88 Lisburn Road, Belfast, BT9 6AF

88 Lisburn Road is a mid-terrace house of three storeys with attic over basement, built circa 1860–1865 as the central property of a group of three forming what was originally known as Elmwood Terrace. It sits on the southern side of the Lisburn Road at its junction with Elmwood Avenue, on the axial approach to the Queen's Conservation Area, and has group value with its two neighbours at 86 Lisburn Road and 7 Elmwood Avenue. The listing extends to include the steps, railings, retaining wall, and front boundary wall. The architect is unknown; although nearby terraces of an earlier date — Royal Terrace (1848) and Queen's Elms (1859), both now demolished — were designed by Thomas Jackson, there are no definitive stylistic indications or other surviving evidence that this terrace is also a Jackson design. Articles in the Builder and the Irish Builder that have been cited in support of Jackson as architect in fact relate to Queen's Elms.

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER

The terrace is constructed in red brick laid in Flemish bond, with chamfered brick edgings around all apertures and shallow segmental arches above each opening, formed with a soldier-course profile, over painted stone cills. Below the eaves, the walling carries a decorative raised four-course band of light grey brick in a diaper pattern. Above this sits a projecting string course of light grey brick with a continuous band of pointed dentils, and above that projecting timber eaves with metal guttering. The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. Centrally positioned on the front roofline is a barrel-vaulted roofed dormer, set to the left of a chimney stack centred on the ridge. A cast iron downpipe runs the full height of the building on the right-hand side.

The upper floors are separated from entrance level by a projecting chamfered string course. Windows throughout are painted timber-framed single-glazed sliding sash with horns. On the upper floors these are one-over-one panes, except at the top floor where the arrangement is two-over-one. Ground-floor windows, vertically aligned with the outer edges of the windows above, consist of a pair of one-over-one painted timber-framed single-glazed sliding sash windows with horns.

The recessed entrance doorway — the current painted double doors being a recent intervention — is coupled with the entrance to number 86, the two being mirrored on a circular stone column with a square plinth and shaft adorned with a floriated capital. A communal stone step approach is provided with a railing guard, the vertical rails topped with gold-painted fleur-de-lis and featuring decorative circular rings at mid-point. Below, a brick-faced basement lightwell contains two six-over-three painted single-glazed sliding sash windows with painted stone cills.

The rear elevation retains the same natural slate roof. A cat-slide roof covers a small full-height rear return, built at half-landing level, with a modern rooflight inserted on the bottom right-hand side of the main roof adjacent to a rendered rear chimney stack. The rear walling is red brick in common bond. Fenestration to the main rear block consists of six-over-six painted timber sliding sash windows with shallow flush brick arches above, diminishing in height from ground to second floor; the ground-floor windows have vertical metal grilles fixed externally. At basement level, the walls are white painted render with a single six-over-six painted single-glazed sliding sash window and external grille bars. The rear extension has a three-over-three painted timber sliding sash window at the top floor.

The building retains a notable level of historic fabric both internally and externally, including good brick detailing, historic sash windows, the staircase, plasterwork, good joinery, the basement arrangement with stone steps, original metal railings, and the front boundary wall in brick with stone-dressed copings.

SETTING

Number 88 occupies the central position in the terrace and, together with its neighbours, is aligned parallel to the Lisburn Road, forming part of the approach to the Queen's Conservation Area. The survival of the original railings defining the lightwells, together with the original brick boundary walls to the Lisburn Road complete with copings and an entrance gate, is rare. A traditional tiled Belfast street sign for Elmwood Avenue, likely dating to circa 1910, is mounted on the boundary wall. The boundary wall has been partially removed on the Elmwood Avenue side but otherwise remains in its original position, with openings as depicted on the 1873 large-scale map. A row of trees shown on the 1884 map in front of the terrace is maintained in a similar position within the property boundary today. All Souls Church, a grade B+ listed building, is located to the rear.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The terrace was built on land forming part of the grounds of Elmwood, a mansion owned by Edward Harris Clarke, a barrister, Justice of the Peace for County Antrim, and co-director of the Belfast Banking Company. Clarke had trained at Trinity College Dublin, was called to the bar in 1834, and retired from practice in 1841. He initially entered into an industrial partnership with Narcissus Batt of Purdysburn and his nephew Samuel Batt in chemical works at Ballymacarett, before moving into banking in 1851 as co-director, with his fellow barrister Arthur Sharman Crawford, of the Belfast Banking Company, retiring in 1880 due to failing eyesight.

The site had an earlier history: the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33 shows a small house within landscaped grounds planted with trees, with a curving driveway opening at one end onto University Road and at the other onto the Lisburn Road. According to Carleton, this early house dated from circa 1790, and it was Clarke who rebuilt it in 1856–58, his classical mansion named Elmwood surviving until the mid-20th century.

The Belfast Bank suffered a partial run in the closing months of 1857, following a severe crash in Scottish banking. Subsequent to these events — though whether there is a direct connection is unclear — Clarke leased a portion of his land facing University Road to Thomas Gaffikin, a linen merchant, who built a terrace of seven dwellings known as Queen's Elms, completed in 1859. This development cut off the direct access from Elmwood to University Road. Clarke's apparent reluctance is hinted at by his stipulation that a row of fine old elms should be allowed to remain; a row of trees was indeed still present in front of the terrace when Queen's Elms was demolished in the 1960s.

