55 University Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NF

55 University Road is a substantial three-storey late Georgian-style terraced house built between 1840 and 1843, with a stucco façade and decorative doorcase. It is one of a matching group of four houses, all extensively renovated around 1984–85 and converted into flats, with stairwell returns added to the rear in the process.

The terrace to which the property belongs was originally named Botanic View and stands on the west side of University Road, with Camden Street to the north and Fitzwilliam Street to the south. The terrace as a whole comprises this house and its three identical neighbours, three similar but slightly lower three-storey houses of around 1840–41 (also now converted to flats), and a short two-storey brick group of 1852 at the southern end (now flats and offices). No. 55 sits close to the northern end of the terrace.

The front, east-facing façade is asymmetrical. On the ground floor, to the left, is the original entrance doorway, which is no longer in use as the flats are now accessed from the rear stairwell return. The doorway has been retained as a feature: it consists of a traditional-style panelled and glazed surround that now functions as a window rather than a working door. It has panelled pilaster jambs and is topped with a plain rectangular fanlight, the whole ensemble framed by plain pilasters with decorative console brackets supporting a cornice hood with a tympanum-like blocking course above. To the right of the doorway on the ground floor are two flat-arch windows with Georgian-paned sash frames, each with six panes over six. The first floor has two windows directly above those on the ground floor, matching in style, and the second floor has two similar but shorter windows in the same alignment. The ground floor is finished in square-channelled rusticated render, painted a darker shade than the upper floors, which are in plain render with simple moulded surrounds to the window openings. It is probable that the first and second floor levels were originally in brick.

To the left-hand side of the rear, west-facing elevation there is a large full-height stairwell return shared with the adjoining No. 53, which it partly overlaps. This was built around 1984, with each property's individual original rear return having been demolished in the process. On the west face of the return there is a sash window at first half-landing level and another slightly shorter one at second half-landing level, both matching those on the front. On the north face of the return, to the left on the ground floor, is a doorway with a recent security door giving access to the stairwell and to the ground-floor flat of No. 55 (and that of No. 57). Immediately to the right of this doorway is a single-storey flat-roofed brick projection housing the dustbins belonging to the three flats of No. 53. The south face of the return mirrors the arrangement of the north face, but with small sash windows to the right at both first and second floor levels, each with Georgian panes in a four-over-two configuration.

On the rear façade of the main body of the building — that is, to the right of the return — there are two windows on each floor. On each floor the right-hand window is larger, and the second-floor windows are shorter than those below. The ground-floor windows are covered with security grilles; those on the upper floors have Georgian-paned sash frames (first floor: four over two and six over six; second floor: four over two and four over three). The entire rear elevation is rendered and painted in the same manner as the upper floors of the front.

The main roof is gabled and slated, with a mono-pitched, lean-to-style slated roof over the return. There is a tall rendered chimneystack to the north with a string course and decorative matching pots. A bracketed verge course runs along the front, with a plainer version to the rear; both have recent-looking moulded guttering and modern square downspouts. To the front, the small garden is enclosed by low rendered walls and filled with shrubbery. The pathway that formerly led to the front entrance has been removed.

Historical background

Before the early 19th century, University Road formed the main route south from the then small but growing town of Belfast towards Dublin, running along the Malone Ridge and curving south-west towards Lisburn. Long, narrow strip farms stretched westward from this road, sloping down towards the lower ground of the Bog Meadows. By the mid-18th century, many of these farms were being leased by the Donegall estate to Belfast merchants and worked by under-tenants, whose largely humble farmhouses were scattered along the road. In 1819 the present Lisburn Road was laid out, cutting through the farms, and by 1839 the Ulster Railway had been driven through their lower fields. From 1823 onwards the Donegall estate began granting perpetual leases on land to the south of Belfast, and with the integrity of the Malone farms thus broken up, the area became available to developers.

John Alexander was one such developer. His family had held a lease on 31 acres in the townland of Lower Malone since the early 18th century, and in 1823 acquired the land outright from Lord Donegall for £480. It was on this land that Alexander built the three-storey section of Botanic View terrace — the present Nos. 53 to 65 University Road — between 1840 and 1843. He also parcelled out adjacent portions of the holding to other developers, which led to the construction of Fitzwilliam Place (Nos. 71–75) in 1846–48, dwellings along the newly laid out Fitzwilliam Street (Nos. 2–8) around 1849–50, and Camden Terrace along the newly laid out Camden Street in 1849–52. The two-storey southern portion of Botanic View was in place by 1852. These new dwellings, together with others close by to the north — including Fountainville Terrace, Upper and Lower Crescent, Prospect and Claremont Terraces, and University Square to the east — marked the beginning of the suburbanisation of south Belfast and the movement of the town's professional and commercial classes away from its centre. The character of the earliest inhabitants of Botanic View reflects this: directories from the late 1840s and early 1850s record a surgeon, an engineer, a drawing master, and various businessmen among the residents.

The whole of Botanic View remained in the ownership of the Alexander family until 1881, when the present Nos. 53–65 were sold to Robert Kelso Mathewson. In 1950 the properties came into the possession of Queen's University, with No. 67 acquired by the University in 1963. In 1982 the University sold the entire group to the Malone Housing Association. Up to that point the properties had largely continued in use as private dwellings, some latterly occupied by University staff and students. However, No. 55 and Nos. 57–59 served respectively as a temporary post office and a branch of the Ulster Bank in 1971–72, and No. 59, having sustained damage in a bomb blast, was demolished in 1979.

In the mid-1980s the Malone Housing Association converted the entire group into flats. As part of this work No. 59 was rebuilt, and Nos. 53, 55, 57 and 59 were each arranged to provide three flats, with a further six flats shared between Nos. 61, 63, 65 and 67. All of the original rear returns were demolished to make way for new stairwell projections, with a single shared stairwell serving each pair of former houses. In March 2000 the whole group was reconveyed to Queen's University.