34 Cliftonville Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT14 6JY

34 Cliftonville Road is one half of a semi-detached pair of houses, built around 1830 to designs by Belfast architect Thomas Jackson. The building is two storeys over a basement, with an attic, and has since been refurbished to contain four self-contained apartments (numbered 34A to 34D). It forms a pair with the adjoining No. 36 Cliftonville Road.

Jackson designed and built this development after a period spent in the Regency Clifton area of Bristol, and named the estate "Cliftonville" in its honour. Numbers 34 and 36 were built as a semi-detached pair in a Greek Revival idiom and, together with a terrace of three houses at Nos. 26–30, were the earliest structures in the development and are now the only survivors of what was originally approximately six structures. The pair are more abstract and plainer in character than the terrace to the west, though they originally featured Regency ironwork porches, which have since been lost. Thomas Jackson himself lived in a house immediately to the left of Nos. 26–30, which has unfortunately not survived.

The building is rectangular on plan, facing north, with a central entrance portico on the east elevation. It sits slightly back from the street on the south side of Cliftonville Road on an urban site. A continuous walkway runs around the basement at the north, east, and south sides, enclosed by a rendered plinth surmounted by a saddleback concrete coping and galvanised steel railings.

The roof is hipped, covered in artificial slate with a leaded ridge and lead valleys. A single brick chimney stack with clay pots sits at the centre of the building, adjoining No. 36. Rainwater goods are ogee-profile uPVC, supported on broad overhanging painted eaves decorated with guttae. There is a small rooflight on the north slope.

The external walls are finished in ruled-and-lined cement render with a projecting stone stringcourse over the basement. Windows throughout are generally square-headed 6-over-6 timber sashes set within rendered reveals with painted stone sills. Attic windows are 3-over-3 timber sashes with a continuous sill course and deep blind panels between the openings.

The principal east elevation is symmetrical, with a central decorative galvanised steel portico with a hipped leaded canopy spanning the basement walkway. Within the portico is a single composite entrance door with a transom light above. Above the portico at first floor is one window. To the left and right of the central portico, there is one window at both first and second floor levels; all windows on this elevation are contained within double-height segmental-headed recesses. At attic level there are three diminished 3-over-3 timber sashes. The basement has one window on each side of the portico.

The south elevation contains two windows at each floor level, set within segmental-headed recesses at ground and first floor. There are two diminished 3-over-3 timber sashes at attic level. The basement has a window to the left and a panelled composite door to the right, with a galvanised steel gate enclosing the basement walkway at the right-hand end. The west elevation abuts No. 36. The north elevation contains two windows at each floor level within recesses as described, two windows at basement level, and two diminished 3-over-3 timber sashes at attic level.

The development of Cliftonville represented the first suburban expansion of this part of Belfast, consisting of a row of terraced and semi-detached villas facing onto what was then part of the New Lodge Road. The buildings were situated on the outskirts of the town in what would have been a largely rural landscape, dotted with the substantial houses of the well-to-do set back within spacious grounds. The structure is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–3, and the Townland Valuation of 1837 records the occupier as a Mrs Alexander, listing dimensions for the house, basement, privy, stable, and shed, with the combined valuation of the house and its neighbour assessed at £18 10s. By 1858 the Cave Hill tramway had made the area more accessible from the centre of Belfast, and a total of six structures are shown in the row, by then captioned "Cliftonville". Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 records the occupier as Catherine Miller, leasing the property, valued at £42, from Ellen Lear. The property subsequently passed to a James Watson, and in 1889 the stables and coachhouse to the rear were separated from the valuation, which consequently fell to £36. By 1901–2 Cliftonville had been overtaken by the rapid late-Victorian growth of Belfast, forming an island surrounded by red-brick terraces.

Elizabeth Jackson, daughter-in-law of Thomas Jackson, the architect of Cliftonville, was recorded as living at No. 34 with her daughters at the time of both the 1901 and 1911 censuses. She maintained a small staff of two — a cook and a housemaid — and the house, designated first class, contained eleven rooms. Mrs Jackson remained at the house until the 1920s, after which it passed to H. A. C. Griffith, a retired civil servant, remaining in the Griffith family until at least the 1980s. The building suffered severe fire damage around 2003, at which time No. 34 was still in residential use, divided into two apartments. It has since been converted into four apartments.

Despite major restoration work and the consequent loss of much historic fabric and detailing — including the original Regency ironwork porches — the building retains architectural and historic distinction and bears the hallmarks of Thomas Jackson's style. Together with No. 36, it forms an elegant group by a significant local architect. Few examples of this style survive, particularly in a group, and the building represents an early phase of speculative development aimed at the rising mercantile and professional classes of Belfast.

To the east, a tarmac drive provides access to a further three apartment blocks built around 2009. The site is enclosed at the north by brick walling with a concrete capping.