47 Malone Road, Belfast

47 Malone Road is a mid-terrace, four-storey, two-bay red brick late Victorian town house, built in 1886–87 to designs by William Eaton, an architect then based on Botanic Avenue, Belfast. It sits near the northern end of Malone Road, between Malone Avenue and Eglantine Avenue, and forms part of a terrace of nine closely similar houses — Nos. 37–45 and 49–53 Malone Road — that together constitute one of the most impressive Victorian terraces within the Malone Road Conservation Area. The terrace was originally named Windsor Gardens and was built for James Johnston, possibly the insurance agent of that name recorded in contemporary directories as operating from Waring Street. The entire group appears to have been completed by mid-1888 and all properties were recorded as occupied in the earliest available street directory of 1890. The site had previously formed part of the grounds of Eglantine Hill, a house predating 1832, bounded by the Malone and Lisburn Roads to the east and west, and by what are now Malone and Eglantine Avenues to the north and south.

No. 47 is notable as the only building in the terrace to retain residential use, although the ground floor is in commercial use. It is rectangular on plan, oriented on a north–south axis with gabled ends. A three-storey gabled return is built at half-landing level to the rear (west), abutted by a single-storey building, possibly a former outbuilding.

Roofs and External Materials

The main roof is finished in natural slate with bands of fish-scale slates. The bowed bay has red terracotta ridge tiles and a finial, though the finial has been decapitated. The return roof was not inspected during survey. The single-storey building has artificial slates and a black ridge tile. A large red brick chimney is centred on the ridge of the main roof, with simple corbelled brick coursing to the cap and eight circular yellow clay pots. Cast iron guttering to the front elevation is supported on scrolled terracotta brackets and a projecting eaves course. The bowed bay rises above the main eaves and is highlighted by a cornice of classical ornamentation in stuccowork below the gutter level.

Walls to the front (east) elevation are red brick laid in Flemish bond with painted render and stone dressings. Rear and return walls are in English Garden Wall bond. Rainwater goods to the front are cast iron; uPVC guttering and cast iron downpipes serve the rear and return. Windows to the front are mostly double-glazed replacement sliding sashes with timber frames and 1/1 panes, with the exception of a single attic window, which retains single-glazed timber sliding sash glazing with 1/1 panes. Rear windows are replacement uPVC-framed double-glazed casements.

Front Elevation (East)

The front elevation faces east and is two bays wide, with the full-height bowed bay offset to the left and the entrance to the right. The bowed bay rises the full height of the building and is topped by a conical slate roof, a feature shared by all the houses in the terrace and central to the rhythm and visual character of the group. The elevation has a deep painted stucco base plinth with a chamfered top, and projecting moulded cill and string courses with stucco plat bands at each floor level, all painted. The bowed bay is also finished in painted stucco, apart from some brick header courses between floor levels. Stuccowork above the segmental-headed door and flat-arched bay windows carries incised decoration, and an edge roll moulding frames the bay windows.

The door surround lacks the hood mould seen on adjacent houses, though label stops remain above the plat band, resting on pink marble colonnettes with a dressed sandstone plinth and capital (painted). Above the square-headed, five-panelled timber door is a plain fanlight. Toothed rendered quoins appear below the plat band, and a decorative terracotta panel (painted) sits above the door head. The colonnettes and terracotta panel are repeated on the first- and second-floor windows above the door.

Rear Elevation (West)

The rear elevation faces a shared alley and is simply detailed, with soldier-coursed brick window heads and projecting brick headers to the eaves. The three-storey gabled return is to the left (north) with clipped eaves and no chimney. It has three uPVC-framed casement windows with concrete heads and cills: one at second-floor level and two at first-floor level. To the right of the return, a metal external escape stair painted red serves each floor, with a uPVC side-hung escape window at third-floor level and uPVC top-hung casement windows — proportioned to resemble 1/1 sliding sashes — at ground, first, and second floors. A further small timber-framed casement window with a top-hung night vent is located on the main building above the return. The single-storey building to the west has clipped eaves, a uPVC-framed casement window offset to the left, and a flat-roofed asphalt enclosure between the gable end and the yard wall.

North and South Elevations

The north face abuts No. 45 Malone Road. The south elevation of the return has one uPVC-framed casement window to the far left at first- and second-floor half-landing levels, overlooking a flat-roofed extension in the yard of No. 45; it is otherwise blank. The south elevation of the single-storey building is painted with a half-round uPVC gutter on rise-and-fall brackets to the eaves.

The south face abuts No. 49 Malone Road. The south face of the return is detailed similarly to the rear (west) elevation of the main building, with informal fenestration throughout. All windows are replacement uPVC with top-hung night vents, randomly spaced, and mostly with replacement concrete heads: two at second-floor level either side of a fire escape door, three at first-floor level, and four at ground-floor level; a small recess at ground-floor level at the junction with the main building marks the position of a former door. Walls are painted white. The south face of the single-storey building has three windows matching those in the return, and one flush modern door, with walls also painted white.

Interior

The building derives strong character from its large, well-lit rooms, particularly those at first-floor front, and from robust internal detailing throughout.

Setting

The building is set back from a tree-lined street, with a paved front garden bounded by a low red brick wall. The front garden is surfaced in precast concrete pavers graded to provide level access to the entrance, with a semi-mature tree to one side and otherwise paved. The terrace stands on the west side of Malone Road, directly opposite Fisherwick Presbyterian Church, and is seen to particular advantage from the corner of Chlorine Gardens. The rear yard is bounded by a red brick wall with a concrete lintel offset to the right, above modern smooth red brick infill and a sheeted timber door; the wall is topped by palisade fencing to the west and south. The yard retains its original square quarry flagstones.

Occupancy History

The first recorded occupant was Colonel R. M. Studdert, a Local Government Board Auditor. By 1895 he had been succeeded by a Miss Close, and by 1900 by J. Ireland, a linen manufacturer, who remained until around 1909. The property appears to have stood vacant from approximately 1910 until at least 1915, and is therefore not recorded in the 1911 census. By 1918, Dr Harold Gray was in residence, followed by John McGonigal, a lawyer, by 1925. In 1940 the street directory records the property as a Boys' Residential Club, though McGonigal, by then a judge, is again listed as occupant in 1943. After a further period of vacancy in the later 1940s, the building had been divided into flats by 1951, remaining so until the early 1970s, when it became offices — occupied by architect W. H. McAllister in 1974, and by the Industrial Training Service Ltd from 1986 until at least 1996. The upper floors were converted back to residential use in 2016. The property was listed in November 1991.