36 Sunnyside St., Belfast

36 Sunnyside Street is a two-storey red-brick terrace house built in 1904, located on the south side of Sunnyside Street approximately 3 kilometres from Belfast city centre. The street connects the Ormeau Road with Annadale Embankment and is a busy thoroughfare in a predominantly residential area developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The house forms part of a longer terrace of twenty-one similar dwellings constructed over several years. The valuation records indicate that numbers 14 to 24 were built by 1903, numbers 26 to 42 by 1904, and numbers 44 to 52 by 1910. The developer of numbers 14 to 42 appears to have been Hugh Scott, though the identity of any architect remains unknown. The first occupant of number 36 was Miss Mary McCrea. Subsequent residents included George Hawthorne, a tram conductor who occupied the property from 1918 and appears to have remained there until the early 1960s, though directories suggest his tenure may not have been continuous. The 1911 census records the building as a second-class dwelling containing five rooms.

The main part of the house is rectangular on plan, with a single-storey rectangular-shaped return featuring a mono-pitched roof to the rear. The walls are constructed of smooth red clay brick laid in English Garden Wall bond, with clay ventilation bricks at each level. The roof is finished in natural slate with a red-brick chimney stack on the right-hand side, featuring a projecting brick course and clay pots. Cast metal ogee guttering is supported by a blue-brick course and projecting moulded brick course at eaves level.

The front elevation features a painted timber four-panel door with overlight containing plain glazing positioned to the left, and a painted timber 2/2 sliding-sash single-glazed window to the right. Both the door and window have semi-circular and segmental heads respectively, each with a moulded architrave. A similar but smaller window is positioned almost centrally on the first floor.

At the rear, the first floor level has a painted timber top or side-hung window to the left and a smaller uPVC staircase window to the right, with a clay ventilation brick at first-floor level. A single-storey mono-pitched roof extension in red brick with fibre-cement slate covering extends from the ground floor, with painted timber board to the verge and uPVC rainwater goods. The yard area to the rear of the extension is enclosed by new red-brick walling with concrete coping and a square-headed doorway with varnished timber boarded door. uPVC rainwater goods service the rear of the main house.

The side elevations abut numbers 34 and 38 Sunnyside Street respectively. A small front garden finished in concrete block paviors is set behind a replacement red-brick boundary wall and gateway with painted metal railings and small painted metal arched gate. This boundary treatment, along with new front doors and windows, was installed circa 1988 as part of an improvement scheme affecting the entire terrace. The rear of the terrace is bounded to the south by a communal laneway shared with Whitehall Gardens.

The property retains significant external character despite a rear extension and replacement of the original front and rear boundaries. It represents a good example of modest Edwardian urban terraced housing, built during a period of rapid expansion of Belfast southwards from the city centre along the main thoroughfares of the Ormeau, Lisburn and Malone Roads. The house has considerable group value with the remainder of the terrace. The property was listed in 1986.