156-164 North Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 1LF

A four storey sandstone commercial building on the south side of North Street. Built in a Baroque style in 1899. The roof is pitched natural slate,four tall central freestanding red brick chimneys with stepped brick cornices and one red brick chimney to each of the E and W gables. Gutters are concealed behind pierced parapet, rainwater downpipes are square metal. The walls are ashlar red sandstone; balustraded, machicolated parapet, moulded coping continuous over pediment dormers; staged semi fluted pilasters with Corinthian capitals; moulded strings to window cills and heads; moulded roundels with shields to dormer apexes and panels with swags and initialed shields (McB) under; foliage decorated friezes run over first and second floor window heads; moulded cornice to ground floor. Side windows to the third floor are paired square headed with moulded architraves; central windows diminishing as they rise on each floor are arched with moulded archivolt and exaggerated keystone; the main windows are set in timber canted oriel bays to the first and second floors with decorative carving matching that of adjacent stone friezes. The paired windows to the third floor are single paned timber; the central windows are replacement 2 and 3 paned; the bay windows are replacement single paned timber fixed lights and casements within original heavy timber mullions and transoms. The ground floor has a modern fascia and shopfronts. The front north elevation is symmetrical: a central diminutive triangular pedimented dormer over windows framed by pilasters are flanked by truncated, shouldered pediment dormers over double-height paired canted oriel bays divided by a pilaster; pilasters are positioned at corners. The side east elevation is abutted by a lower building no. 150 - 152 North Street (HB26/50/335). The rear door of each shop unit opens into a shared yard, now a car park, where the vestiges of a wall and gable in red brick remain. Two 6 over 6 multi –pane timber sliding sash windows remain in situ at what was first floor level. The rear south elevation has an off-centre full height pitch roofed projection of brick and corrugated metal. The rear south wall is brick in English garden wall bond, rendered below second floor cill level. Flat linteled windows to second and third floor level, no windows to first and ground. Three doors to ground floor. Windows are replacement 2 pane with toplights. Doors are timber sheeting over steel. The side west elevation is abutted by a building no 166 - 174 North Street (HB26/50/334). Setting: The building sits hard in the middle of a terrace on the south side of North Street. To the rear is a car park. Schedule: Roof: natural slate Walls: ashlar sandstone Windows: replacement aluminium in timbr sub-frame RWGs: square metal.