10 McMaster Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 4HP

No. 10 McMaster Street is a two-storey-with-attic, single-bay late Victorian terraced house, built around 1896–1898 by developer John McMaster to designs by J. Frazer and Son, and located on the east side of McMaster Street in the Ballymacarrett area of East Belfast. It forms part of a complete and largely intact street of late Victorian terraced housing, listed in 1987 and situated within a conservation area designated by the Department of the Environment in 1994.

EXTERIOR

The roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles, a central rooflight window on the west slope, and a modern red brick chimney stack at the south side. Painted ogee-profile cast-iron rainwater goods are supported on a projecting polychrome brick eaves course over an ovolo moulded corbel course, with a uPVC downpipe.

The walls are constructed in English garden-wall bond red brick, laid with alternating courses of headers and stretchers, and decorated with three polychromatic brick string courses — including a continuous brick-and-sill course at first floor level — and further decorative detailing above the first floor windows. All polychromatic brickwork is now painted, with the exception of the brickwork above the first floor windows.

The windows are replacement square-headed 1-over-1 timber sliding sashes, and the door is a replacement glazed uPVC with a covered transom light. Both windows and door are set within camber-headed reveals with polychrome brick chamfered reveals and voussoirs, and projecting masonry sills.

The principal (west) elevation has the entrance door at the left, accessed by a painted concrete threshold, flanked by a window to the right. Two windows at first floor level are offset slightly to the right. The north gable abuts No. 8 McMaster Street.

The rear (east) elevation is abutted on the right by a two-storey extension with a pitched roof and uPVC rainwater goods, added in 2000 following approval by the Town Planning Committee. The south gable abuts No. 12 McMaster Street. Access to the house and yard was not available at the time of inspection, and the remainder of the rear elevation was not visible from the entry point.

SETTING

No. 10 sits at the north end of the east terrace. It opens directly onto a wide pavement with granite kerbs, original lamp posts, and electric lighting — the lamp posts were originally gas-lit, with electricity not introduced to the street until the 1930s. The wide street was formerly cobbled and is now largely concrete, with small cobbled areas retained at each end. Original tiled street signage is present at both the north and south ends of the street. The rear elevation is enclosed by high-level stretcher-bonded modern red brick walling, with a painted, vertically sheeted timber entrance door at centre, accessed via a narrow entry running north to south between the back yards of Lendrick Street and McMaster Street. The street narrows towards Major Street to the south.

The house has group value with the other listed buildings in McMaster Street.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

No. 10 first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map for Belfast dated 1902, at which point only nos. 6 to 14 on the eastern terrace had been constructed. Belfast Street Directories indicate that the western terrace (nos. 1–37) was built in 1898, while nos. 6–14 on the eastern terrace were completed a year earlier in 1898, and the remainder of the eastern terrace (nos. 16–52) was not added until 1908. Because the land owned by John McMaster was wedge-shaped, the terraces became progressively narrower and their yards smaller as they were built toward the southern end of the street; No. 10, being near the northern end, is consequently one of the larger houses and has one of the larger yards on the street.

The architect, J. Frazer and Son — active from the 1890s through to the second decade of the 20th century according to the Dictionary of Irish Architects — also designed a number of other terraced streets in Belfast, including Chadwick Street (built 1899) and Meadowbank Place, both of which are similar in design to McMaster Street.

The Belfast revaluation of 1900 recorded No. 10 as a two-storey house with attic, measuring 13.6 feet wide by 25 feet deep and 24 feet in height. It was fitted with gas lighting and estimated to have cost £131 to construct. In 1899 the house was valued at £10 10s. and let by John McMaster to a Mr. George Haywood — at the time the Sexton of St. Patrick's Parish Church — at a monthly rent of £1 8s. 4d. (£17 annually). The first recorded occupant was a Mr. William Fairburn, who had vacated by 1901 when Haywood took possession.

The 1901 Census Building Return described the house as a first-class dwelling with eight rooms. By the 1911 Census it was recorded as a second-class dwelling with seven rooms — a reclassification repeated across nos. 6–14 McMaster Street. No. 10 is noted as a rarity on the street in that very few, if any, of its occupants were employed at the nearby Harland and Wolff shipyards or the ropework factories that were the principal employers in the area.

By 1907, a Mr. Matthew Montgomery, a Presbyterian joiner, had come into possession. He had died by the time of the 1911 Census, at which point his widow Isabella and eldest son William — a grocer by trade — still resided in the house. Montgomery was still recorded as occupant in the Annual Revisions when they were cancelled in 1930, though the 1930 Belfast Street Directory records a Mr. Henry Cousins as residing there. By 1935, in the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, the house's value had risen to £14 10s. Henry Cousins remained during the 1930s, followed by a Mrs. V. A. Bishop by 1940.

McMaster Street escaped damage during the Belfast Blitz of 1941, when the Luftwaffe targeted the Belfast Shipyards and caused widespread destruction to buildings and residential terraces along the Newtownards Road. After the war, the second revaluation of property in Northern Ireland recorded that ownership had passed from John McMaster to an L. McMaster, though the value of No. 10 remained unchanged. Between the 1950s and 1970s the house was occupied by a Miss Mabel Dunbar, and by 1980 it had passed to a Ms. Rita Cousins.

During the 1970s the Ballymacarrett area was extensively redeveloped, with many red brick terraces similar to McMaster Street demolished. The survival of McMaster Street as an intact remnant of late Victorian working-class housing was consequently considered significant. No. 10 was listed in 1987 along with the rest of the terrace, and the neighbourhood was designated a conservation area by the Department of the Environment in 1994.

The parlour houses on McMaster Street were constructed under new housing and planning regulations designed to improve living standards in Belfast. They were among the first late Victorian industrial terraces in Belfast to be supplied with running water and flushable toilets, made possible by the construction of a new city drainage system. Gas piping for lighting was also provided to each house — features that distinguished McMaster Street from the more squalid early Victorian housing common elsewhere in Belfast at the time. Electricity was not introduced to the street until the 1930s.