21 Malone Place, Belfast, County Antrim, BT12 5FD

21 Malone Place is a two-storey, two-bay Victorian mid-terrace dwelling built around 1860, forming part of the latter half of the terrace. It sits on a square plan with a two-storey rear return, located off the Lisburn Road adjacent to Sandy Row, approximately one mile south of Belfast city centre. Although some historic features were lost when the terrace was refurbished around 2000, the house has retained its general external character and contributes significant value to the group as a whole, making a positive architectural contribution to the character of the area.

The roof is pitched slate with clay ridge tiles, replacement galvanised rainwater goods, a red-brick chimney, and clay pots. The external walls are red brick laid to Flemish bond, with a projected smooth rendered plinth course and yellow-brick eaves courses. Windows are 1/1 double-glazed timber sliding-sash with horns, painted masonry cills, and yellow-brick flat arches. The front door is a replacement timber door with an overlight, replacement surrounds, and a canopy.

The principal elevation faces south and is asymmetrically arranged. At ground floor level there is a door to the left and a single window to the right; at first floor level there are two windows. The left gable abuts number 23 Malone Place, and the right gable abuts number 19. The rear elevation is also asymmetrically arranged and rendered, with the ground floor largely obscured from view. There is a first-floor window to the right, and the left bay is abutted by a replacement red-brick two-storey return with lower eaves and ridge levels than the main building.

The terrace faces directly onto a narrow street. On the opposite side of the street is a rubble masonry wall bounding the railway embankment and a small park enclosed by gated railings. On the far side of the Lisburn Road stands the University Road Moravian Church. To the west is the former Maternity Hospital, and to the north a large modern apartment block.

The terrace was built in at least two phases. The earlier houses, numbers 9 to 19, date from the late 1840s, while numbers 21 to 29 — including this house — were added between 1860 and 1863. The site at the bottom of Sandy Row lay well outside the built-up area of Belfast until the 1850s, with Sandy Row itself probably following a route established in medieval times. On the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33, a small structure is shown on the site, possibly associated with the Malone turnpike that stood at this junction. At the time the terrace was built, the surrounding landscape was a mixture of factories, brick fields, housing, larger mansions, and open ground. The most prominent local landmark was the Union Workhouse and Fever Hospital, dating from 1841 and 1849 respectively, and several residents of Malone Place were employed there at various times.

The land on which the terrace stands belonged from 1798 to a gentleman named William Irvine. In 1826 it was purchased, along with the neighbouring plot, by Arthur Gaffikin, a butcher and property developer who later became a linen businessman. Gaffikin is commemorated in the name of Gaffikin Street, which runs to the rear of Malone Place. The terrace is absent from the street directory of 1846–47 but appears in the 1850 edition, suggesting a construction date in the late 1840s for the first phase of houses. The terrace was built to the rear of a larger house called Malone Cottage, which faces onto Sandy Row (then known as Malone Road). It is possible that Malone Cottage and the terrace were developed together by Gaffikin and then sold on, or that he sold the land as building plots. Griffith's Valuation of 1860 lists Sarah Warnock as landlady, with the houses valued at £10. A Belfast Newsletter advertisement of March 1857 describes them as "neat, well-finished houses in Malone Place, adjoining the Post Office, containing Parlour, Kitchen, Three Bedrooms with Gas and Water at the greatly reduced rent of £11."

Numbers 21 to 29 were built between 1860 and 1863 by property developer Moses Tate. These later houses were initially valued slightly higher than the first phase — at £11, with number 29 at £12 — though these valuations were later reduced in 1888 to £10 and £11 respectively. The Belfast Newsletter of February 1862 noted that "a number of respectable houses have lately been built on the above Ground and others are in progress of erection." Further building land in the area was offered by Arthur Gaffikin, and four slightly larger houses were subsequently built on the far side of Blondin Street between 1870 and 1877. These were later taken over as the Midnight Mission Rescue Home, a refuge for so-called "fallen" women, which eventually became a maternity hospital. The four dwellings were demolished in 1924 and replaced by a new Rescue and Maternity Home designed by William Godfrey Ferguson. In 1973 the resulting Malone Place Hospital was absorbed by the Jubilee Maternity Hospital, ceasing to be used for maternity services after 1981, though it remained the property of the Health Trust.

The earliest valuation map to show the terrace, dating from around 1860, depicts ornamental railings and a step to the front of each of the original six houses, with rear returns and outbuildings in each yard. A subsequent map edition, dating from between approximately 1860 and 1895, shows a boundary post and watering trough at the junction with the Lisburn Road, and a tramline running behind the terrace in Napier Street, which provided employment for some residents.

The terrace's inhabitants were mostly of the skilled manual, clerical, and supervisory classes, with many working in the textile industry as cloth manufacturers, drapers, tailors, or in related trades. The Belfast Newsletter records occasional colourful incidents involving residents: in 1867, Jane Crosbey of number 17 was summoned to court on a charge of being disorderly in a public street, with magistrates having received information "as to the character of the house she kept." In the autumn of 1876, a story ran in the Newsletter over several weeks after a boarder at number 23 was accused of stealing a topcoat, umbrella, watch and chain, and £1 10s from a man staying overnight; the case culminated in a courtroom speech by the defendant and an angry response from his wife. By the time the 1901 and 1911 censuses give a fuller picture, most houses were occupied by large extended families of the respectable skilled working class, rarely able to afford a servant, with teenage children typically contributing a wage to the household.

The houses were frequently renumbered during the latter decades of the 19th century, making it difficult at times to trace individual occupants. As far as can be determined, number 21 was newly built and unoccupied around 1860. The first recorded occupant was Edwin C. Collier, a book-keeper, in 1863–64, followed by Mrs Levy in 1865, Alfred Scott (manager of the nearby Malone felt mills) in 1870, and Eliza McCormick from 1877 to 1880. Charles McDowell was resident from 1884 to 1890, variously described as a warehouseman, clerk, and foreman. From 1895 to 1900, Margaret McDowell — possibly his widow — was taking in laundry and by 1900 had become a ladies' nurse. By the 1901 census, the house was occupied by Samuel Rainey, an engineer, who lived there with his wife and seven children aged between 6 and 21; the older children were working as a seamstress, an apprentice clerk, and an apprentice engineer. The 1911 census records Samuel Shanks, a joiner, living there with his wife, his son (working as a stationer's assistant), and his retired father.

The house continues in use as a domestic dwelling.