58 Wellington Place, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 6GF

58 Wellington Place, Belfast

This is a terraced four-storey rendered former townhouse, built around 1825–1830, forming part of a rare surviving late-Georgian terrace in the heart of Belfast city centre. The building is rectangular in plan, facing north onto Wellington Place, and is particularly notable for its elaborately decorative Art Nouveau shopfront and first-floor window surround, inserted around 1900. Together with its neighbours, it represents a building type once commonly found throughout central Belfast but now extremely rare; comparable surviving examples include a four-storey terrace on Chichester Street and two three-storey terraces on Joy Street and Hamilton Street.

Architectural Description

The natural slate roof sits behind a blocking course and eaves cornice, with cement ridge tiles and a replacement profiled red brick chimneystack with clay pots to the west party wall. The external walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined cement render with painted rusticated quoins. Window openings are square-headed with architrave surrounds, concrete sills and timber casement windows dating from around 1900.

The four-storey north elevation is two windows wide. At first-floor level, a full-span thermal window is formed in deeply moulded gauged red brick with decorative panelled sandstone keystones. Above this, a large modillioned sandstone cornice over a pulvinated frieze is flanked by a pair of obelisk finials rising from corbelled and fluted shafts, with mosaic-tiled spandrel panels completing the composition. The ground floor retains the original tripartite fixed-pane timber display window with slender colonettes to the mullions.

The Art Nouveau shopfront, designed by architect William J. W. Roome (1865–1937), projects forward with curved corners and is surmounted by a decorative pulvinated frieze, a fluted lead-lined cornice, and a central square panel framing a decorative disc depicting musical instruments. To the right, a recessed square-headed door opening provides access to the upper floors; it has an early 20th-century timber panelled and glazed door with a rectangular overlight, opening onto a terrazzo-tiled area.

The east side elevation is abutted by an adjoining infill building. The rear elevation was not inspected. The west side elevation abuts the adjoining building at Nos 60–69 Wellington Place.

Historical Background

Wellington Place was laid out in the 1790s as a street of superior terraces, named after the Duke of Wellington, who spent part of his youth in Belfast. By 1822 it was the most densely populated residential area of the city, favoured by doctors and other professionals. The terrace to which No. 58 belongs was constructed between approximately 1822 and 1832–33: it does not appear on a map of Belfast included in George Benn's The History of the Town of Belfast (1823), which shows the Royal Belfast Academical Institution as lying at the western limit of the town with few surrounding buildings, but both the Wellington Place and College Square East terraces are clearly depicted on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33. Nos 58–64 Wellington Place are surviving remnants of what was originally a much longer Georgian terrace extending from Donegall Square, forming part of the westward expansion of Belfast in the late-Georgian period and intended as residential dwellings lining the approach to the newly laid out College Square. The remainder of the terrace, which formerly extended eastwards from No. 58 to Upper Queen Street, was destroyed during the 1970s as a consequence of the Troubles.

At the time of the Townland Valuation of the late 1830s, No. 58 was occupied by a Mr. James and William Cochrane and valued at £27. By 1843 it was the residence of Mr. Thomas Greer of Thomas Greer and Sons, a wholesale woollen, Manchester and printed calico business operating from Rosemary Street. Greer's tenure was brief, and by 1852 the building was occupied by Dr. William Moffat, a surgeon. Griffith's Valuation of 1860 recorded that No. 58, like most of the terrace, was by then leased from the representatives of the estate of a Mr. James Blair, and that the building's value had risen to £34. By the 1860s, Dr. Moffat had been succeeded by George V. Magenis, a solicitor, who remained until around 1872.

In 1872, Matthew Crymble — a pianoforte and musical instrument seller — took over the premises and converted the former private dwelling into commercial use, raising the site's value to £43. The building was not recorded in either the 1901 or 1911 Census of Ireland, having by then ceased to function as a private residence. Two decades after taking over No. 58, Crymble also acquired No. 14 College Square East, which backed onto his Wellington Place property, using it as a warehouse while the main shop remained at No. 58.

Around 1900, while the property was owned by a Ms. Emma White (recorded as lessor), improvement works were carried out and the Art Nouveau shopfront was added. The Belfast Revaluation of 1900 noted the building was in the process of being improved at the time of inspection, and its value was subsequently increased to £120, with Crymble paying annual rent of over £60. Most published sources date the shopfront to 1903, though the valuation evidence suggests work was underway as early as 1900. The value was slightly reduced to £110 at some point between 1906 and 1914, with no further recorded alterations before the Annual Revisions were cancelled in 1930.

By 1935, the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland recorded that Matthew Crymble Ltd had purchased No. 58 outright, with the shop, showrooms and music studios on the second and third floors valued at £262. The terrace survived the destruction of much of Belfast city centre during the Blitz of 1941. By the time of the Second General Revaluation, commencing in 1956, little had changed at the site; the building's value continued to increase, reaching £400 by the end of that revaluation in 1972.

The Art Nouveau Shopfront

The shopfront was designed by William J. W. Roome (1865–1937), an English architect who moved to Belfast in 1895 and established an independent practice in 1897. Roome worked closely with Belfast developer and philanthropist A. W. Vance, for whom he constructed several buildings and for whose Homes of Rest organisation he served as secretary. Vance owned the adjoining Nos 60–64 Wellington Place, making it probable that the alterations to Crymble's shop were carried out with Vance's involvement or financial assistance, even though Vance did not own No. 58 himself.

Architectural historian Seán Rothery has noted that the shopfront displays many of the characteristic influences of the Art Nouveau movement and the period's search for novelty and richness in decoration, pointing in particular to the use of copper — a material capable of being worked with intricate designs — as primarily decorative. Hugh Dixon has similarly observed that the shopfront combines a range of typically novel Art Nouveau features including curving lines, cheerful colour and clear lettering, while Marcus Patton described it as "the very epitome of aestheticism."

The copper lettering formerly read "M. CRYMBLE LTD. MUSIC DEPOT." Matthew Crymble's music shop continued to trade until the 1970s: a survey photograph from 1974 shows the business still operating, while a photograph from 1975 records its closure after more than a century at this address. The building was listed in 1976. In recent years it has been reoccupied, with the ground floor in use as a café and the upper floors as a tattoo studio. The copper lettering has been painted over in a colourful manner considered sympathetic to the aesthetic principles of the Art Nouveau movement, and the shopfront overall has been well maintained.

Setting

The building terminates a terrace of houses lining the south side of Wellington Place. It forms part of a group with the contemporary Nos 60–64 Wellington Place and Nos 14–16 College Square East.