58-66 Royal Avenue, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 1DJ

58–66 Royal Avenue, Belfast (Crown Chambers)

This is the site of Crown Chambers, a four-storey commercial building originally erected in 1885 to a design by William Eaton, a Belfast-based architect active between 1879 and 1886, whose other known works include residences and buildings on Dunluce Avenue, Wellington Park and Malone Road. Crown Chambers was his only recorded commission in Belfast city centre. The original building was constructed in Newry granite stone with a stucco façade and terracotta detailing, by builder Thomas Price of Belfast. It stood on the west side of Royal Avenue, one of the last buildings completed along the western side of this newly laid-out commercial boulevard.

The original building no longer exists. It was demolished in the late 1980s to facilitate the construction of the adjoining Castlecourt shopping centre. In its place stands a late 20th century four-storey building with attic, built in brick and stone in a Classical pastiche style, which is considered to be of no historical or architectural interest. The east elevation is symmetrical, comprising six windows, with a central three-window dormer and single-window dormers to each side. The roof is finished in natural slate, the walls are brick, and the windows are timber sash, one-over-one. The south elevation is abutted and obscured by the modern Castlecourt construction, and the north elevation is abutted and obscured by a listed building. The building sits directly on the pavement on the west side of Royal Avenue and is terraced, adjoined to the north by the listed building and faced by another listed building opposite. The modern commercial property has in recent years been occupied by the clothing retailer JJB Sports but has since lain vacant.

The original Crown Chambers consisted of three ground-floor shops with office space on the floors above. When completed in 1885, the total assessed value of the building was £341 10s. One of its earliest ground-floor occupants was the Ulster Echo newspaper, which used the site as a printing works until the mid-20th century. By the Belfast Revaluation of 1900, the building's value had risen considerably to £865 15s, though the valuer at that time noted that it was "very roughly run off and is at present in a bad repair." The 1901 Belfast Street Directory records that the ground-floor units were occupied by the Belfast Steam Printing Co. Ltd. — proprietors of the Ulster Echo and Witness newspapers — along with A. Hunter & Sons, who ran a gun-making and fishing tackle warehouse, and R. Brownlie, described as an "Artists' outfitter, fancy goods salesman, print seller and high class frame manufacturer." The upper floors hosted a wide variety of tenants including stock and share brokers, general merchants, land and property agents and accountants, as well as the Shorthand Institute and School of Typewriting, the Commercial Cycling Club, and the Belfast District Ancient Order of Foresters.

By 1910 the occupancy of the building had changed little, though the northernmost shop at No. 66 had passed to Baird Bros., shoe and boot makers, a unit that was vacant by 1918. By 1918 the upper floors also accommodated a number of other friendly societies alongside the Ancient Order of Foresters, including the Sanctuary Belfast Royal Archers, the Saddler's Society, the Sailmakers Society, and No. 2 Branch of the Machine Men and Mill Sawyer's Society, all occupying the third floor. By the end of the Annual Revisions, cancelled in 1930, the total assessed value of the building stood at £567. Under the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland it had risen to £1,093 5s, with the Belfast Steam Printing Co. still operating from the site. By the second revaluation, which commenced in 1956, the print works had vacated. By the 1970s the ground-floor retail units were occupied by the Ulster Savings Committee, Gardiners Ltd. (a construction firm), and Swiss Arcade Ltd. (a general store). At the time of the First Survey in 1984, No. 58 was still occupied by the Ulster Savings Committee, with the other two shops taken by a newsagents and a branch of French Connection.

The architectural historian Marcus Patton, writing in 1993, described the original building as a "four-storey building in unpainted stucco with pair of roundheaded dormers containing sunbursts in spandrels. Broken pediment to slightly off-centre doorcase; strapwork in spandrels of second floor windows; courses of rosettes over first floor windows and at main cornice," and noted that it "originally had balustraded parapet over cornice."

Royal Avenue itself was laid out in 1880–81 by the surveyor J. C. Bretland, a process that involved relocating approximately 4,000 people and demolishing almost all buildings previously standing on Hercules Place and Hercules Street to create the long open boulevard now running from Donegall Square to York Street. The only building to survive this clearance was the former Provisional Bank of Ireland, which continues to occupy the original line of Hercules Place and consequently sits further back from the street than the adjoining buildings. Nos 58–66, together with the adjoining Nos 68–88, were among the last buildings to be erected along the western side of the newly created street. Royal Avenue suffered bomb damage during the Belfast Blitz of 1941, when a number of its buildings were moderately damaged.

Crown Chambers was listed in 1989 but was delisted on 21 August 2015, and the property is now recorded as being of neither architectural nor historical interest. It lies within a conservation area.