44 Hamilton Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT2 8LP

44 Hamilton Street is a terraced two-bay, three-storey redbrick late-Georgian townhouse, built around 1835 as one of a uniform terrace of six similar houses lining the south side of Hamilton Street in Belfast city centre. It is one of the finest surviving examples of late-Georgian terraced housing in central Belfast, described in 1971 by architectural historian C. E. B. Brett as forming part of "the best example left in the city of late-Georgian Belfast."

The street was developed on reclaimed land to the south-east of Belfast's town centre, land created by the construction of a paper mill dam along the Blackstaff River at the junction of what is now Ormeau Avenue and Cromac Street. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33 shows that numbers 36–40 of the terrace had been built by that date, with numbers 42–46 constructed soon afterwards. The street takes its name from the family name of the Dukes of Abercorn, who resided at the now-demolished number 3 Hamilton Street from 1818. Hamilton Street originally attracted high-ranking merchant-class residents, many of them employed in the newspaper and printing trade, but by the 1850s the area had become more distinctly working class as businessmen relocated to grander houses in the Belfast suburbs. The neighbouring Joy Street saw several of its larger houses converted to lodging and boarding houses serving students at Queen's College, established in 1849, while the majority of houses on Hamilton Street were maintained as private dwellings.

By 1852, the Belfast Street Directories recorded the terrace under a different numbering system (nos. 24–34), with number 44 occupied by a Ms. Mary Clarke, who was recorded as leasing the house from the owner Elisha Crawford. Crawford also owned the rest of the terrace. At the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1859, the valuer classified number 44 as a B+ class dwelling — described as "not new but in sound repair" — measuring 6 by 7½ yards and valued at £16. Clarke continued to reside at the address until around 1906, though annual revision records show the property was also in the possession of Mr. Alex Crawford, a house and land agent, in 1877, and Mr. W. Marshall, a linen pressman, in 1880. By 1901, the house was occupied by a Jewish family from Poland: Simon Levy, a tailor, and his wife Eva, both originally born in Poland, lived there with their six children, all of whom had been born in England, the oldest around 1878. The 1901 Census Building Return described the house as a second-class dwelling consisting of six inhabited rooms. Ownership of the entire terrace, with the exception of number 46, passed to a Captain E. Gibbons around 1906, who continued to own the terrace until at least the 1970s. The Levy family had vacated the house by 1907, when a Mrs. Elizabeth Rafferty took possession, and by the 1911 Census the house was recorded as vacant. It was reoccupied sometime before 1918 by Mr. Bernard McShane, a clerk, who remained until around 1950. In 1935, under the first general revaluation of property in Northern Ireland, the rateable value of number 44 was raised to £19 10s. During the Second World War, Hamilton Street was badly damaged in the Belfast Blitz, when the Luftwaffe targeted the nearby shipyard industries and many houses along the street were lost. Numbers 36–46 were repaired and subsequently included in the second general revaluation of Northern Ireland property from 1956, at which point number 44's value was raised to £21, where it remained until the end of the revaluation project in 1972. After McShane's departure, the house passed to a Mr. and Mrs. Duffy, and by 1970 it was occupied by Mr. Hugh O'Neill, a bus conductor. O'Neill remained until the 1980s, when the entire terrace was vacated and fell into a state of dilapidation. Many of the remaining houses on Hamilton Street, extending around into Catherine Street North and Joy Street, were demolished in 1988. Between 1988 and 1990, the Hearth Revolving Fund restored numbers 36–46, retaining only the exterior walls and adding a new running bay at the rear. This restoration, while carried out sensitively in terms of external appearance, resulted in the loss of the original interior features. The house was listed in 1985 along with the rest of the terrace and continues to be occupied.

Externally, the building retains much of its historic fabric and late-Georgian detailing. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, with shared redbrick chimneystacks to either end of the terrace fitted with clay pots. Cast-iron guttering runs along a stepped redbrick eaves course, with cast-iron downpipes. The walls are laid in Flemish bond redbrick with a rendered plinth course. Window openings are square-headed with painted masonry sills and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows.

The three-storey, two-bay front elevation features a front railed area. The entrance is an off-centre, round-headed door opening with a moulded surround, flat-panelled pilasters to either side, a stepped lintel cornice, and a decorative fanlight above. The replacement timber panelled door opens onto a concrete platform with two nosed steps, flanked by a low rendered plinth wall and replacement iron railings enclosing a small paved front area. The east side elevation abuts the adjoining number 42 and the west side elevation abuts number 46.

The two-bay, three-storey rear elevation is abutted by a single-storey lean-to extension spanning the entire terrace. Camber-headed brick arches light the rear windows, which are irregularly placed to serve rooms to the right and half-landings to the left. A bipartite 6/6 timber sash window lights the lean-to, which also has a single timber glazed door opening onto a communal rear surface-dressed parking area. This yard is accessed via pairs of tall timber sheeted gates at either end of the terrace, supported on pairs of tall redbrick piers with redbrick screen walls and concrete copings.

Number 44 contributes significant group value to the terrace as a whole, retaining the style and proportions of this rare surviving run of late-Georgian terraced housing in the centre of Belfast.