33 College Gardens, Belfast

Detached three-storey Victorian manse built in 1879, located at the corner of Lisburn Road and College Gardens in the Queens Conservation Area, Belfast. The building is no longer as tall as the surrounding terraced townhouses on this tree-lined street but functions as a visual bookend to the street, with fenestration addressing both College Gardens and Lisburn Road. A substantial extension to the north, added around 2006 and designed by Hugh Morrison to match the original building in height and detailing, almost doubles the footprint; this extension is not included in this description. The building is currently used as offices. The architect of the original building is unknown. A former porter's lodge to Methodist College sits immediately to the southwest.

The roof is natural slate with red clay tiled hips and ridge. A large rectangular rendered chimney, centred on the ridge, features a moulded cornice and string course with moulded panelling below; it is capped with lead flashing and retains no pots. A conservation roof light sits in a shallow recess between the new and old building on the west-facing roof pitch. The eaves project substantially with moulded details, and plain frieze bands with moulded string courses above and below appear on the south and west elevations, all painted. Replacement ogee-profiled guttering, likely aluminium, has circular section rainwater pipes with some original cast iron fixings; uPVC hoppers and downpipes serve the flat roofs.

Walls are smooth rendered masonry with moulded stucco or stone dressings, painted in contrasting colour to the walls. All windows are timber-framed, single-glazed, double hung with 1/1 sliding sashes and margin panes except where otherwise noted. All sliding sash windows have double-glazed secondary windows fitted to the inner reveals.

The south elevation facing College Gardens shows vertical emphasis with formally arranged openings. It is asymmetrical, with the entrance positioned to the right and a single-storey canted bay with raised parapet to the left. Two windows at each of the first and second floors align with ground floor openings and diminish in height. A timber-framed four-panelled entrance door, replaced but made to resemble double doors with a central vertical bead, occupies a square-headed frame with plain glass fanlight. The doorcase is ornamental 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 moulded top, projecting moulded cill, and cornice. An additional moulded band below the cornice appears to have been added recently in timber. Windows to the canted bay have impost blocks with moulded surrounds and exaggerated keystones topped by a continuous moulded string course; unlike elsewhere, these windows lack margin panes. A projecting stucco band with wave moulding runs between ground floor openings at impost level. Segmental arched first floor windows have plain keystones and moulded and lugged surrounds on projecting moulded cills with corresponding brackets; wave moulding appears on the projecting band between windows at ground floor. Second floor flat-arched windows have matching lugged surrounds with a continuous projecting cill course and simpler moulded string course above, which forms the base to the plain frieze. All cills are flashed with lead.

The west elevation facing Lisburn Road is almost equal in prominence to the south façade. The original composition of three bays wide is expanded by the large extension to the left, which doubles the building's width from this aspect; only the original building (right half) is described here. Projecting eaves and cornice, and dressings such as ground and second floor projecting cills and all string courses and moulded bands, continue from the south elevation, terminating at the junction with the new extension. A single-storey canted bay is positioned more or less centrally, with a single window aligned at each first and second floor above, all matching the south elevation. Historic glass is noted to the canted bay windows. A recessed bay to the left has a sliding sash window at ground floor, possibly replacing an original door, with small square double-glazed top-hung casement windows at first and second floors featuring moulded frames; a further square frame below contains a blank rendered plaque. To the right, walling is plain rendered and painted, save for an 1879 date plaque in a moulded square frame with pediment on scrolled corbels, all supported on a projecting moulded sill with corresponding brackets.

The rear elevation to the north 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 to No. 32 College Gardens.

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