RUC Barracks, Queen Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1

RUC Barracks, Queen Street, Belfast

A substantial three-storey sandstone former hospital with attic, dated 1878 and designed by Thomas Jackson. The building comprises three interconnected sections: a formal front block facing Queen Street, a larger rear ward block set back into College Court, and a narrow three-storey link connecting them along the northern boundary.

The front elevation, facing east onto Queen Street, presents a symmetrical multi-bay composition of rock-faced uncoursed sandstone ashlar with smooth pink sandstone pilasters, cornices and friezes. The three-window-wide façade features paired square-headed windows to the ground floor with deeply set bowtel surrounds, central mullions and stylised console brackets beneath a continuous moulded sill course. A central square-headed door opening with bowtel surround and decorative scrolled lateral brackets opens onto a stone step in an enclosed front area. The first and second floor windows, framed individually by pairs of sandstone pilasters rising to a stepped and dentilled crown cornice, are single-pane timber sashes with pink sandstone architrave surrounds. The second floor windows are distinguished by diamond-faced keystones. Above the central second floor window, a full-span decorative sandstone frieze features raised lettering dated 'A.D.1878'. The south side elevation is abutted by an adjoining early twentieth-century building.

The roof is a natural slate mansard, lead-lined to the top, surmounted by a glazed lantern. A central wall-head dormer with sandstone coping is topped by a cross and displays a carved Belfast coat of arms to the gable, supported on scrolled console brackets, with a single square-headed window opening containing a replacement timber casement. Diminutive hipped dormers to either side feature billeted cornices, lead-lined roofs and single-pane timber sash windows, breaking through a sandstone ashlar blocking course over the crown cornice with ball finials. Profiled sandstone ashlar chimneystacks rise from both gable ends and from the centre of the plan. Plastic guttering is fitted to the south end.

The rear elevation is plain rendered with unevenly-spaced windows: four to the first floor and five to the second floor, most boarded. The windows have two-over-two or two-over-two sash timber frames. A narrow link section abutts the left-hand side of the façade.

The western block, set back into College Court beyond a courtyard, is a large three-storey structure of irregular rectangular plan with a large recess to the south-east corner. It is built in plain rendered masonry with a double-pitched natural slate roof and two rendered chimneystacks, the southern stack considerably larger. The College Court frontage displays formal fenestration with ground and first floor windows boarded and largely one-over-one sash frames to the second floor. A central ground floor entrance comprises a plain sheeted door with boarded-up half-sidelights, surmounted by a large canopy hood with a sprocketed slated roof. The east façade is less formal with more varied openings, several featuring Georgian-paned sash frames. The narrow three-storey link to the north shares the plain rendered appearance of the western block but features a mono-pitched slate roof and irregularly-spaced fenestration similar to the formal section of the western block.

The property is located on the west side of Queen Street, set back slightly from the street behind a double-height steel fence. The building is currently empty and boarded up.