33 College Gardens, Belfast

33 College Gardens is a detached three-storey former Victorian manse built in 1879, situated on the corner of Lisburn Road and College Gardens within the Queens Conservation Area. The architect of the original building is unknown. It was constructed as the manse for University Road Methodist Church, which stands a short distance away, and has social and cultural importance through its likely connections to Methodist College, which stands directly opposite. The listing covers the former manse and the stone pillars at the boundaries of the site.

ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW

The building has a double hipped roof of natural slate, with red clay tiled hips and ridge. A large rectangular rendered chimney is centred on the ridge, featuring a moulded cornice, a string course, and moulded panelling below; the chimney has no pots and is capped with lead flashing. The eaves are heavily projecting and moulded, sitting on a plain frieze band with moulded string courses above and below on the south and west elevations, all painted. The walls are smooth rendered masonry with moulded stucco or stone dressings, painted in a contrasting colour to the walls. Windows throughout are timber-framed, single-glazed, double-hung sliding sashes with 1/1 lights and margin panes, except where noted below; all have double-glazed secondary windows fitted to the inner reveals. Rainwater goods consist of replacement ogee-profiled gutters, likely aluminium, and circular-section rainwater pipes with some original cast iron fixings; uPVC hoppers and downpipes serve the flat roofs. A conservation rooflight sits on the west-facing roof pitch at a shallow recess between the old and new portions of the building.

SOUTH ELEVATION (FRONT)

The south elevation faces onto College Gardens and has a vertical emphasis with formally arranged openings. It is asymmetrical, with the entrance to the right and a single-storey canted bay with a raised parapet to the left. Two windows at each of the first and second floors align with the ground-floor openings and diminish in height as they rise. The eaves overhang heavily as described above.

The timber-framed entrance door is a four-panelled replacement made to resemble double doors, with a central vertical bead. The square-headed door frame has a plain glass fanlight and an ornamental doorcase with stop-chamfered reveals flanked by plain pilasters, and a deep moulded surround above featuring a keystone and elaborate carved spandrels.

The canted bay has a continuous projecting plinth with a moulded top, a projecting moulded sill, and a moulded cornice. An additional moulded band below the cornice appears to have been added recently, being formed in timber and absent from earlier survey photographs. The windows to the canted bay have impost blocks with moulded surrounds and exaggerated keystones above, all topped by a continuous moulded string course; unlike the windows elsewhere on the building, these do not have margin panes. A projecting stucco band runs between the ground-floor openings at impost level — that is, at the springing point of the arches — and features a wave moulding.

The first-floor windows are segmentally arched with plain keystones and moulded, lugged surrounds on projecting moulded sills with corresponding brackets; a wave moulding continues on the projecting band between these windows, as at ground floor. The second-floor windows are flat-arched with matching lugged surrounds, a continuous projecting sill course, and a simpler moulded string course above the surrounds; this string course forms the base of the plain frieze. All sills are flashed with lead.

WEST ELEVATION

The west elevation faces onto Lisburn Road and is almost equal in prominence to the south facade. The original building occupies the right half of the elevation as seen from the street, with the 2006 extension to the left roughly doubling the building's width from this aspect; only the original portion is described here. The projecting eaves and cornice, and dressings including the ground- and second-floor projecting sills, string courses, and moulded bands, all continue from the south elevation and terminate at the junction with the new extension.

A single-storey canted bay is positioned more or less centrally, with a single window aligned above it at each of the first and second floors, all matching the detailing of the south elevation. Some historic glass has been noted in the canted bay windows. To the left of the canted bay, a recessed bay contains a sliding sash window at ground floor — possibly inserted in place of an original door — and a small square double-glazed top-hung casement window at each of the first and second floors, with moulded frames, and a further square frame below featuring a blank rendered plaque. To the right of the canted bay, the walling is otherwise plain except for a date plaque reading "1879" set in a moulded square frame with a pediment on scrolled corbels, supported on a projecting moulded sill with corresponding brackets.

REAR AND EAST ELEVATIONS

The rear (north) elevation is abutted by the 2006 extension. The east elevation is blank, rendered smooth and painted, with a raised parapet to the hipped roof. It is abutted by a single-storey, red brick, flat-roofed appendage over a basement belonging to No. 32 College Gardens.

