Gate Screen at University Road / Stranmillis Road Botanic Gardens Belfast BT7 1LP

Gate Screen, Belfast Botanic Gardens, University Road entrance (1878)

This is the main entrance gate screen to Belfast Botanic Gardens at the junction of University Road and Stranmillis Road, designed in 1878 by William Batt (died 1910), an architect known for a vigorous practice in the High Victorian style who was also responsible for numerous Belfast churches and villas, as well as Ballynafeigh and Clifton Street Orange Halls. The sculptural carving on the capitals and finials was carried out by Alexander Stevens, sculptor of Chichester Street, who was active in the 1870s and also executed carving on the Theatre Royal and on Fitzroy Presbyterian church. The original wrought-iron gates and railings were removed as a contribution to the war effort during the Second World War, and the present sympathetically remodelled gates were installed around 1989. The gate piers have been moved back three times — in 1887, around 1925, and in 1965 — and now sit approximately 30 feet east of their original position.

Orientation and Layout

The gate screen faces west at the northwest approach into Botanic Gardens from University Road. It is oriented on an east-west axis and comprises a central pair of vehicular gates with a single pedestrian gate to either side, flanked by low brick walls with heavy stone copings on which wrought-iron railings are fixed, matching those of the gateways themselves.

The Gate Piers

The piers are of natural cut stone with chamfered corners set on a base plinth and surmounted with heavy pyramidal copings. The two outer piers carry sculptured finials — carved to resemble the Nile lily and convolvulus — while the central piers have exposed wiring for light fittings that are currently missing. The carving on the capitals of the gate piers depicts anemones, primroses, lilies of the valley, pansies and hop blossom. These piers, designed by Batt and erected in 1878, are the primary historic survivals within the present gate screen; the gate lodge to which they were originally attached was demolished in 1965.

The Gates

The metal gates are composed of elegant vertical metal uprights with gilded arrow-pointed tips, interspersed at the lower level with intermediate uprights of a matching style. The top profile of each gate follows an arc sweeping upward toward the adjoining pier and culminating in an elevated end section, mirrored on the opposite gate to create a balanced composition when the gates are closed. The central gateway is crowned with an overthrow bearing the name "Botanic Gardens" in Art Nouveau gilded lettering. The original ornamental wrought-iron gates were described at the time as being "of very superior design" and were hung on the "heavy cut-stone piers" fitted with gilt iron gas standards and glass globes. The wrought-iron work was supplied by Messrs. Riddel and Co, and the cut stone came from Dungannon quarries — delays in obtaining this stone had held up construction of the lodge. The contractors for the lodge and gate screen were Messrs. Dixon and Co, with the total cost, including the gates, amounting to £1,300.

Historical Background

Belfast Botanic Gardens grew out of a late 18th and early 19th century upsurge in interest in botany, horticulture and gardening that led to the establishment of botanic gardens across Britain and Ireland. Botanic gardens differed from purely aesthetic gardens or arboretums in that they existed to study and provide instruction in the care and classification of plants, and in horticulture and silviculture, and also served as showcases for specimens brought back by colonial explorers. Botanic gardens had been established in Dublin at Glasnevin (1796) and at Ballsbridge for Trinity College (1806), with the Royal Cork Institution Botanic Garden opening in 1809. The gardens at Glasnevin and Belfast are the only Irish botanic gardens from this period to have survived in anything like their original form, though some researchers do not classify Belfast as a strictly "true" botanic garden as plant collections were not maintained on site.

In February 1827, the Belfast Botanic and Horticultural Society was formed under the presidency of the Marquis of Donegall, and on 1st May 1829, a lease was signed on a 14-acre site at the junction of Malone and Stranmillis Roads. Funds were raised through the issuing of shares supplemented by loans, and by the end of May 1829 a large number of shrubs and trees had been planted. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–3 shows the Botanic Gardens within a landscape of fields and country houses approximately a mile outside Belfast, with tree-lined paths following roughly the same layout as today and two ponds toward the southeast end, the lower of which was drained in the 1930s. The former upper pond is now the site of a Japanese sunken garden.

