31-39 Royal Avenue, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 1FD

Royal Chambers, 31–39 Royal Avenue, Belfast

Royal Chambers is a four-storey, six-bay red-brick building in the Italianate style, erected around 1882 to designs by the architectural firm Young and Mackenzie. The practice was formed by Robert Young and John Mackenzie in 1868 and, by the early 20th century, had grown into the most successful architectural practice in Belfast, receiving some of the city's most important commercial commissions. In the same year they designed Royal Chambers, they also completed the nearby 65–73 Royal Avenue. The building was one of the first premises to open on the newly created Royal Avenue boulevard and was originally owned by Sir Robert J. McConnell (1853–1927), a local estate agent and politician who served as Lord Mayor of Belfast between 1900 and 1901.

Royal Avenue itself was laid out in 1880–81 by the surveyor J. C. Bretland, a process that involved relocating approximately 4,000 people and demolishing nearly all pre-existing buildings along the line of the old Hercules Street and Hercules Place. The resulting long open boulevard now runs from Donegall Square to York Street. The only building to survive that clearance was the former Provisional Bank of Ireland, which still occupies the original line of Hercules Place and consequently sits further back from the street than its neighbours.

Royal Chambers is narrow and rectangular on plan, with a wider gabled section to the north and a distinctive curved bay at the southern end embracing the junction with Rosemary Street. This curved corner makes the building a notable focal point when viewed from the south along Royal Avenue and from the east. Together with the adjoining terrace to the north at Nos. 41–51 Royal Avenue, the matching cornice lines, dormer heights and overall proportions reflect the development controls that governed the early build-out of the street, creating a cohesive yet varied historic streetscape.

The building is of frame construction, with walls of red brick laid in Flemish bond and sandstone and stucco dressings with classical ornamentation. The principal façade faces west and is five openings wide, largely symmetrical across the upper levels. Advancing brick piers divide each bay, rising from the first-floor cill course through three storeys to carry the eaves cornice. At third-floor level the windows are round-arched, with enlarged keystones to moulded heads and brick pilasters between them. At first and second floor, the windows are square-headed and framed by panelled pilasters with embellished capitals, supporting the deep cill course of the window above. These cill courses are decorated with an array of swags, shields, and foliated motifs. All windows appear to be metal-framed replacements, arranged in vertical pairs within each bay.

The roofline is articulated by six stucco-faced wall-head dormers, one centred above each bay, with pitched slate roofs, pairs of diminutive round-arched windows with wavy pediments, and ball finials at the apex. There is a pitched slate roof over the two northern bays, a narrower pitched slate roof to the south, and a brick parapet to the west elevation. Two plain rendered chimneys sit on the west side of the ridgeline. Replacement metal ogee rainwater goods are mounted on a heavily moulded and projecting cornice at eaves level.

The ground floor contains a number of shop units, all with modern aluminium and glazed frontages. The far-right unit is clad in modern porcelain panels, though some original polished granite pilasters remain visible beneath. The curved southern bay is detailed in the same manner as the west elevation bays, except that the windows are blocked; the central shield above the first-floor window on this bay bears the date 1882.

The north elevation abuts the adjoining terrace. The east (rear) elevation is largely obscured by neighbouring buildings; the centre and left-hand portions are blank and are abutted by a two-storey commercial building fronting Rosemary Street. The projecting northern section is two bays wide, with its south gable blank; the main section of this elevation contains a single attic dormer that has been converted into a doorway with modern fire-escape stairs attached, along with a number of vertically aligned window openings to the upper floors. The remaining portions of the east elevation are obscured.

When originally completed, Royal Chambers contained four to five ground-floor retail units with office space above, and had a total rateable value of £444. Among its earliest tenants were Sir Robert McConnell's own estate agency and auction market, Noblett's confectioners, a Miss Grant's newsagents, and — by 1897 — the Belfast offices of both the Great Northern Railway Company and the Great Central Railway Company of England. The upper floors housed a variety of accountancy and insurance firms, as well as the private office of portrait painter Harry Douglas, the workshop of designer William Moyes, and the studio of engraver D. Craig. By 1910 the railway companies had moved on and the vacated ground-floor units were taken by jewellery dealers. By 1918 a local architect, W. J. Moore, and the linen manufacturer G. C. Mitchell Ltd. had taken space on the upper floors. At the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935 the total assessed value had risen to £1,495; by the Second General Revaluation of 1956–72 it had reached £3,018. By the end of that revaluation period, ground-floor tenants included Concord Travel Co. and the Woolwich Equitable Building Society. Sir Robert McConnell's estate offices, among the building's longest-running occupants, ceased operating around 1960.

The building stands on the eastern side of Royal Avenue, directly fronting one of the main commercial thoroughfares of Belfast city centre. The curved southern bay meets the pedestrianised Rosemary Street, where its height contrasts sharply with the two- and three-storey buildings lining that secondary street, making Royal Chambers visually dominant at the junction. Nearby historic buildings include the adjoining terrace at Nos. 41–51 Royal Avenue and, a short distance to the east, Rosemary Street First Presbyterian Church. Royal Chambers was listed in 1996.