70 Donegall Pass, Belfast, County Antrim, BT7 1BU

70 Donegall Pass is a three-storey, two-bay mid-terrace early Victorian townhouse built around 1845, forming part of a group of listed buildings on Donegall Pass in south Belfast, east of Shaftesbury Square and adjacent to St Mary Magdalene Church. Originally a private residence, it has since been converted to office use, with interventions that have been largely sympathetic to the historic character of the building. The exterior retains much of its original fabric and late Victorian detailing, and the interior layout and features of interest remain largely unaltered despite modest modification.

Architectural Description

The building has a square plan with a two-storey rear return. It faces south, with an asymmetrically arranged principal elevation. The roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles, overhanging eaves with timber soffits and paired eaves brackets, and cast-iron rainwater goods including semi-circular gutters and circular downpipes. A brick chimney stack is fitted with replacement clay pots, and replacement galvanised rainwater goods serve the rear.

The walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond. The ground floor is finished with ruled-and-lined render, and long-and-short quoins appear to the right of the front elevation. The rear elevation and gable are finished in smooth render.

Windows are timber sliding sash with horns: 6/6 pane to the principal floors and 6/3 pane elsewhere. They sit beneath flat arches with painted masonry cills, with continuous cills at first-floor level. The front entrance is positioned to the left of the principal elevation and is reached by four steps. The door itself is a four-panel raised-and-fielded bolection-moulded panelled door with a margin-paned overlight. It is flanked by panelled pilasters rising to foliated console brackets that support a moulded canopy surmounted by stuccowork. There are two windows at each of the ground, first, and second floor levels on the front elevation.

The left gable abuts the adjoining number 68 Donegall Pass, and the right gable is blank. The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged, with a margin-paned sash window to the left at ground-floor level. Upper-floor windows match those on the principal elevation. A two-storey return abuts the right side, with various openings to its east cheek, a ground-floor door at the gable end, and a landing window over the return.

Setting

The building sits within a terrace, flanked on both sides by adjoining properties. To the front is a paved area used as a private car park; the rear has a tarmac yard enclosed by a palisade gate. The surrounding area is principally two- and three-storey residential buildings from various periods. The former School of Music sits opposite on the south side of the street, and St Mary Magdalene Church lies to the west. Number 70 contributes positively to the group of listed buildings of which it forms part, retaining the style, proportions, and detailing of the wider terrace.

History

The terrace, formerly known as Apsley Place, was built in 1846 in what was then a sparsely developed part of the growing town of Belfast. Donegall Pass had been laid out by the late 18th century across a heavily wooded area used as a deer park by the Donegall family, Belfast's principal landowners at the time. The architectural historian Brett has argued that Donegall Pass and the Ormeau Road were laid out as carriage drives through these woodland estates, and that it was not until the Donegalls' grip on their pleasure grounds began to loosen in the 1820s that building in the area was permitted. By 1823, the land on the north side of Donegall Pass had passed to Henry Joy, proprietor of the Belfast Newsletter and an active figure in the political life of the town. The construction of the gas works to the east in 1823 probably helped stimulate development in the area. At the time Apsley Place was built in the mid-19th century, it was one of a handful of terrace developments along the Pass to the north, while the land to the south was largely occupied by substantial villas set in spacious grounds.

The developer of the terrace was Thomas Gaffikin (1809–93), a farmer's son and butcher who built several other terraces in south Belfast. Gaffikin himself lived at number 70, and later at number 56 Apsley Place, from its construction until he moved to a new terrace he had built at Queen's Elms, where he remained for the rest of his life. He subsequently became the proprietor of a linen and linen-yarn business and served as a town councillor for Cromac and then St George's Ward. He left an important historical record in the form of his 1875 lecture entitled "Belfast Fifty Years Ago", which gives a vivid account of the social life of early 19th-century Belfast.

The houses were occupied over the years by a succession of tenants reflecting the range of occupations available to the middle and petty bourgeois classes during Belfast's period of most rapid expansion. Early residents tended to be wealthy business proprietors or gentlemen, but as the merchant class gradually moved out of Belfast to the more comfortable surroundings of North Down and elsewhere, the tenantry shifted perceptibly towards the well-to-do petty bourgeoisie. The censuses of 1901 and 1911 show that by the early 20th century some tenants were wealthy enough to employ a domestic servant, while others supplemented their income by keeping boarders.

The recorded sequence of residents at number 70 begins with Thomas Gaffikin himself from 1846 to 1849. He was followed by Edward Masson, described as a professor, in 1850, and Alex Knox, gentleman, in 1852. At the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1859, the house was occupied by Jane Knox, leased from Thomas Gaffikin, valued at £27, and recorded as three storeys in height. Subsequent tenants included Alexander Malcolmson and then Mrs Ellen Malcolmson from 1863 to 1865, followed by William McCleery by 1870, who, with his two daughters, had become beneficiaries of the will of Mary Ann McCracken, the radical and philanthropist. Later occupants included Miss Joyce in 1877, Thomas Shields, a lithographer, in 1884, Mrs Orr in 1890, and W. Smyth, a clothier, in 1896.

At the time of the 1901 census, the house was home to widow Sarah Greene, her four daughters, a son, and a niece, all from Seaforde, Dundrum, and Newcastle. Three of the daughters worked as teachers, the fourth as a clerk, the son as a fitter, and the niece also taught. By 1911 the house had been taken over by the Ross family: John Ross, a commercial traveller in grocery, lived there with his wife and their ten children, the older children working as an embroidery overseer, a milliner, a tailoress, and a dairy shop helper. Robert Burns was resident from 1916 to 1935. The house has since been converted for use as offices.