Northern Bank, (FORMER CORN EXCHANGE), 1-9 VICTORIA ST., BELFAST

Former Corn Exchange, now known as Northern Bank, 1–9 Victoria Street, Belfast

This is a Classical-style sandstone building constructed in 1851 to designs by Thomas Jackson (1807–1890), a Belfast architect who established his independent practice in the city in 1835 and worked across domestic, commercial, industrial, educational, and ecclesiastical building types. The building originally served as a Corn Exchange and was known as Regent Buildings. It stands on the west side of Victoria Street, turning the corner into Gordon Street, and is a corner building of considerable local architectural and historical significance.

Architecture and Exterior

The building presents as two principal storeys — an entry level and a trading hall level — with a third storey added in 2000 behind the retained historic façade as part of a £1.2 million refurbishment by Russell Simpson. This modern addition has a flat roof and sits entirely behind Jackson's original parapet, which is incised with loopwork and has piers surmounted with arched gablets. A concealed parapet gutter runs behind this. A moulded, dentilled cornice with a plain frieze runs below the parapet and also at ground floor level; note that all dentils at ground floor level are replacements.

The walls are sandstone, largely band rusticated. The sandstone was sourced from Glasgow, as noted in The Builder at the time of construction. Giant staged pilasters divide the bays, with two floral roundels to the upper capitals and foliate brackets at ground floor level. First-floor windows have segmental arched heads with moulded architraves set within slightly recessed arches of ashlar stone. Ground-floor windows are flat-lintelled openings set in modern rusticated stonework panels positioned between the original pilasters. All windows are replacement timber sashes — ten-pane to the first floor and four-pane to the ground floor. The entrance door is a double six-panelled timber door with a boarded-up overlight.

The main east elevation faces Victoria Street and is five windows wide. The entrance is positioned beneath the left-hand, southernmost first-floor window and is framed by an Ionic in antis porchway. The south elevation is a blank brick wall above the abutting modern building. The rear west elevation is similarly obscured by the modern addition. The north elevation is two windows wide and generally matches the east elevation in its treatment, with the exception that the parapet incisions are solid rather than open, and centrally above the parapet sits a carved plaque depicting crossed corn sheaves flanked by volutes and surmounted by a flattened urn — a clear reference to the building's original agricultural trading function. The main public entrance to the building is now through an adjacent glazed section of the modern addition rather than through the original historic doorway.

The roof is part of the modern extension. Rainwater goods are not visible.

Historical Background

The building was constructed at an estimated cost of £3,000 by builder W. Graham of Belfast. Its origins are directly tied to the repeal of the Corn Laws in July 1846, which had previously protected British and Irish cereal and grain production from foreign competition through high import tariffs. The repeal, driven in part by pressure from the Anti-Corn Law League during the Irish Famine of 1845–52, prompted local grain merchants to establish a dedicated trading facility, and the Corn Exchange was the result. As originally completed, the building comprised four ground-floor commercial units with the Exchange Room occupying the entire upper floor.

The 1852 Belfast Street Directory recorded the building as Regent Buildings but listed no detailed occupants for the ground-floor units. By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1859, the total rateable value of the building and its four shops was set at £170. At that time the Corn Exchange was administered by its own Directors, with Robert Vance serving as secretary. The ground-floor units were occupied by Gustavus Heyn (a general merchant and ship broker), Robert McAlister (a clerk), Thomas G. Folingsby (a merchant and ship broker), and Robert Vance himself (secretary to the Corn Exchange and publisher of the Belfast Mercantile Journal).

The Corn Exchange vacated the building in 1870, after which the Northern Whig newspaper acquired the upper floor and one of the ground-floor units, converting them into a printing press and offices. The Northern Whig had originally been established in 1823 and had previously operated from Calender Street. By 1877 the remaining three ground-floor units were occupied by Alfred M. Munster (a commission merchant acting for the Royal Swedish and Norwegian Consulate), Robert Vance's Belfast Mercantile Journal offices, and J. A. Cochrane (secretary to the Belfast Mining Co. Ltd.).

By 1901 the upper floor remained in use as a printing press, and the Northern Whig had also established a sales and dispatch office on the ground floor. Alfred Munster continued to occupy the site, and the remaining shop was taken by Hugh T. Barrie, a general produce merchant. The Northern Whig remained at the building until 1919, when it moved to new headquarters at the Commercial Buildings on Bridge Street, from which it operated until production of the newspaper ceased entirely in 1963.

Following the partition of Ireland in 1922, the vacant upper floor was taken by the offices of the Northern Ireland Ministry of Labour, while all ground-floor commercial units were acquired by Cullen Allen & Co. Ltd., potato merchants, who established their main Belfast office here. The Ministry of Labour had vacated the upper floor by 1928, at which point Cullen Allen & Co. Ltd. expanded to take it over. By the time of the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935, however, Cullen Allen & Co. Ltd. had vacated most of the building, retaining only a single ground-floor retail unit, though they were recorded as owners of the property, having purchased it around 1930. The total rateable value had by then risen to £470. In 1935 the upper floors were in use as club rooms and a meeting hall for the Royal British Legion in Belfast, while three ground-floor units were occupied by Henderson Brothers, the original name of the Anchor Line Ltd., a transatlantic steamship company.

No further revaluation was carried out for over two decades due to the Second World War. By the time of the second revaluation in the 1950s, the Anchor Line Ltd. and Cullen Allen & Co. Ltd. continued to occupy the ground-floor units. The Royal British Legion had vacated, and by 1956 the upper floor was in use by the Ulster Transport Authority as club rooms. By the close of the second revaluation in 1972, the total rateable value had risen to £1,036.

The building was listed in 1988, at which time it was in use as administrative offices by Northern Bank. Writing in 1987, Larmour described it as "a fairly plain two-storey building with shops below a lofty first floor hall... Built of freestone, rusticated and pilastered, with a very tall Renaissance loopwork parapet, and an Ionic in antis porchway." Patton, writing in 1993, described it as "a beige sandstone building... with tall segmental-headed windows between giant order pilasters at first floor, over channelled ground floor; incised parapet over dentilled cornice, with crossed sheaves of corn in central panel on gable, flanked by volutes and surmounted with a flattened urn."

In 2000 the £1.2 million refurbishment by Russell Simpson resulted in the complete loss of the building's original interior. An entirely new three-storey structure was constructed behind Jackson's retained Classical façade. The building is currently vacant.

Setting

The building sits directly on the pavement of Victoria Street, a busy thoroughfare. To the north, at the blocked end of Gordon Street, is a large paved area with modern sculptures. Diagonally across Waring Street, on the opposite side of Victoria Street, are two other listed buildings. The building lies within a conservation area.