42-44 Great Victoria St., Belfast

Mid-terrace three-storey rendered building built circa 1875, located on the east side of Great Victoria Street in Belfast. The building was originally constructed as a house and shop but later became a hotel. It is positioned within a terrace of three similar buildings and has group value with the neighbouring Grade A listed Crown Bar.

The building is rectangular on plan, facing west, with a pitched natural slate roof behind a parapet wall featuring a lead ridge, iron skylights and a shared rendered chimneystack to the south. Replacement iron downpipe is shared with the adjoining building to the south, with plastic guttering to the rear on a timber fascia. The painted rendered walling rises to the parapet with a projecting drip cornice, plain coping and string course.

The front elevation is two windows wide across three storeys. Ground floor features a modern tiled shopfront with plastic fascia spanning the entire elevation, central glazed doors, two display windows and a further square-headed door opening with steel roller blind providing access to the upper floors. The upper floors retain square-headed window openings with painted masonry sills and single-pane timber sash windows with ogee horns. Simple architrave surrounds frame the second floor window openings, with a continuous sill course. First floor window openings are framed by incised pilasters and decorative scrolled console brackets supporting an entablature above.

The north side elevation is abutted by the adjoining building (HB26/30/005A). The south side elevation is abutted by the Crown Bar (HB26/30/003). The stepped rear elevation is largely obscured by later developments belonging to the adjoining Crown Bar, but where visible displays cement rendered walling and square-headed window openings with stone sills and replacement timber windows.

The interior, rear and front façade of this building have been substantially altered. The building demonstrates similar window and eaves detailing and is consistent in scale and proportion to the neighbouring Crown Bar.

Historical Context

The building was not recorded on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, when a plot of land separated the current Crown Bar and Robinson's Bar (both dating from the 1840s). The single-bay three-storey building was constructed between these two structures in 1875, when it was first recorded in the Annual Revisions. In that year it was valued at £30 as a dwelling and shop. The building was owned by Terence O'Hanlon, who also owned the adjoining Ulster Railway Hotel (which later became the Crown Bar), and was occupied from 1875 by William Barklie, who operated a confectionary shop from the premises.

By 1901, Mrs Catherine Rogan had come into possession of the building, which she had purchased outright. That year, the census and Belfast Street Directory recorded that Rogan operated a Temperance Hotel from the premises, described as a first-class hotel consisting of eight rooms. In 1906, the value of Rogan's Temperance Hotel increased to £50. Mrs Rogan continued to occupy the site in 1911, when the census indicated that she also operated a shop from the premises. By 1915, her relative, James Rogan, had taken possession of the property, which he continued to occupy until the mid-1960s.

According to historical records, the building was known as the Crown and Anchor Temperance Hotel in 1890 before being renamed Rogan's Hotel once Catherine Rogan took possession. It was the fourth hotel constructed across the road from the Great Northern Railway Station on Great Victoria Street and the first to be associated with the Victorian temperance movement in Ireland. A hotel continued to operate from the premises until the mid-1960s. The First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935 valued Rogan's Hotel at £96. Following the Second World War, a revaluation in 1956 recalculated the value at £224, which remained unchanged by the end of the revaluation in 1972.

The building was listed in 1978. Since at least the 1990s it has been utilised as a bookmakers, originally named the Crown Bookmakers by 1993, but very recently purchased by A. McLean Bookmakers.

The rear site has been developed by the adjoining Crown Bar as a single and two-storey modern extension and small rear yard opening onto Keylands Place.