8 Lower Crescent, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NR

8 Lower Crescent is a relatively large and fine three-storey rendered town house, built in 1852 as one of a Regency-style terrace of eleven similar — though not identical — properties. It now houses offices and is partly integrated with its eastern neighbour, No. 9. The terrace, known as Lower Crescent, is situated to the east of University Road and faces, across a small public park, Upper Crescent — a similarly styled development of 1846 which, unlike Lower Crescent, is arranged in a true crescent form.

The front elevation is asymmetrical and faces roughly south. On the ground floor to the right is the entrance, comprising a four-panel timber door with a rectangular fanlight; the upper panels of the door have semicircular heads. To the left of the doorway are two tall plain sash windows. The first floor has two larger windows set on a sill course, with sash frames featuring Regency-style horizontally orientated panes in a 4-over-8 arrangement. The second floor has two much smaller windows with Georgian panes — these appear to be side-hung casements — resting on a more pronounced, cornice-like sill course with dentillations. The entire front façade is finished in plain render. There is a broad plain course above first-floor window height, and above the second-floor windows a further plain course leads up to a parapet with plain stone coping.

The rear elevation is wholly rendered. To the left-hand (east) side is a two-storey gabled return. On the first floor of the return gable there is a Georgian-paned sash window with an 8-over-8 arrangement, and to the ground floor are two small modern-looking windows. To the right, the return merges with a two-storey projection with a monopitched roof. On the north-facing rear face of this projection there is a window at first-floor level matching that on the return gable, and a plain sheeted door at ground-floor level. The inner west face of the return and the inner south face of the projection could not be observed. On the rear façade of the main house there are 6-over-6 Georgian-paned sash windows: one to the right on the first floor, another on the second floor, and a further one to the right of the second floor. Between the first and second floors on the left there is a half-landing window of the same type. The ends of two tie rods are visible between first and second-floor level at the far left and far right, with a metal beam stretched between them. The gabled roof is slated and has two small skylight windows to the rear. There is a tall rendered chimneystack to the west with projecting coping and uniform pots. Rainwater goods are a mixture of cast iron and PVC.

Historical and Urban Context

The origins of both Upper and Lower Crescent lie in the large-scale disposal of Lord Donegall's Belfast estate in the early to mid-19th century, which opened up considerable land around the town for development. The lands to the south, along the Malone Ridge, proved particularly attractive to developers, leading to the construction of numerous fine late Georgian-style terraces from the mid-1830s onwards — a trend accelerated by the establishment of the prestigious Queen's College in the area in the later 1840s. These new grand terraces were taken up by Belfast's professional and business classes, who were vacating their older residences in the town centre; those earlier properties gradually became shops and offices.

Upper Crescent was perhaps the grandest of these southern terrace developments: an elegantly curving row of three-storey dwellings in a late Regency style, built in 1846 by timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry. Its authorship is uncertain, though Dr Paul Larmour has suggested that Charles Lanyon may have been involved. Corry himself undertook the building work and took up residence in the house at the east end, and for the first few years the row was known as Corry's Crescent. To the immediate south of the Crescent, where a church and small park now stand, Corry held a large lawn as a garden. Shortly after it was laid out, however, he had it ploughed up and used for the cultivation of vegetables to relieve local workers suffering as a result of the Great Famine. To the north of the garden ran an old watercourse flowing northward into the Basin — a reservoir east of the Dublin Road — while to the east were smaller gardens belonging to other residents of the Crescent, and further east and north-east ran Albion Lane, a narrow semi-rural laneway stretching from the north end of Bradbury Place to the east end of the present University Terrace.

In 1852 Corry built a second terrace to the north of his garden, just south of the old watercourse. This new development — the erroneously named Lower Crescent — was built in much the same style as the earlier one and was occupied by a similar mix of professionals and businessmen, though by as early as 1860 the ground floors of some properties were already in use as offices. In the later 1860s a railway line was cut immediately to the north of Lower Crescent, along the line of the old watercourse. In 1873 a large sandstone building — originally the Ladies Collegiate, later Victoria College — was added to the west end of the terrace, and by the close of the decade two further houses had been added to the east end. The most easterly of these, Rivoli House, designed by William Hastings, originally contained a dance academy run by a Frederick Brouneau. The new railway line severed Albion Lane and led to the laying out of the broader new thoroughfare of Botanic Avenue.

Upper Crescent also saw further building in the 1860s and 1870s. Two large properties designed by William Hastings were erected at the west end in 1869, one of which — Crescent House, now the Bank of Ireland — also fronted onto University Road. In 1878–79 two further houses were added between those of 1869. The large Presbyterian church now known as Crescent Church was erected between 1885 and 1887 to designs by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson, on the west side of Corry's former garden, and in 1898 a two-storey terrace, the present Crescent Gardens, was built on the site of smaller garden plots at the east end.

During the first half of the 20th century most properties in Upper and Lower Crescent and Crescent Gardens remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many had been converted to business use or divided into flats, with the former Rivoli House — later known as Dreenagh House — becoming the Regency Hotel. By the beginning of the 21st century none remained in private residential use. In the mid-1990s three of the 1860s to 1870s houses at the west end of Upper Crescent were demolished and replaced with a modern office block, and in 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent was built over in preparation for a new development.

History of No. 8

No. 8 is one of the original eleven houses forming Lower Crescent. In 1858 it was occupied by one Tobias Porter, described as Belfast Flour Mills Manager, who appears to have remained there until at least 1882. In 1899 a Mrs Lyons is recorded as resident, with a Miss Lyons — possibly her daughter — in occupation from around 1910 to the 1940s. From the mid-1950s until the late 1970s, No. 8 and its eastern neighbour No. 9 together served as the canteen for the nearby Victoria College girls' school, and much of the internal alteration to both buildings most likely dates from this period. The building has housed various offices from the late 1970s onwards.