Frames Snooker Hall, 2/14 Little Donegall Street, Belfast, BT1 2JD

Frames Snooker Hall is a remarkable late Victorian and Edwardian commercial building occupying a prominent triangular island site at the junction of Little Donegall Street, Library Street and Union Street in Belfast's Scotch and Cathedral Quarter. Originally known as Library House, it was designed by William J. Fennell, a Scottish architect, for Robert Watson and Co., Cabinet Makers and Upholsterers, formerly based in Castle Place. Built in two phases between 1898 and approximately 1907, it served as a furniture showroom and manufacturing warehouse. It is considered the largest and best surviving example of a Victorian and Edwardian commercial furniture saleroom and factory in Ireland.

The building stands between four and five storeys in height and is constructed in red brick with internal cast iron or mild steel columns and riveted beams, all of which survive intact. It is clearly visible from Royal Avenue, set between the Central Library and the Belfast Telegraph offices. The building divides into three distinct but related parts: the dramatic curved eastern frontage with its conical tower, the main central block, and a five-storey rear block backing onto Union Street.

THE TURRET AND ITS FLANKING BAYS

The most prominent feature is the four-storey red brick turret on the east side, which commands the view at the Royal Avenue and Library Street junction. It is crowned by a French-style conical slated roof with a slight sprocket at the eaves, surmounted by a wooden octagonal lantern. The lantern is currently painted white but was originally brown. Its sides each contain a dummy window with depressed or three-centred heads, recessed architraves and false spandrels, designed to give the impression from the street below that they were glazed openings. Between these false windows, stepped diagonal buttresses project into the roof and are finished with scrolled copings. The lantern itself has a leaded hipped roof and a light decorative metal finial.

Immediately below the conical roof, a machicolated cornice of moulded brick runs above outward-stepped eaves. The fourth floor windows of the turret are straight-headed, while those on the third floor have cambered heads. Both floors carry brick label mouldings that link together as a continuous string course, and the sills of the fourth floor windows similarly form a moulded brick string course. Four decorative brick roundels, or paterae, are placed between the window labels at third floor level. All windows on the third and fourth floors are one-over-one sliding sashes arranged in groups of five.

At ground and first floor level, the turret retains its original large glazed shopfront windows, each with five large panes, with wooden vertical glazing bars in front of cast iron columns behind — a surviving feature from the building's original use as a furniture showroom. The present wooden glazing bars on both floors are modern replacements. The present large wooden fascia board carries the word FRAMES in large capital letters. The ground floor windows sit on a low, outward-sloping polished stone base.

To the rear of the turret on both the Library Street and Little Donegall Street elevations are two additional bays, three storeys in height, which form an integral architectural continuation of the turret composition. These bays are divided by pilasters that, unlike those of the central block, are broken by capitals at ground and first floor level and have plinths at their bases. On the Little Donegall Street elevation these pilasters are substantially broader at ground and first floor level because they flank the main entrance. The second floor windows in these flanking bays have cambered heads, one-over-one sliding sashes and brick label mouldings linked as a string course, consistent with those on the turret itself. The moulded brick sills at this level also form part of a string course running around the turret.

The bay immediately adjacent to the turret on the Library Street elevation has a large glazed shopfront window at ground floor level with three small panes and a fascia above. On the Little Donegall Street elevation, the equivalent bay similarly has a large glazed window with fascia board, while on Library Street the corresponding upper bay contains two cambered-headed one-over-one sash windows. The two ground floor bays on the Library Street front are currently plain cement-rendered and painted red. On the Little Donegall Street elevation the two ground floor bays contain the main entrance and a picture window subdivided into three units with top-hung sashes. The entrance is set back behind the pilasters and is fitted with a pair of modern double wooden doors each with a glass panel, with large glass panes above.

THE CENTRAL BLOCK

The central part of the building is three-and-a-half storeys in height, with seven bays on the Library Street elevation and eight bays on the Little Donegall Street front. On both elevations, the bays are divided by plain pilasters without capitals or plinths, each surmounted just below the eaves by a false-buttress coping. A machicolated cornice of moulded brick runs below a brick eaves, and above this a solid brick parapet is surmounted by a moulded brick coping. These eaves and cornice details run the full nine bays of the central block on both street elevations.

