286 Tennent Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT13 3GG

286 Tennent Street is a three-storey terraced brick house built between 1907 and 1909, designed by the Belfast architectural partnership of Robert Hill and Edwin Kennedy. It sits on the western side of Tennent Street in the Shankill area of Belfast, between the Crumlin and Shankill Roads. The building forms part of Edenderry Terrace, a group of similar houses (recorded together as a group) constructed by the Edenderry Spinning Company, whose mill formerly occupied the land immediately to the west. Though the terrace as a whole demonstrates characteristic features of the Arts and Crafts movement — including dormers, bay windows, roughcast render and an irregular roofline — the group has suffered from inappropriate incremental changes that have seriously compromised its historic fabric and detailing. As a result, it is no longer considered of special architectural or historic interest and was delisted in August 2015.

The house is asymmetrical in plan, presenting two bays to the street across two storeys with attic, and faces east. The upper two storeys project forward from the main building line of the adjoining terrace — an arrangement that gives this house a larger floor area than its neighbours and accounts for its higher rateable value in historic records. The projecting gable at first-floor and attic level is supported by a timber beam and square timber posts at each corner, with rebuilt dwarf walls between the terraces serving as plinths and masonry columns in an Ionic style acting as secondary supports. A wall-head dormer window rises to the attic, with a pitched roof matching the main roof and decorative timber bargeboards. A fully glazed bay window sits to the right of the principal elevation at ground floor, on a brick plinth.

The roof is pitched and clad in red clay tiles with roll-moulded red clay ridge tiles. There is a wide brick chimney with heavy bands and double moulded detail on the principal face, fitted with plain replacement clay pots. A modern skylight has been inserted into the rear roof slope.

The walling to the principal elevation is laid in Flemish bond brick at ground floor, with decorative red tiles to the upper levels. The rear elevation is laid in English Garden Wall bond with roughcast render to the first floor. Rainwater goods are uPVC throughout; a decorative box hopper on the left cheek of the main elevation is inscribed with the date 1907. All windows have been replaced with uPVC units, retaining glazing bars on the main elevation; heads are flat arches, and sills are offset painted brick, with concrete sills to parts of the rear ground floor. Decorative terracotta vents are present. Decorative tiling is aligned horizontally with the sill and lintel of the window openings at first-floor and attic level.

The principal elevation is two openings wide at ground floor. The front door is white uPVC set within a moulded brick camber-arch surround, surmounted by a rounded arch motif in black brick. The central window at first-floor level is wide and fitted with a small canopy; the attic window above is smaller and also has a canopy.

To the rear, the building has a two-storey gabled return to the right, with a blank south cheek and a central window at first-floor level on the west gable. A single-storey lean-to structure of brick with a re-roofed covering occupies the ground floor between the rear boundary wall and the gable of the return; this was formerly the coal shed. A single-storey rear wall extends westward to form the boundary of the internal yard, with a timber-sheeted and braced door to the left. The internal yard walls are painted white. The principal rear elevation has a central window at ground and first-floor levels, with an attic window to the left side above the return. The south elevation is abutted by the adjoining terrace to the south, and the north elevation is abutted by the adjoining terrace to the north.

The house sits behind a small, newly paved front garden with a dwarf brick wall and cast-iron gate facing Tennent Street. To the rear is a long, narrow garden plot running westward to a boundary wall. A paved walkway runs along the rear of all properties in the terrace between the garden plots and the backs of the buildings, though it has been sealed with locked gates to the south. To the west of the site, the former Edenderry Spinning Mill has been redeveloped as a mixed-use business park and apartment complex. The mill ceased operation in 1988. Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church stands to the north-east, on the corner of Crumlin Road and Tennent Street.

The site was previously undeveloped and formed part of the Edenderry flax spinning mill complex. The house first appears on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1920–31. Annual Revision records confirm that the house and yard were added in 1909 at a rateable value of £14 10s. The first recorded occupant was Richard Christie; by the time of the 1911 Census the occupant was J. Follis, described as a wood turner in a local mill. The house was originally listed in the 1910 Street Directory as No. 5 Edenderry Gardens before being renumbered as part of Tennent Street in subsequent decades. By the first General Revaluation of 1935 the value of the house and garden had risen to £21, with J. Follis still recorded as occupier. The building remained in the ownership of the Edenderry Spinning Company until at least 1972. Some late 20th century repairs and alterations are noted on the heritage building file.

The house is representative of the design ethos associated with early 20th century terraced housing built for single-family occupation, providing a rear yard accessible from the front by a passage, sizable windows to the main elevation, and the modern amenities of its time — a notable improvement over earlier back-to-back housing that pre-dated late 19th century building and sanitation regulations, when houses were routinely shared by multiple families and lacked drainage, water supply, or rear access.