46 Hamilton Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT2 8LP

46 Hamilton Street is an end-of-terrace, two-bay, three-storey redbrick late-Georgian townhouse, built around 1835, forming the westernmost property in a terrace of six similar houses lining the south side of Hamilton Street in Belfast city centre. It is currently in use as a shop at ground floor level. The terrace is considered, in the words of C. E. B. Brett writing in 1971, "the best example left in the city of late-Georgian Belfast," and sits within a conservation area.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building has a natural slate roof, hipped to the west, with black clay ridge tiles, lead hip ridges, and two redbrick chimneystacks with clay pots. Cast-iron guttering runs to a stepped redbrick eaves course, with cast-iron downpipes. The walls are laid in Flemish bond redbrick with a rendered plinth course.

The two-bay, three-storey front elevation features square-headed window openings with painted masonry sills and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows. At ground floor level there is a lead-lined painted timber fascia above the openings, and rusticated rendered quoins to the outer corner. The entrance is an off-centre round-headed door opening with a moulded surround, flanked by flat-panelled pilasters, with a stepped lintel cornice and a decorative fanlight over. The replacement timber panelled door opens onto a concrete platform with two nosed steps, flanked by a low rendered plinth wall and replacement iron railings enclosing a small paved front area with a railed basement area below.

The east side elevation abuts the adjoining No. 44. The two-bay, three-storey rear elevation is abutted by a single-storey lean-to extension that spans the entire terrace. The rear window openings have camber-headed brick arches and are irregularly placed, lighting rooms to the right and half-landings to the left. The lean-to has a bipartite 6/6 timber sash window and a single timber glazed door opening onto a communal rear tarmac parking area. This area is accessed via pairs of tall timber-sheeted gates at either end of the terrace, supported on pairs of tall redbrick piers with redbrick screen walls and concrete coping. The two-bay, three-storey west side elevation has rusticated rendered quoins to either end; the rear first- and second-floor openings have square-headed masonry sills with 6/6 timber sash windows, while the remaining openings are blind.

HISTORY

Hamilton Street was developed in the 1830s on reclaimed land to the south-east of Belfast's town centre, land created by the construction of a paper mill dam along the Blackstaff River at what is now the junction of Ormeau Avenue and Cromac Street. The street takes its name from the family name of the Dukes of Abercorn, who resided at No. 3 Hamilton Street from 1818 (now demolished). The street originally attracted high-ranking merchant-class residents, including many employed in the newspaper and printing trades, but by the 1850s the area had become more distinctly working class as businessmen relocated to grander houses in the Belfast suburbs.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33 records that Nos. 36–40 of the terrace were constructed by that date, with Nos. 42–46 likely built shortly afterwards. The Belfast Street Directories record that the terrace was numbered differently in 1852, with Nos. 36–46 corresponding to Nos. 24–34 at that time. In 1852 No. 46 was occupied by a Mrs. Coleman, who operated a boarding house — typical of many residents in the area.

By 1859, Griffith's Valuation records that a Mrs. Mary Browne had come into possession of the building, letting it from the owner Elisha Crawford at an annual rent. Crawford also owned the rest of the terrace until around 1906. The valuer described No. 46 as a B+ class dwelling — meaning not new but in sound repair — measuring 6½ by 7½ yards and valued at £15. Mrs. Browne continued to occupy the house until 1875, when a Mr. John Weir, a manufacturer, briefly came into possession of the site, residing there until his death in 1877. Upon Weir's death, the house was taken over by a W. Hafferin, who operated a public laundry from the premises. By 1885 the house was being used solely as a warehouse and its value was decreased to £15. By 1901, however, No. 46 was occupied by a Mr. James McCready, a ship's stoker, who ran a boarding house from the address. The 1901 Census notes that a number of actors performing at the Grand Opera House were resident at the address on census night.

Around 1906, ownership passed from Elisha Crawford to a Mr. Archibald Savage, who continued to own the property until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930. The 1911 Census records that Savage let No. 46 to a Ms. Elizabeth Patton by that year; the Census Building Return described it as a first-class boarding house and dwelling comprising six rooms with no outbuildings. Patton vacated the site sometime between 1911 and 1918, when a Ms. Rose Maguire came into possession according to the Belfast Street Directory.

In 1935, under the first general revaluation of property in Northern Ireland, the value of No. 46 was increased to £19 10s. By that time a Ms. Minnie Coulter had purchased the house around 1930 and was letting it to a Mr. Charles Knocker, a general labourer; Knocker, or a family member of the same name, would continue to occupy No. 46 until the 1980s.

During the Second World War, Hamilton Street was badly damaged in the Belfast Blitz, when the Luftwaffe targeted the nearby shipyard industries, and many houses along the street were lost. Nos. 36–46 were repaired, and following the war were included in the second general revaluation of property in Northern Ireland, which ran from 1956; No. 46's value was raised to £21, at which it remained until the close of that project in 1972.

Charles Knocker resided at the address until at least 1980, when the entire terrace was vacated and fell into a state of dilapidation. Many of the remaining houses on Hamilton Street, returning into Catherine Street North and Joy Street, were demolished in 1988. Between 1988 and 1990, the Hearth Revolving Fund restored the surviving terrace of Nos. 36–46, retaining only the exterior walls and adding a new running bay to the rear — a process that resulted in the loss of the original interior features and a commercial unit being introduced at ground floor level. The building was listed in 1985 along with the rest of the terrace and continues to be occupied.

SIGNIFICANCE

No. 46 derives its significance from its age, the authenticity of its surviving exterior fabric, its style, proportions, and late-Georgian ornamentation, and most importantly from its group value as part of the only remaining terrace of its kind in central Belfast. Its position as the end-of-terrace unit, with its hipped roof and exposed side elevation, contributes particularly to the character and completeness of the group as a whole. The street's broader historic neighbourhood, which once included the similar houses of neighbouring Joy Street, has been substantially lost to demolition, making the survival of this terrace all the more rare.