner turret with a copper conical roof is a prominent feature, along with brick chimneys. Rainwater pipes are square metal, some original cast iron, fitted with rectangular hoppers.

The walls are constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with sandstone cornices and banding. The ground floor displays banded pilasters of red granite—alternately polished and unpolished—topped with foliate volute capitals of unpolished red granite. Black granite plinths are polished, and a modern polished granite frieze runs across the ground level. The ground floor cornice features carved sandstone including a shield bearing the date '1907' above the west pilaster, carved bracket volutes and foliate decoration to the soffit of the turret's oriel projection, and a wave-topped pediment with crown and foliate decoration above the entrance, inscribed with "IMPERIAL BUILDINGS".

Windows are predominantly square-headed, except for curved bay windows on the first floor which are round-arched. First-floor openings are divided by stone transoms. The windows are metal-framed, predominantly two-paned, with single-paned glazing to the ground floor. The entrance features an arched head infilled with a beaten iron fanlight, modern metal grille doors below, and a recessed porch door of glazed timber with stained glass lights above.

The main south elevation contains three window bays extending between the first and third floors. The octagonal turret is corbelled out from the first floor at the right corner. A slightly projecting flat bay to the left is topped by a gabled dormer with tripartite windows. The central curved bay has tripartite windows, round-headed to the first floor. The slightly projecting flat right bay contains bipartite windows, while the turret has windows on three sides.

The rear north elevation features a projecting wing above ground floor to the east, which terminates in a blank red brick gable end. The rear wall and return wall are of white ceramic-faced brick. The rear elevation has two flat-arched windows to the first, second and third floors, and a box dormer to the attic. A spiral metal fire escape stair is positioned against the return wall.

The east-facing elevation is seven windows wide with the turret at the left corner. A tall freestanding chimney rises to the left, while a chimney stack continues to the ground floor cornice, positioned centrally within a gabled dormer flanked by two windows. Second and third-floor windows are square-headed with masonry lintels and projecting concrete cills. First-floor windows vary: to the south is a quatre-partite window with heavy transom, stone architrave, moulded cornice with central arch and decorated tympanum, and a bracketed cill. Adjacent to the right is a stone panel with two square grille openings, flat moulded cornice, bracketed moulded base with arch, and a stone-dressed slit opening below. The eight first-floor windows to the north are paired, divided by a heavy stone transom, with a stone string running at transom level. Upper-floor windows are metal-framed casements, four and two-paned to upper levels, single-paned to the first floor. The ground floor matches the south elevation but with paired pilasters.

The west elevation is abutted by the former Belfast Bank building. Imperial Buildings terminates the view northwards along Church Lane and frames the eastern view down High Street towards The Albert Memorial. It sits adjacent to the elaborate former Belfast Bank building to the west and opposite St. George's Church to the east across High Street.