Old Town Hall, 80 Victoria Street, Belfast, BT1 3FA

Old Town Hall, 80 Victoria Street, Belfast

This is a detached, symmetrical, multi-bay, two-storey former town hall in red brick and red sandstone, dated 1869 and built to the designs of Anthony Jackson. It is irregular on plan, facing west, with a central block connected to two pavilions by recessed connecting wings. The building served as Belfast's town hall before the construction of Belfast City Hall, and employs an eclectic array of architectural motifs combining a Palladian front composition with Lombardo-Romanesque carved detailing. Although the interior has been heavily altered, much original fabric and fine detailing survive. The building is a major work of a significant architect and is of considerable historical importance to the city.

Architectural Description

The building is set within its own grounds on the east side of Victoria Street, with its south side elevation fronting onto Chichester Street and a large car park to the rear. It was extensively renovated for use by the Courts Service around 1999.

The roofs are hipped natural slate with lead ridges and rolled lead hip ridges, and mansard roofs to both pavilions. All three blocks have decorative iron cresting and finials. Profiled red brick chimneystacks with terracotta pots and cast-iron rainwater goods are set behind red sandstone arcaded parapet walls with moulded coping and squat piers resting on a crown cornice. The central block has a central gabled wall-head dormer to the parapet, surmounted by a poppy-head finial, with a decoratively moulded round-headed opening supported on paired squat columns framing a glazed oculus. To each pavilion, the centre of the parapet features a decorative round-headed panel with a poppy-head finial, nail-head mouldings, and a circular recessed panel bearing the raised monogram '1869'.

The walling is machine-made red brick laid in English garden wall bond, with a coursed rock-faced red sandstone ashlar plinth course and moulded trim. Above the plinth is a continuous sandstone blocking course surmounted by a continuous roll-moulded sill course. Flush red sandstone quoins to all corners incorporate embedded slender colonettes framing each floor. There are continuous foliate impost mouldings to both floors, with a frieze and deep moulded sill course to the first floor. A red sandstone frieze embellished with trefoil carvings runs below the crown cornice and parapet, with a corbel course to the central block. The rear elevation has painted rendered walls.

Window openings are round-headed throughout, with deeply set roll-moulded voussoired heads rising from a continuous impost moulding and framed by slender colonettes — paired at ground floor level. Recessed red sandstone lattice-panelled window aprons are provided to all ground floor windows and to the first floor of the central block. Windows throughout are replacement single-pane timber sash, with replacement timber windows to the first floor of the central block in the form of a Venetian arch.

Principal West Elevation

The front elevation comprises a central block five windows wide, flanked by recessed connecting wings four windows wide, and terminated at either end by advanced pavilions three windows wide. The central bay forms a shallow breakfront topped by the dormer window, with an advanced gabled doorcase. This has replacement double-leaf hardwood panelled doors and an overpanel with a shouldered lintel and a carved stone panel set deep within a round-headed opening featuring roll moulding and a billeted hood moulding. The door opening is flanked by two pairs of banded squat columns on conical corbels with stiff-leaf capitals, supporting a decorative gabled hood with crocketed trim surmounted by a poppy-head finial. The carved panel depicts the Belfast coat of arms with a ribbon banner reading 'PRO TANTO QUID RETRIBUAMUS'. The door opens onto a replacement paved platform and steps with a universal access ramp.

North Side Elevation

The north side elevation to the pavilion is two storeys and four windows wide to the right, and single-storey and three windows wide to the left, detailed in the same manner as the front elevation. The central bay has an advanced gabled doorcase detailed as the principal elevation, except for a glazed fanlight and double-leaf raised-and-fielded timber panelled doors, which may be original.

Rear Elevation

The rear elevation has an irregular, informal composition with a shallow gabled central breakfront housing the stairhall, abutted by a single-storey utility extension and a raised platform and steps. Window openings are generally segmental-headed to the first floor and round-headed to the ground floor. A single square-headed door opening to the central gable opens onto a platform and has a red sandstone surround with embedded colonettes and a shouldered lintel.

South Side Elevation

The symmetrical south side elevation to the pavilion is two storeys and seven windows wide, with an advanced gabled doorcase detailed as the north side elevation.

Setting

The building is located on the east side of Victoria Street. Replacement steel railings and gates enclose a small front area, and a large tarmac car park lies to the rear.

Historical Background

The Old Town Hall was constructed between 1869 and 1871 as Belfast's first purpose-built town hall, the result of an architectural competition held in January 1869. The need for a dedicated municipal building had been discussed since the mid-19th century. In 1852, William Hastings designed a model for a Corinthian town hall proposed for the west bank of the River Lagan near Queen's Bridge; the town council agreed to provide £25,000 for its erection, but the scheme was never executed. In 1866, Thomas Turner submitted a proposal for a town hall on the site of the White Linen Hall — the same site that would eventually become Belfast City Hall some fifty years later.