Admission was charged to non-members after 1830. For a short period after 1865, working people were admitted free on Saturday afternoons and employers were encouraged to buy free tickets for their staff, but these schemes lapsed when Ormeau Park opened as a free public park in 1871. Entry remained generally by ticket until the Corporation took over the gardens in 1895, with access points restricted to control revenue. A pinetum was established in 1838, displaying over 170 species of conifers by 1851, and adjacent to it a collection of deciduous and evergreen oaks was planted, some trees from both collections remaining in the park today.

The distinctive early Victorian Palm House was designed by Sir Charles Lanyon and partially executed by Richard Turner of Dublin, a pioneer in the use of curved iron ribs and curved glass. The Palm House is one of the earliest surviving examples of curvilinear cast and wrought ironwork, pre-dating those at Glasnevin and Kew. Turner was engaged as contractor between 1839 and 1840, constructing only the wings: the west wing as a cool house and the east wing as a tropical house. In 1840, Queen Victoria granted the Society and gardens the title "Royal", at the instigation of the Marquis of Donegall. Charles Denoon Young (1822–1887), ironworker of Edinburgh and also responsible for the Dublin Exhibition Building (1853) and the Kensington Gore Museum of Science and Art (1856), was later engaged to complete Lanyon's original design by adding a central dome. The dome, constructed between 1852 and 1853, shows the influence of Turner's Palm House at Kew which had been completed five years earlier, and was glazed by Messrs. H McKendry and Co of Waring Street using Hartley's patent rolled plate glass. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 shows the "Royal Botanic Gardens" now adjoining Queen's College, completed in 1849, one of several public buildings that filled the surrounding area during the mid-19th century as Belfast expanded rapidly outward.

A second lodge, built in 1865 and extended to the rear before 1902, and a gate screen were constructed at a new Botanic Avenue entrance at a cost of £200. Gates costing £75 were gifted by Robert Corry, the main developer of housing in the formerly open area to the northeast of the gardens, then known as "the Plains". In 1877, garden foreman Charles McKimm was appointed curator, a post he held until his death in 1907. Already projected at the time of his appointment was a new gate lodge to replace the earlier entrance building at University Road. Batt's initial design, exhibited at the Belfast Industrial Exhibition in 1876, showed a lodge with central entrance arches through which patrons would pass. However, the Society was most likely forced by financial constraints to curtail these ambitions and instructed Batt to prepare fresh plans on a reduced scale. His amended design was for a Venetian Gothic lodge featuring a clock tower — a clock was added around 1881 — finished with a vane and finial of gilt wrought iron. Ornamental carving on the lodge took the forms of birds, flowers and plants including passion flowers, grape vines and water lilies. Construction was completed in April 1878, the lodge containing public toilets and commodious living accommodation for the gatekeeper. The Society considered the lodge and gates "a credit to the company and an ornament to the town" and expected they would attract a much larger number of visitors.

The gate screen, which originally attached to the southwest corner of the clock tower, was first moved back in 1887 when a new front wall was set back ten feet from the original line to allow for the widening of Stranmillis Road, with the gate screen repositioned to the southeast corner of the clock tower "so that the wall might finish with an easy curve at the gate pillar." Around 1925 the gate screen was moved again to a position adjoining the southeast corner of the lodge. Between 1887 and 1889, McKimm and his gardeners oversaw construction of a Fernery — now known as the Tropical Ravine — on the site of a former Orchid House and propagating house; initially roughly half its present length, this was a building of stone walls and glazed roof enclosing a sunken ravine.

Raising money to maintain the gardens was a persistent challenge, addressed through regular garden fetes featuring balloon ascents (for which a gas pipeline was installed in the main lawn), archery, boats on the Lagan, dancing, band music, firework displays, military tournaments, flower shows and on at least one occasion a "submarine explosion" in one of the ponds. Notable events included a tightrope display by Mr Blondin, the first man to walk a tightrope across Niagara Falls, and Herr Holtum, the "Cannon King," who could catch a cannonball fired toward him. Political meetings were a regular occurrence, the largest being the Ulster Unionist Convention of 1892 attended by an estimated 300,000 people.

