NI Regional War Room

Northern Ireland Regional War Room, Mount Eden Park / Malone Hill Park, Belfast

Designed in 1952–53 by the Working Party on Civil Defence War Rooms, this single-storey building with basement is a rare surviving example of one of only thirteen Regional Government War Rooms constructed across the United Kingdom at the outset of the Cold War. It stands on a corner site at the junction of Mount Eden Park and Malone Hill Park in the Malone area of South Belfast, a residential district composed largely of streets built during the 1930s and post-war era. Mount Eden Park lies approximately halfway between the roundabout marking the start of the Upper Malone Road and the junction of the Malone Road with Balmoral Avenue.

The building is of plain, utilitarian rectangular plan, constructed entirely in in-situ concrete with a flat roof, and was purpose-built to withstand a direct hit by a 500lb medium-capacity bomb. Its perimeter walls are exceptionally thick — 1,500mm — and the reinforced concrete roof was similarly designed to resist blast. The overall floor area was calculated at roughly 6,000 square feet across two floors. Construction costs were estimated at £36,720 for the building itself plus £29,840 for the plant and equipment.

Externally, the building presents four plain rectangular elevations of painted roughcast concrete. A concrete bullnose plinth, also painted, runs to all four sides. The flat roof overhangs the walls on all sides by approximately 600mm; its soffit is painted shuttered concrete, and the fascia is clad in a proprietary metal product fixed with metal studs to timber behind, with the roof covering wrapping over the fascia at all edges. At roof level on the Mount Eden Park elevation, vertical profiled metal decking conceals three concrete box-shaped structures behind, which house plant and a water tank.

The north-west elevation carries the main entrance: a plain opening fitted with sheet metal applied over a metal fire door, accessed via a modern concrete ramp set between concrete dwarf walls with painted tubular metal handrails. In front of the door and ramp is an external semi-circular in-situ concrete pad, which may originally have functioned as a porch or blast-wall area. A painted cast-iron downpipe with hopper is located at approximately the midpoint of this elevation. The south-west elevation is plain, with no openings, and has a painted cast-iron downpipe with hopper at its midpoint. The south-east elevation mirrors the north-west in arrangement: a metal fire door — again with sheet metal applied over it — is accessed via two modern concrete steps to a small landing between concrete dwarf walls with painted tubular metal handrails, with a further semi-circular concrete pad in front. A painted cast-iron downpipe with hopper sits at mid-elevation. The north-east elevation has no openings; it carries a painted plastic downpipe with hopper, a vent pipe at the extreme left extending to ground level, two further vent pipes to the left of the downpipe, and a lagged pipe supported on metal brackets to the right of the downpipe. The two blast doors — now replaced with the current metal fire doors — were positioned at opposite ends of the building, at the north-west and south-east.

Internally, the layout follows the standard War Room arrangement: a perimeter of rooms surrounds a central core, which originally contained a double-height map room with smaller rooms clustered around it, most opening off a relatively narrow corridor. Much of this original plan form survives. Of particular note are the original self-contained mechanical ventilation system, the original generator, and the associated controls and switches, all of which remain in situ. The building is currently used as a store by the Court Service.

The site is accessed from the street through a pair of modern brick pillars with concrete caps, hung with painted galvanised metal gates of vertical bar construction. The site itself is roughly trapezoidal in shape. Mature hedges and trees bound it along Mount Eden Park to the north-east and along Malone Hill Park to the north-west and south-west. To the south-east, the site adjoins No. 46 Mount Eden Park, a two-storey detached dwelling, separated by a post-and-wire fence. To the south-west, the site is backed by Nos. 41 and 43 Malone Hill Park, with a grass bank rising from behind the south-west elevation to a rear boundary of mature trees, shrubs, and timber fences. Ground surfaces within the site consist of tarmac generally, concrete to the semi-circular pads at the north-west and south-east, and concrete to the ramp and steps.

The building was designed on the assumption that a nuclear war would involve a prolonged period of saturation bombing, during which a staff of approximately 45 would operate from within, controlling their region and coordinating civil defence. It was soon recognised, however, that nuclear attack would be measured in days while recovery would take years, and that the Regional War Rooms network lacked the communications capacity and scope for expansion needed to manage a long recovery period in isolation. By the later 1950s a new approach was adopted, producing larger "Regional Seats of Government" capable of housing around 300 staff with upgraded communications. The Mount Eden Park facility was consequently superseded around 1958–59 by a Regional Seat of Government at Gough Barracks in Armagh City. From around 1962 the building took on a more localised role as the Belfast Corporation Control, with six sub-controls reporting to it. Following the disbandment of the Civil Defence Corps in the rest of the United Kingdom after 1968, it was mothballed. In the early 1980s, after a further defence reorganisation, the structure was reactivated as a Regional Government Headquarters, a role it held until 1990 when it was replaced by a new Regional Government Headquarters at Ballymena. It has been used as a store ever since. The building is catalogued on the Defence Heritage Register under reference D-309.