INTERIOR

The interior fabric was largely replaced following fire damage in February 2008, which also entailed the installation of a new stair and the replacement of much of the roof structure.

EXTENSION

A substantial extension to the north, added around 2006 and designed by Hugh Morrison, almost doubles the footprint of the building. It comprises three storeys with an attic and was designed to match the original building in height and detailing. It is not included within the listing description.

SETTING AND BOUNDARIES

The building is set back from the tree-lined street by dark grey concrete paving blocks along the boundary, which are also used to form a shallow step at the front entrance and to mark divisions between off-street parking bays set in resin-bonded gravel. A tarmacadam driveway to the left side leads past mature hedging towards a former porter's lodge on the Lisburn Road side. Dwarf timber posts stained black, carrying stainless steel light bollards, are placed at regular intervals along the boundary with the front garden of No. 32 College Gardens. The north and west boundaries along Lisburn Road have modern galvanised steel railings enclosing gravel beds and further off-street parking spaces. Some remaining sandstone kerbs survive in front of the modern railings, with holes, presumably left by original railings, now filled in. Sandstone pillars remain at the north-west and north-east corners of the site and appear to be original; the one nearest to Lisburn Road is much eroded, while the other retains its moulded cap. The boundary with Elmwood Mews is marked by metal palisade fencing enclosing a yard also shared by Nos. 30, 31, and 32 College Gardens.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

College Gardens — originally known as College Gardens Avenue — occupies land that, prior to the early 19th century, formed part of a series of strip farms running from what is now Malone and University Roads to the Bog Meadows. These farms were probably laid out in the early 17th century. Their integrity was broken up by the cutting of the Lisburn Road between 1816 and 1819 and the construction of the Ulster Railway between 1837 and 1839. Around the same time, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of what remained of these farms, with the building or upgrading of existing structures to create small country villas set within small demesnes within the formerly farmed plots.

The land immediately north and south of College Gardens had belonged to one such villa, known as Vermont, a house predating 1770, possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815 and again in the 1840s — on the latter occasion by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The building of Queen's College a short distance to the north-east in 1845 triggered the suburbanisation of the area. In 1865 Vermont itself was sold for the building of another educational establishment, Methodist College, which was completed in 1868. A new private avenue was laid out on the lower ground immediately to the north, with building plots on the northern side. Construction proceeded from the eastern end: the present Nos. 1–6 were built in 1871, Nos. 7–18 in 1877, Nos. 33 and 34 in 1879, Nos. 19–22 in 1881, Nos. 23–26 in 1882, and Nos. 27–32 in 1883.

No. 33 was built in 1879 as the manse for University Road Methodist Church. The Reverend Joseph McKay was the first occupant. He was followed by the Reverend William Gorman around 1883, the Reverend John O. Park around 1886, the Reverend Wesley Guard around 1889, the Reverend William Gorman again around 1891, the Reverend W. Nicholas around 1894, the Reverend Charles Inwood around 1896, and the Reverend William Gorman once more around 1898. By 1901, the Reverend Charles Inwood had returned, and in the census of that year he is recorded as living there with his wife Emma Jane, their four children, and a domestic servant. The house was recorded as a first-class dwelling with twelve rooms in family use. The Reverend W. H. Smyth had replaced Inwood by 1907, and was succeeded around 1909 by the Reverend Pierce Martin, who in the 1911 census was recorded as occupying the house with his wife Rose Edith, their three grown-up daughters, and a domestic servant. By 1918 the Reverend H. McKeag was in residence. Sometime between 1918 and 1924 the property ceased to function as a manse; by 1924 J. M. Johnston, an undertaker, was named as householder. By 1932 the occupant was V. G. L. Fielden, an ophthalmic surgeon. At some point in the later 1940s the building became the offices of Rose, Stevenson and Sons, quantity surveyors, who retained it until around 1990.

In 2001, an L-shaped single-storey lean-to return to the rear — which map evidence suggests was added either in part or in whole before 1902 — was demolished. In 2006, a major refurbishment scheme commenced, including the construction of the large full-height extension to the north, practically doubling the footprint of the building. This work was completed the following year. A fire in February 2008 then caused further damage, necessitating the installation of a new stair and the replacement of much of the roof, and resulting in the loss of most of the interior fabric. The building is currently used as offices.