Elmwood Terrace was the second terrace to be built within the grounds of Elmwood. Valuation records indicate that it was built on land leased from Clarke, most likely by Clarke himself, before being acquired by James Jenkins — the proprietor of a loan office and pawnbroking business in Mill Street and Marquis Street until his retirement circa 1870, the owner of several Belfast properties, and noted as the immediate lessor of the terrace in early valuation records. Following retirement, Jenkins became a member of Belfast Corporation, chairman of its Sanitary Committee, a Water Commissioner, a Justice of the Peace, and a Poor Law Guardian. His son, William Alexander Jenkins, went on to live in the end terrace at 7 Elmwood Avenue for over forty years.

Early valuation records are undated, but Carleton gives a completion date of 1865, consistent with the first newspaper mention of Elmwood Terrace in 1866. Two houses are listed in the 1865 street directory, one vacant and one occupied by Colonel Campbell, suggesting the row was only partially complete at that time. Numbers 86–88 were initially valued at £43 and number 7 at £56; valuations were subsequently reduced to £40, £40, and £50 in 1881, then raised again before being lowered to £45 and £50 following an appeal. The newly-built terrace was decorated with flags for the visit of Prince Arthur, third son of Queen Victoria, in 1869, as reported in the Northern Whig of 3rd May of that year.

The terrace was never completed — as evidenced by the hanging fireplaces visible on the north-east elevation of number 86 — and the unfinished gable speaks to the history of the Elmwood estate. The original intention may have been to build across the full width of the estate to form a terrace of similar scale to Queen's Elms, but this would have blocked the access driveway from the Lisburn Road to the rear stableyard of Elmwood. The driveway featured a gate lodge surrounded by trees; Clarke appears to have chosen to retain this rear access after losing the front driveway when Queen's Elms was built. The gate lodge was demolished and the driveway and most of the trees removed between 1884 and 1902, changes that may have been made only after Clarke's death in 1889, by which point the impetus to complete the terrace had long faded. The reasons for not completing the terrace are not made explicit in any surviving records.

The first long-term resident recorded at number 88 was Richard Bell, a Quaker and formerly a partner in Messrs Thomas Bell and Co of Bellevue, Lurgan, a producer of cambric handkerchiefs by handloom, where he had managed the foreign department and particularly the American trade. He moved to Belfast with his wife Margaret and their sons Richard Bell junior, a stockbroker, and Andrew Lockhart Bell, circa 1870. Following the deaths of Richard Bell, his son, and his wife over successive years, the house was vacated by 1898 and advertised to let. The advertisement noted it had been newly papered and painted and that it overlooked the grounds of the Deaf and Dumb Institution, a Lanyon-designed building of 1845 subsequently demolished in 1963. The accommodation at that time comprised a dining room, drawing room, six bedrooms, a cloakroom, lavatory, two pantries, and a bathroom.

The next long-term residents, from 1909 to 1928, were the Lefèvre family. At the time of the 1911 census, the household comprised Mary Lefèvre, aged 51, her two sisters, and her brother Charles, a linen yarn agent; the three sisters were all dressmakers and employed a general domestic servant. Despite their French surname, all four had been born in Belfast, though they had previously lived in and around Newry, where their parents Jean Baptiste Gustave Lefèvre and his wife Lucy also lived. Gustave had worked as a traveller and foreign correspondent for the Bessbrook Spinning Mills in 1890, indicating a role as a travelling salesman, possibly to French-speaking markets. Charles had represented Bessbrook at cricket and rugby in the 1880s and 1890s. Both parents had died shortly before the siblings came to Belfast. Charles Lefèvre served as a Captain in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers during the First World War and afterwards was active in the welfare of ex-servicemen, holding a seat on the War Pensions Committee and supporting philanthropic organisations helping former soldiers. He was also well known in rugby circles as one of the best-known referees in Ireland, appointed on several occasions to referee international matches.

The house was again advertised to let after the Lefèvre family vacated it in 1928, the advertisement specifying that it would suit a doctor or dentist. The next long-term tenant, from 1934 to 1957, was T G Bennett, a painter. At the time of the 1934 revaluation the house was recorded as having four reception rooms, four bedrooms, two attics, a kitchen, scullery, pantry, three WCs, and a bathroom. The valuer described it as a very old large house in fairly good repair for its age but a difficult property to let, and noted a three-and-a-half-storey main block with basement, a small four-storey-with-basement return, and an attached single-storey outbuilding or coal house, now demolished.

As the character of the Lisburn Road began to change, the house was converted to office use by the late 1950s. The first commercial occupants were the Northern Counties Life Assurance Co; by 1970 the building served as area offices for several meat processing firms including Denny and Co, and in the mid-1970s it was occupied by Crampton (NI) Ltd, a building firm.

A photograph of 1985 shows that the front door was originally recessed, occupying the position of the inner door today; the outer door and fanlight are recent additions, and an extra step has been inserted at the top of the flight of steps leading to the front door.

The terrace is of a style characteristic of its mid-Victorian date. Its decorative cornices, doorways, ironwork, segmental window heads, and barrel-roofed dormers distinguish it from terraces of an earlier era, while the overall composition remains restrained when compared to later Victorian designs. It has survived in an area where several terraces of similar age have been lost, including Queen's Elms, Royal Terrace, Cranbrook Terrace, and the northern portion of Wilmont Terrace. Although some original features have been lost — notably the original front doors and some internal elements — the windows, ironwork, and much of the internal detailing survive. The state of preservation is overall unusually good, and the building contributes significantly to the local streetscape and to the visual coherence of this stretch of the Lisburn Road.