9 Chichester Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 4JA

9 Chichester Street is a terraced four-storey former townhouse over a part-raised basement, built in brick around 1804–1805 as one of a matching group of three. It sits on the south side of Chichester Street in Belfast, with a railed basement area to the front, and is now in use as a health centre and offices. It was severely damaged by bomb explosions in 1972 and again later in the rear alley, but has since undergone extensive restoration together with its neighbour No. 7. Much historic fabric, detailing and the original plan form survive. The terrace represents a rare example of late Georgian domestic architecture in Belfast, built in what has been described as the typical Dublin style of the period, and forms an elegant composition among largely late Victorian commercial buildings. It is also of note alongside the remaining fragments of the Georgian city in Wellington Place.

The pitched slate roof sits hidden behind a rendered blocking course and cornice. There is a shared rendered chimney stack to the west party wall. The front and rear elevations are faced in dark red brick laid in Flemish bond, with a rendered plinth course to the basement. The window openings are square-headed with diminishing proportions on each floor, formed in gauged brick with rendered reveals, painted masonry sills, and multi-pane timber sash windows without horns.

The front elevation is three windows wide. Original 3/6 timber sash windows survive to the third floor and basement; the second floor retains original upper sashes with replacement lower sashes to its 6/6 windows; the first and ground floors have largely replacement 6/6 timber sash windows. The round-headed door opening is positioned to the east bay and is formed in gauged brick with a projecting moulded surround and painted masonry doorcase. The replacement flush-panelled timber door has brass furniture and is flanked by a pair of slender Doric columns on plinth blocks, which support frieze blocks with paterae and a recessed lintel cornice with an elliptical patera. Above the door is a semi-circular webbed iron fanlight with an architrave surround. The door opens onto a concrete-paved platform reached by six concrete steps bridging the basement area. These steps are enclosed by plain wrought-iron railings set into the steps themselves, which return to enclose the basement area and are fixed into a low concrete plinth wall. A timber fascia runs along the basement wall, with steel grilles over the basement windows.

The east side elevation is abutted by the adjoining No. 11. The rear elevation is two windows wide and is abutted by a single-bay, single-storey flat-roofed rendered return over a basement, built around 1980. The rear windows are largely replacement 6/6 timber sash windows, except at ground floor level where an original tripartite timber sash window survives, and at basement level where there is a bipartite timber sash window. The west side elevation is abutted by No. 7.

The building sits within a small enclosed yard to the rear, fronting onto Pattersons Place, and together with Nos. 7 and 11 forms a uniform terrace of three closely similar buildings.

The terrace appears on a map of Belfast dating from around 1818, on a site that was previously undeveloped as shown on an earlier map of around 1791, close to the White Linen Hall that once occupied the site now taken by the City Hall. In the Townland Valuation of the 1830s, the house and yard of No. 9 was first listed at £23 and occupied by a Miss Morrow. During the mid-19th century the property was occupied by James Reid, followed by two linen manufacturers occupying separate floors. Griffith's Valuation of 1859–60 records that both No. 7 and No. 9 were owned by Edward McDowall, and that each house comprised two parlours, two dining rooms, six bedrooms, two basements, a scullery, pantries, a WC, a stable and a yard. No. 9 was valued at £60, though the valuer's notes record it as being "a good deal out of repair." No. 7 was valued at £55.

By the late 19th century the buildings had begun to move away from purely residential use. Around the turn of the century both No. 9 and No. 7 were subdivided and let to separate occupiers. Several solicitors practised from No. 9 during this period, most notably the firm of L'Estrange and Brett, who took up residence in 1883 and remained there for 115 years. The Belfast Revaluations of 1900 show that Charles H. Brett of L'Estrange and Brett purchased both No. 9 and No. 7, as well as No. 11. The building was listed at £108 in the 1900 valuations, a figure that did not significantly change until the First Revaluations of 1935, when the offices were valued at £156, with caretakers' rooms on the third floor and in the basement noted separately at £8. By the mid-20th century both No. 7 and No. 9 had vacant top floors, which along with the basements had previously been used by resident caretakers. Following bomb damage in the late 20th century, the rear of the terrace was rebuilt and restoration work was carried out to the roof and façade. L'Estrange and Brett continued to occupy No. 9 until 1998, when the firm relocated. The distinguished solicitor, journalist and architectural historian Sir Charles Brett, who was a partner in the family firm from 1954 to 1994, is closely associated with the building's history.