Belfast Corporation took over the gardens in 1895, renaming them the Belfast Botanic Gardens Park and opening them free to the public from 1st January of that year. The Corporation extended the Ravine under McKimm's supervision, providing a heated lily pond and separating the house into tropical and temperate areas. The new fernery — double the length of the original and brick-built with a lantern ridge — opened in 1902. No architect for this extension is recorded in contemporary sources, though Paul Larmour has speculated that the Dutch gable at the east elevation may be Batt's design. A site within the garden was reserved for the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery in 1912, the museum opening in 1929, with an extension completed in 1972 that required the demolition of the former curator's house, built in 1844. Images of the museum shortly after opening show a low wall and railings connecting the museum to the main park entrance, replacing the 1887 wall. The museum appears to retain its original pre-war gates and railings at the Stranmillis Road entrance to this day. A wooden gate of around 1910 at Agincourt Avenue (now Botanic Court) was replaced with the present gate screen in 1925. Two entrances were opened along the newly built Stranmillis Embankment in 1932, and a gate screen was installed at Colenso Parade in 1934.

A photograph held by the National Museums Northern Ireland, dated 1947, shows that the railings between the University Road entrance and the museum had been removed by that date, as had the original gates, replaced by plain wooden gates. The original gates had most likely been taken as a contribution to the Second World War effort — a fate that probably also befell the original gates at the Botanic Avenue and Botanic Court entrances. Although the wartime drive to collect ironwork had great propaganda value, it is now thought that only around a quarter of the iron collected across the UK was actually used for munitions, with the majority being dumped. As late as June 1954 the gates and railings had still not been replaced and complaints were made in the press about young people accessing the park out of hours and causing damage. Wooden gates were eventually replaced with relatively plain iron gates visible in television footage from 1965, which may have been reused as the basis for the present gates.

The gate lodge was demolished in 1965 as it had become costly to maintain and no longer suited the aesthetic tastes of the time. When it was demolished, the gates and railings were "re-aligned" for a third time to their present position, set further back to improve visibility for increasing vehicular traffic. The weathervane and clock from the lodge were distributed to members of the public, while the Ulster Museum recovered some stonework including a gargoyle and bird and plant sculptures. The only other survival from the lodge within the park is a stone carved with the name "Royal Botanic Gardens," which has been incorporated into a modern brick wall at the Botanic Avenue entrance; it was originally set into the wall of the old gate lodge above the right-hand entrance archway.

After the Palm House was threatened with demolition, it benefitted from a major restoration programme in the late 1970s covering ironwork cleaning, preservation and replacement where necessary. The Tropical Ravine was included in the same programme, both buildings being completed simultaneously in May 1983. The Tropical Ravine underwent a further £3.8 million renovation between 2016 and 2018.

In the late 1980s a Department of the Environment scheme was launched to upgrade the streetscape within the Queen's Conservation Area. Work on the Botanic Gardens entrance was ongoing in June 1989 and it is likely that the remodelled gates were installed at this time. The new gates with the overthrow bearing the name "Botanic Gardens" in Art Nouveau style lettering are visible in a photograph dating from 1990–91. The original spherical lamps atop the inner piers were replaced, most likely at the same time as the gates, with lanterns in a traditional four-sided style, though these lanterns have since been removed as of 2024, leaving exposed wiring on the central piers. Cast metal replacement lights have recently been installed to complete the ensemble.

Setting

The gate screen sits at the northwest corner of Botanic Gardens, flanked on either side by extensive open railings that reinforce its prominence as the principal entry point to the park. Despite not occupying its original footprint as designed by Batt, the gate screen is an important remnant of his 1878 design and remains among the most recognisable features of this well-used public park. The high quality of the Parks Department's remodelling work in the 1980s — including the addition of the overthrow — reflects civic pride in retaining the Batt ensemble, following a similar approach to the remodelling of the Queen Mary Gardens at the Waterworks in the north of the city.