58-60 Donegall Pass, Belfast, County Antrim, BT7 1BU

58-60 Donegall Pass is a pair of former mid-terrace early Victorian townhouses, built around 1845-1846 as part of a development originally known as Apsley Place. The two properties, each three storeys tall with two bays, have since been combined into a single building and converted for commercial use. They sit on Donegall Pass in Belfast, immediately adjacent to St Mary Magdalene Church and south of the city centre, east of Shaftesbury Square. Despite conversion, the building retains much of its historic external fabric and late-Victorian detailing, and the internal layout preserves a partially intact mid-19th-century arrangement. The alterations demonstrate how townhouses of this type were adapted into commercial premises in response to the changing character of urban life through the 20th century. The building forms part of a listed group and makes a positive architectural contribution to the character of the terrace.

Externally, the roof is finished in natural slate with clay ridge tiles. The eaves overhang and are supported by paired timber brackets with timber soffits, and the rainwater goods are cast iron, comprising semi-circular gutters and circular downpipes. The chimneys are brick with replacement clay pots. The upper floors are finished in painted render, ruled-and-lined at ground floor level, with smooth render to the rear. Windows to the upper floors are timber sliding sashes with horns, in 6/6 and 6/3 configurations, set under flat arches with painted masonry cills and a continuous cill band at first floor level. The replacement entrance door is glazed.

The principal south-facing elevation is asymmetrically arranged. At ground floor, the full width has been opened up with full-height glazing and sliding doors, with signage above. The front door is positioned to the right. To the left, the building abuts number 58 Donegall Pass (a neighbouring listed property in the same group). At the rear, also asymmetrically arranged, the ground floor on the left side is adjoined by a later single-storey flat-roofed return running the full width. A timber sliding door is located to the right of the rear elevation. At first and second floor, each of the two former dwellings is represented by a single window to the right and a landing window to the left; one of the first-floor windows has been replaced and enlarged as a timber casement. To the right, the building abuts number 62 Donegall Pass, another property in the listed group.

The building is flanked on both sides by the adjoining terrace. To the front is a paved forecourt used for motorcycle parking; to the rear is a tarmac yard with sheds. The surrounding area is predominantly two- and three-storey residential buildings from various periods. The former School of Music stands opposite on the south side of the street, and St Mary Magdalene Church lies to the west.

Donegall Pass was laid out by the late 18th century across what had been a heavily wooded deerpark belonging to the Donegall family, Belfast's principal landowners at the time. The historian Brett suggests that both Donegall Pass and the Ormeau Road were originally laid out as carriage drives through these woodland estates, and that it was not until the Donegalls' control over their pleasure grounds began to weaken in the 1820s that building in the area was permitted. By 1823, the land on the north side of Donegall Pass had passed into the ownership of Henry Joy, proprietor of the Belfast Newsletter and an active figure in the political life of the town. The construction of the gasworks to the east in 1823 probably helped stimulate development of the area. At the time Apsley Place was built in the mid-19th century, it was one of only a handful of terrace developments along the northern side of the Pass, while the land to the south was largely given over to substantial villas set in spacious grounds.

The developer of the terrace was Thomas Gaffikin (1809-1893), a farmer's son who began his career as a butcher and went on to build several other terraces in south Belfast. Gaffikin himself lived at number 70 and later number 56 Apsley Place from the time of its construction, before moving into a new terrace he had built at Queen's Elms, where he remained for the rest of his life. He subsequently became the proprietor of a linen and linen-yarn business and served as a town councillor for Cromac and then St George's Ward. He is remembered historically for his 1875 lecture entitled 'Belfast Fifty Years Ago', which provides a lively account of social life in early 19th-century Belfast.

The houses were occupied over the years by a succession of tenants reflecting the range of occupations open to the middle and lower-middle classes during Belfast's period of most rapid expansion. Early residents tended to be wealthy business proprietors or gentlemen, but as the merchant class gradually relocated to the more desirable surroundings of North Down and elsewhere, the tenantry shifted perceptibly towards the respectable petty bourgeoisie. The censuses of 1901 and 1911 show that by the early 20th century some tenants were wealthy enough to employ a domestic servant, while others supplemented their income by taking in boarders. The houses do not appear to have been used as commercial premises until the modern era.

The first recorded resident of number 58 is Joseph Richardson in 1846-47. Subsequent occupiers include Mrs Eckison or Atkinson (1852), Thomas G. Lindsay of Lindsay Bros of Donegall Place (1858-59), and George S. Orr, as noted in Griffith's Valuation of 1859. At that date the house and yard were leased from Thomas Gaffikin and valued at £26, with the property described as a three-storey house with a two-storey return, at a yearly rent of £30 plus taxes. Later occupants include Andrew Kirk (1863), the Reverend A.J. Ard, curate of St Mary Magdalene Church from 1865 to 1869, William P. O'Connor (1877-84), James McCullagh, merchant tailor (1890), and T. Wright, warehouseman (1896-97). At the time of the 1901 census the occupier was Thomas B. Anderson, a linen salesman living with his wife, children and a son who managed a stained glass works. By 1911 the tenants were Francis Kerr, an engine fitter working on boats, his wife, three daughters and two grandchildren, along with two English boarders employed as nautical instrument makers, and one of his daughters working as a drapery saleswoman. Mary H. Kerr, Francis's daughter, is recorded as resident at the house until 1935.

Number 60 was home in the 1850s to John Anderson, merchant, of Young and Anderson of Donegall Street. Griffith's Valuation of 1859 records the occupier as William J. McCann of the Eliza Street Spinning Company, also leasing from Thomas Gaffikin at a valuation of £26, with a three-storey house and two-storey return at a rent of £30 plus taxes. Later occupants include the Reverend John G. Fitzgerald, curate of St Mary Magdalene Church from 1873 to 1878; John Turnbull Gibb, clerk (1884); J. Riddell, who operated a Missing Friends' Enquiry Office and Private Detective Agency (1890); and Mrs E. Clarke, National School Teacher (1896). The house was vacant at the time of the 1901 census, but by 1911 was the home of widow Jane McCann and her adult children, two of her sons working as factory managers and the third as a mechanic and fitter; the family employed a domestic servant from County Leitrim. From 1930 to 1935 William A. McCann, one of the younger sons, is recorded as the occupier. The two houses have been joined at ground floor level in recent years, with a shopfront inserted across both facades.