On the first and second floors of both the Little Donegall Street and Library Street elevations, all windows have plain cambered surrounds with sills occupying the full width between each pilaster. On the Library Street front, the windows in one bay have been replaced by pairs of modern windows at both floor levels; the bay at the western end, which rises to four storeys, lights the staircase. All ground floor bays on both elevations are cement-rendered and painted red. On the Library Street front the ground floor contains four cambered-headed windows and two doorways, with a further bay — formerly a window opening — now containing two small openings, one of which has a ventilation box. On the Little Donegall Street elevation the ground floor contains two doors, three windows lighting what is described as the Library Bar, one blank bay formerly containing a window, and one bay with a steel roll-and-shutter opening for vehicle access.

At the top of the central block, immediately adjacent to the Union Street block, a brick tower with prominent eaves was constructed around 1930 to house a lift shaft. The attic floor originally relied on skylights for natural light.

THE UNION STREET BLOCK

The five-storey rear block fronting Union Street was built approximately five years after the main block, in an identical architectural style. Its Library Street elevation is four bays wide, the Union Street rear elevation is eleven bays, and the northern Little Donegall Street front is four bays. The Little Donegall Street front is linked to the Union Street façade by a curved junction, which carries a door and a tripartite window on each level above ground floor.

The elevations of this block are crowned by a castellated brick parapet carried on a machicolated cornice of moulded brick, consistent with the detailing found elsewhere on the building. At the uppermost floor, the windows — eleven on the Union Street rear, four on the Library Street south front, three on the Little Donegall Street north front, and a tripartite window in the curved junction — are all square-headed and mostly fitted with modern side-opening casements. Moulded brick label mouldings above all these windows are linked as a continuous string course around the block. The third floor windows are taller than those above, have cambered heads (except the tripartite windows at the Little Donegall Street junction), carry no label mouldings, and mostly contain modern one-over-one sashes. Second floor windows also have cambered heads and no associated mouldings. At the Library Street end there are two picture windows, and at the corresponding end of the Union Street façade there are also two picture windows; while the window frames here are modern replacements, the openings themselves are original.

The window sills of all second floor windows are linked to form a plain projecting cornice, supported by wide brick pilasters that frame the fenestration of the ground and first floors on the south and rear fronts. Below this cornice, the first floor windows on the Union Street façade comprise five picture windows, with one rectangular cambered-headed window still in its original form. The Library Street south elevation similarly has two picture windows, all original features. On the Little Donegall Street north front there are three cambered-headed windows, and on the first and second floors one of these has a modern metal balcony.

The first floor tripartite window at the Little Donegall Street junction has polished red granite pilasters matching those that flank the door at ground floor level. These pilasters have plain cornices and plinths. The original flanking window openings at this junction are now blocked, and the former door has been replaced by modern double doors. The ground floor walls on the north, west and south sides have been cement-rendered in recent decades and are currently painted red. The three former cambered-headed window openings on the Little Donegall Street north side have been blocked. On the Union Street rear elevation, all original ground floor windows have also been blocked and the walls cement-rendered; this wall now contains three modern picture windows protected by metal grids and a centrally placed door. On the Library Street south elevation the original ground floor windows have been replaced by a door flanked by two modern picture windows with metal grill protection.

HISTORY AND LATER USE

The flat iron site has its origins in the expansion of Belfast around the 1770s and is first shown on the 1791 map of the city. The present character of the surrounding area was shaped by the creation of Royal Avenue in 1880 to 1881, a significant civic intervention by Belfast Corporation, and this building represents a secondary wave of development that followed the completion of the Royal Avenue buildings in the 1880s and early 1890s. The two-phase construction is believed to reflect the former presence of a terrace of houses along Union Street, which had to be acquired and demolished before the rear block could be built. A drawing of approximately 1898 shows the building without the Union Street block, and a photograph of around 1912 to 1914 confirms the large glazed shopfront windows on the ground and first floors of the tower with their metal supports, with Library House on the first floor fascia and Robert Watson and Co on the ground floor fascia.

Watson's eventually ceased trading after the Second World War. In the 1970s the building was acquired in poor condition by the present owners, Gracemount Enterprises, who converted it into an entertainment complex named Frames. Initially a double-doored entrance was made into the centre of the tower bow with the name Frames Snooker over the door. In the 1980s the ground floor room, which retains its notable staircase, was converted into a café, and a bar and lounge opening onto Little Donegall Street was created. By this period much of the building had been converted to snooker rooms and gaming machine areas. In the 1990s a tanning salon was installed on part of the first floor.

The building has changed comparatively little internally or externally since the Edwardian period. It is noted for its well-proportioned and well-detailed brick elevations, its survival of original cast iron or mild steel columns and riveted beams throughout the interior, and its commanding position on one of Belfast's most prominent island sites.