The 1869 competition attracted entries from some of the most important architectural firms of the mid-Victorian period, including Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon, and Boyd and Batt. The winning design was by Anthony Thomas Jackson (1838–1917), a Belfast-based architect and the elder son of Thomas Jackson (1807–1890), who was known for designing the Old Museum on College Square North and St Malachy's Roman Catholic Church on Alfred Street. Anthony Jackson had previously been a partner in his father's firm but set up his own independent practice around 1869; the town hall commission was his first independent contract. The builder contracted to execute the design was a Mr James Henry. The cost was originally estimated at £16,000, but the total expenditure including fittings and furnishings came to £33,000.

When originally designed, the building was not intended to have a parapet. This provoked public outrage — it was argued that a building without a parapet could not properly be considered a public building — and the agitation was such that the plans had to be submitted to the Treasury for consideration. Jackson's original design was subsequently altered to include the parapet, satisfying public demand for a more ornate appearance.

Upon completion in 1871, the Town Hall was valued at £1,200. It housed the town's municipal buildings as well as a recorder's and police court to the rear; the recorder's and police court was separated from the main block valuation in 1895, at which point the town hall's assessed value fell sharply to £550. The building also originally included three court rooms, a police station, and a fire station (the last of these now demolished). Around 1890, further ornamentation was added in the form of a fish-scale glass entrance canopy, which has since been removed.

Belfast was elevated from town to city status in 1888, at which point the Victoria Street building was considered insufficiently grand for the expanding city. Construction began in 1898 on a replacement on the site of the former White Linen Hall in Donegall Square — only twenty-seven years after the town hall's completion. The Belfast Revaluation survey of 1900 recorded the municipal buildings before the move, noting an increased value of £827 despite their imminent abandonment. The rapid growth of Belfast had quickly rendered the building inadequate: as Larmour has noted, the expansion of the city was so swift that within little more than a decade the building could not accommodate all of the council's officials.

When civic administration transferred to Donegall Square in 1906 on the opening of Belfast City Hall, the former town hall reverted to use solely as a police and recorder's court. During periods of vacancy the building was occupied by a succession of organisations. In 1910 it was occupied by David Allen and Sons Ltd., a leading Belfast printing and bill-posting company. During the Home Rule Crisis, the Ulster Unionist Council leased the building from Belfast Corporation in 1913 and converted it from warehouse use back to offices; its assessed value fell to £460 that year. The building also served as headquarters of the Ulster Volunteer Force, established in 1913. After the outbreak of the First World War, the Ulster Volunteer Force was largely reorganised into the 36th (Ulster) Division. The Ulster Unionist Council continued to occupy the building after the partition of Ireland; the 1918 Belfast Street Directory described it as the Ulster Unionist Headquarters, with Sir Edward Carson listed as Vice President and Sir Dawson Bates — later Minister for Home Affairs — among those with offices in the building. The Provincial Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland and the Ulster Women's Unionist Council also had offices here at this time.

In 1927 the Belfast Educational Committee took charge of the building and established one of its main offices there, reducing the assessed value once more to £253. In 1926, the committee's preferred architect Reginald Sharman Wilshere (1888–1961) carried out alterations to adapt the building to this new use. The Belfast Educational Committee continued to occupy the building during the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland in 1935, which quadrupled the assessed value to £1,000.

The building survived the 1941 Belfast Blitz with only superficial damage despite the heavy bombardment of the surrounding area. In the aftermath, the Second General Revaluation recorded the building as occupied by offices for the Ministry of Home Affairs, with the building re-established as a Petty Sessions Court; however this use was short-lived, and in 1969 the Belfast Educational Authority reoccupied the site, establishing a College of Technology. By the end of the Second General Revaluation in 1972, the building's assessed value stood at £2,480.

The building was listed in 1977, at which point it was once again in use as a Petty Sessions Court. Owing to its importance as a former municipal and judicial building, and the political significance of its history as a headquarters of both the Ulster Unionist Council and the Ulster Volunteer Force, it was frequently targeted by bomb attacks during the Troubles, and protective screens were installed around the building. In 1983 it was converted from a technical college into a recorder's court with ancillary offices, but in July 1985 it was severely damaged in a further bomb attack. Around 1999 the interior was extensively renovated for use by the Courts Service. The building is currently used as Belfast's Youth, Family and Domestic Proceedings Court.

The building occupies the site of the former Pork Market, which stood on Victoria Street and is visible on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858. The town council, first elected in 1842, originally met at premises in Victoria Square opposite the future site; those premises proved too small, and by the mid-19th century proposals for an alternative were welcomed.