52-58 Howard Street, Town Parks, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 6PL

52-58 Howard Street is a five-storey corner office building constructed in 1901-3 as a warehouse for John Fulton & Co, linen manufacturers and warehousemen. It was designed by the architects Young and Mackenzie. The building stands at the junction of Great Victoria Street and Howard Street in Town Parks, Belfast, and is situated within a conservation area.

The structure is rectangular on plan with two principal elevations. It is built in redbrick and red sandstone ashlar, with a series of shop units occupying the ground floor. The roof sits behind a red sandstone ashlar parapet wall on a continuous overhanging cornice. The parapet comprises a stone balustrade terminated by gableted sections to all end bays, with a segmental pediment to the centre of the west elevation featuring a carved coat of arms, each decorative element flanked by squat piers and ball finials.

The north elevation, facing Howard Street, displays a dentilated segmental pediment containing a carved cartouche with the lettering 'F & J Co Ltd', resting on half-fluted squat pilasters and flanked by carved linen swags, in turn flanked by squat piers surmounted by ball finials. The redbrick walling is laid in English garden wall bond and rises to a dentilated red sandstone cornice above the ground floor, with a continuous moulded sandstone sill course at the fourth floor level.

Both principal elevations feature slightly advanced end bays, with the central three bays on each elevation defined by four Giant pilasters rising from the first floor to parapet level. Segmental-headed window openings contain red sandstone sills with moulded redbrick trims and single-pane timber sash windows with ogee horns. The north elevation is thirteen windows wide, featuring three-centred arched window openings to the fourth floor with red sandstone keystones. Varying red sandstone and redbrick heads appear above the remaining window openings. The ground floor retail units are flanked by red sandstone ashlar pilasters rising to cornice level; some shopfronts retain original polished red granite pilasters. A square-headed entrance bay at the centre of this elevation contains hardwood double-leaf glazed panelled doors with sidelights and overlights. The west elevation is eleven windows wide and is detailed as per the north elevation.

Following its construction, the building first appears on the sixth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1931 and entered valuation records in 1906 as a linen warehouse valued at £880. A series of shops fronting onto Great Victoria Street were also recorded, five valued at £55 and a corner premises valued at £110. By 1911, the warehouse was occupied by Caledon Woollen Mills Ltd. In 1930, Friends' Provident and Century Life Insurance Company took over the building, converting it into offices to designs by Antoine William Roques, although Tulloch and Fitzsimons are also credited with having designed alterations and additions at this time. During this reconstruction, shops were added to the Howard Street side of the building. By 1936, the former warehouse was let out as a series of shops and offices, largely occupied by insurance companies.

Between 1940 and 1966, the building housed a studio for the landscape and portrait painter Frank McKelvey (1895-1974), who was highly regarded for helping to forge a new and distinct way of representing the Irish scene.

The building is not listed, being considered a restrained Edwardian commercial building of late Victorian warehouse style and not of sufficient architectural interest to warrant listing.