11 Upper Crescent, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NT

Number 11 Upper Crescent is a relatively large three-storey rendered terraced town house built in 1846, set at the centre of a Regency-style crescent of ten similar, though not identical, properties. It is one of the more ornate buildings in the group, distinguished by large two-storey Corinthian columns to the front elevation. The building has since been converted to offices and flats.

The front elevation faces roughly north and is asymmetrical. At ground floor level to the left is the entrance, comprising a recessed timber panelled door with panelled pilaster jambs and a rectangular fanlight, approached by two stone steps. To the left of the doorway are two tall plain sash windows. The first floor carries three larger windows set on a cill course, with Regency-style sash frames featuring horizontal panes in a 4/8 arrangement. At second floor level are three pairs of narrow, semicircular-headed plain sash windows, resting on a more pronounced, cornice-like cill course projection with dentillations. The ground floor is finished in rusticated render, with the upper floors in plain render. Four large, evenly spaced Corinthian three-quarter columns span the ground and first floor heights and support a projecting frieze below the second floor cill course; the far right column is square rather than round. Corresponding pilasters at second floor level rise to form parapet piers, with a pierced, balustrade-like parapet between them. The entire front elevation is painted.

The rear elevation could not be seen in full. To the right-hand, eastern side is a two-storey gabled return, with two plain sash windows to the first floor of the gable and a smaller similar window to the right on the ground floor. To the left, the return merges with a further two-storey projection, probably with a mono-pitched roof, which has a recent broad, garage-like doorway at ground floor level and two windows as before at first floor level. Both the gable and the south face of this projection are in brick. The inner, western face of the return appears to have two windows and possibly a doorway at first floor level. The rear façade of the main building has one window to the left at ground floor level; at first floor and second floor level to the left are recent fire escape doorway and window arrangements. Between the first and second floors to the right is a stairwell window with a plain sash frame. The rear façade is in brick. The gabled roof is slated. To the rear side of the roof there is a small curved dormer with a sash window, and a Velux window. A tall rendered chimneystack, shared with the neighbouring property to the west, has a projecting coping and uniform pots. Cast iron rainwater goods are present throughout.

Upper Crescent and its wider setting

The sale of much of Lord Donegall's Belfast estate in the early to mid 19th century released large areas of land around the town for development. The lands to the south, along the Malone Ridge, were particularly attractive to developers and gave rise to many fine late Georgian-style terraces from the mid 1830s onwards. This trend was accelerated by the establishment of the prestigious Queen's College in the area in the later 1840s. These grand new terraces were taken up by Belfast's professional and business classes, who left their older residences in the town centre, which were gradually converted to shops and offices.

Upper Crescent was perhaps the grandest terrace development undertaken to the south of the town: an elegantly curving row of three-storey dwellings in a late Regency style, built in 1846 by timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry. The authorship of the design is uncertain, though architectural historian Dr Paul Larmour has suggested the involvement of Charles Lanyon. Corry himself undertook the building work and took up residence in the house at the eastern end; for the first few years of its existence the row was known as Corry's Crescent. Immediately to the south of the Crescent, where a church and small public park now stand, Corry held a large lawn as a garden. Shortly after it was laid out, however, he had it ploughed up and used for growing vegetables to relieve local workers suffering as a result of the Great Famine. To the north of this garden ran an old watercourse flowing northwards into the Basin, a reservoir to the east of the Dublin Road. To the east lay smaller gardens belonging to other residents of the Crescent, and further to the east and north-east ran Albion Lane, a narrow semi-rural laneway stretching from the north end of Bradbury Place to the east end of the present University Terrace.

In 1852 Corry built a further terrace to the north of his garden, just south of the old watercourse. This new development — the erroneously named Lower Crescent — was much in the same style as Upper Crescent and was occupied by a similar mix of professionals and businessmen, though by as early as 1860 the ground floors of some properties were already in office use. In the later 1860s a railway line was cut immediately to the north of Lower Crescent, following the line of the old watercourse. In 1873 a large sandstone building, originally Victoria College for girls, was added to the western end of Lower Crescent's terrace, and by the close of that decade two further houses had been added to the eastern end, the most easterly of which — Rivoli House, designed by William Hastings — originally contained a dance academy run by a Frederick Brouneau. The new railway line cut across Albion Lane and preceded the laying out of a new, broader thoroughfare, Botanic Avenue.

Upper Crescent also saw further building in the 1860s and 1870s. Two large properties designed by William Hastings were erected to the western end in 1869, one of which — Crescent House, now the Bank of Ireland — also fronted onto University Road. In 1878 to 1879 two further houses were added between those of 1869. Between 1885 and 1887 the large Presbyterian church now known as Crescent Church was erected to plans by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson on the west side of Robert Corry's former garden. In 1898 a two-storey terrace, the present Crescent Gardens, was built on the site of smaller garden plots at the eastern end.

Upper Crescent sits to the east of University Road and faces, across a small public park, the Lower Crescent development of 1852. Unlike Upper Crescent, Lower Crescent is arranged as a straight terrace rather than in crescent form.

During the first half of the 20th century most properties in Upper and Lower Crescent and in Crescent Gardens remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many had been converted to business use or divided into flats. The former Rivoli House, later renamed Dreenagh House, became the Regency Hotel. By the beginning of the 21st century none of the properties remained in private residential use. In the mid 1990s three of the 1860s to 1870s houses at the western end of Upper Crescent were demolished and replaced with a modern office block. In 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent was built over in preparation for a new development.

History of Number 11

In 1849 this property was occupied by a James Greene, described as first clerk at the Custom House. He was followed by a Mrs Herdman, then by 1860 by a William McNeill, and by the late 1870s by a James Festu. By 1899 the building was home to a William Yates, followed before 1920 by the Reverend William Beatty, and then by a T. Bell, who remained there from the mid 1920s to the 1960s. By 1970 the property had been converted to office use.