13-17 Grosvenor Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 5HD

This six-storey terraced building at numbers 13-17 Grosvenor Road is a symmetrical brick and stone commercial structure dating from 1910, designed by the notable architect James A Hanna. It forms part of a major complex of four similar warehouse buildings (referenced as HB26/50/303A-D) that reflect the significant growth of the textile industry in early 20th-century Belfast.

The building is constructed of machine-made red brick laid in English garden wall bond, with decorative sandstone detailing in a loosely Jacobethan idiom. The rectangular plan faces south onto Grosvenor Road, with a shopfront at ground floor level. The roof sits behind a red brick parapet wall with sandstone coping.

The symmetrical front elevation is five windows wide with shallow breakfronts at either end. Square-headed window openings are framed in sandstone with moulded sandstone sills; the current windows are uPVC replacements. The first, second and third floor windows are tripartite, as is the fourth floor window, which comprises a series of columns with cushion capitals resting on a single bracketed sill course with frieze and cornice above. A deep cornice runs over the fourth floor, rising as a scrolled pediment to the centre where raised digits mark '1910'. Two-tier canted oriel windows feature on both breakfronts, with voussoired sandstone oval window openings at attic level containing four keystones; that to the top rises above the parapet with a curvilinear parapet to the left only.

The ground floor has a painted sandstone ashlar shopfront with fascia and cornice, surmounted by steel roller-shutters. A round-headed door opening to the right has a deeply coved and quoined surround with replacement hardwood doors, a scrolled timber head and spoked fanlight. The central keystone is surmounted by a grotesque scrolled keystone, with a further pair of larger scrolled keystones to either side featuring Celtic knotwork carvings and supporting the cornice above.

The west side elevation fronts onto Athol Street and is nine windows wide, with largely tripartite window openings, flush concrete sills and continuous flush concrete lintel courses. The north rear elevation is abutted by the adjoining building at number 6 Murray Street (HB26/50/303C). The east side elevation is blank to the south with red brick walling and flush concrete courses, whilst the north end features glazed white brick walling with largely tripartite window openings.

The building was constructed in 1910-11 for the County Down Weaving Company Ltd as a warehouse with offices. It entered valuation records in 1912 valued at £760, incorporating two ground floor shops valued separately at £33 and £29. The County Down Weaving Company occupied the upper floors through the 1920s. By 1930 the building was taken over by Belfast Collar Co Ltd, manufacturers of Faulat and Falcon collars, followed by William Strain & Sons, printers, who occupied the premises from around 1940 to around 1975. Ground floor shops were let to various tenants including F W Jeffers, a linen manufacturer, and Marcantonio's ice-cream saloon, subsequently to a series of confectioners and a house furnisher. In 1945 the shops were used as an evacuation hostel; from the 1960s they housed a car parts business and in the 1990s an electrical wholesalers. The two former shops were converted into a single premises around 1970 and are now occupied by a bridal store.

Although the loss of original windows compromises the external appearance, much historic fabric survives with distinctive decorative stone detailing. This complex represents work by an architect of note and among the most interesting commercial buildings of the Edwardian era and the years immediately following, reflecting both the growth of the textile industry in early twentieth-century Belfast and the later changes in use to office and public administration as industrial circumstances in the city centre evolved.

The building fronts onto Grosvenor Road with a car park to the east shared with adjoining buildings (HB26/50/303A, B and C). It is located within a conservation area.