'Charles Tennant & Co Ltd.', 46-64 Ravenhill Road, Belfast, Co Down, BT6 8EB

Charles Tennant & Co Ltd, Ravenhill Road, Belfast

A large two-storey corrugated metal-clad warehouse and office building with a double curved Belfast Truss roof. The building was constructed between 1902 and 1905 and was originally used as a timber warehouse by the Baltic Timber Co. It underwent comprehensive remodelling in the 1990s, after which the façade became wholly modern in appearance, though the impressive Belfast Trusses remain seemingly intact beneath.

The building is situated on the east side of the northern end of Ravenhill Road, to the east of Belfast city centre. It is roughly rectangular in plan but with the east elevation skewed, measuring approximately 36.2 metres by 72 metres. The west elevation is gabled and features a tall recent brick base rising almost a full storey in height, with the remainder of the façade in corrugated metal. A very large vehicle opening with a roller shutter occupies the far left of this elevation. To the right are two pairs of very large circular windows with plain glazing, followed by a two-storey-high mainly glazed opening that incorporates a glazed pedestrian doorway at ground level. Modern dome-capped 'buttress'-type features have been added to this west-facing gabled elevation.

The long south elevation is wholly clad in corrugated metal. To the far left are two pairs of windows with modern frames, the right-hand pair being larger than those to the left. A very large vehicle opening with roller shutter lies to the right of these windows, and another similar opening is positioned to the far right. The north and east elevations are abutted by other structures. The double curved roof is covered in corrugated metal.

The Belfast Truss, which supports this roof, was developed in the mid-nineteenth century to meet the demand for efficient, lightweight and long-span roofs brought about by the industrial revolution. The first known reference to a curved wooden felted roof structure supported by bowstring girders appears in a Dublin Builder advertisement from 1866 by the Belfast firm of felt-makers McTear & Co., who continued manufacturing trusses until 1908. A second Belfast felt supplier, Anderson & Co., began producing trusses to a slightly different design in 1886, launching their Mark II version in 1896, which was promoted as maximising long spans whilst maintaining light weight. This model was subsequently adopted by other companies and is historically referred to as the Belfast truss, a term widely applied to all timber bowstring trusses where the internal bracing members meet on the top curved member rather than on the bottom, as was conventional practice.