Former Malone Telephone Exchange, 226 Lisburn Road, Belfast

Former Malone Telephone Exchange, 226 Lisburn Road, Belfast

This is a three-storey Neo-Georgian former telephone exchange occupying a prominent corner site at the junction of Lisburn Road and Windsor Park. It was designed in 1933 by Thomas Rippingham, working under Roland Ingleby Smith, Chief Architect at the Northern Ireland Ministry of Finance's Department of Works and Public Buildings. The building was constructed using bricks supplied by S. McGladery & Sons. Originally two storeys, a third storey was added in 1966, and the building has since been partially refurbished as a residential apartment building.

The building is rectangular in plan on an east-west axis, with a rounded stair block to the north and a rounded corner to the south. A small rectangular block abuts the north-east corner. The principal elevations face west onto Lisburn Road and south onto Windsor Park. The walling is rustic red brick in Flemish bond, set on a painted masonry stone base to the south and west elevations. The 1966 top storey is distinguished by plain red brick, clearly legible in the brickwork courses. Roofs throughout are flat, likely concrete, hidden behind a plain brick parapet that is embellished on the principal elevations with a stone or cast concrete moulded string course. Rainwater goods are generally cast iron box hoppers and downpipes.

Window openings are square-headed throughout, fitted with original single-glazed multi-paned steel windows set close to the front face with narrow brick reveals. The glazing bars are fine and painted white, with masonry cills. Ground floor windows are 12-pane (3x4), with the bottom three panes (1x3) opening as a hopper. First and second floor windows are 18-pane (3x6), with the bottom six panes (2x3) opening. Stair lights are fixed. On the principal south and west elevations, including the later top storey, window openings have soldier course flat arched heads.

The west elevation, facing Lisburn Road, is symmetrical with bowed ends to the north and south. The stair tower to the north is largely blank except for original panelled and part-glazed painted timber double leaf doors at ground floor level, set within a plain moulded painted masonry surround. The central portion originally comprised three sets of three windows above a tall masonry plinth. Two of the ground floor windows to the south-west have been replaced with a pair of large plain-glazed shop-type windows set in a moulded frame and extending down into the plinth. Access to the rear yard is provided through double doors at the far west end, reached by a short flight of steps.

The south elevation faces onto Windsor Park and has a sweeping rounded corner at its west end. It originally comprised three sets of four windows, one set to each floor, formally arranged on the facade. The rounded corner is distinguished by three curved fixed lights, one to each floor. The ground floor window at the south-east end has been replaced with a traditionally detailed timber door with a rectangular overlight and an ornate masonry frame.

The east elevation faces an enclosed yard entered from Windsor Park through timber double gates. The first and second floors are visible from the road. Although not symmetrical, the openings are formally arranged. Two larger openings on the south-east corner — one above the other on the first and second floors — lead out onto small stone balconies or ledges, likely provided as fire escapes. An earlier survey image from 1994 records that these were originally substantial doors, subsequently replaced with windows; this feature of large openings used as an architectural device can be seen in other telephone exchange buildings of the period.

The north elevation faces an enclosed rear yard. A full-height curved stair tower abuts the north-west corner, and a metal fire escape serves the north-east end. Original windows are retained, with those in the inner face of the stair tower being smaller than elsewhere. Part of this elevation — including the central section of the rear wall and the face of the stair tower facing the yard — is built in plain red brick with concrete heads to the windows. The date of this work is not known, though it predates the 1966 additional floor. Minor modern modifications have been made to door openings at ground level, and some demolition works took place within the yard in 2016-17 in connection with the conversion to flats.

Internally, the building is largely utilitarian and subdivided for offices, but retains original timber doors and a fine elliptical concrete staircase. The stair lights are fixed.

The site appears as a vacant plot on Ordnance Survey maps of around 1900 and 1920, adjacent to the manse of Windsor Presbyterian Church. The exchange first appears on the fifth edition map (covering the period 1919-63), marked as "Tel Ex" and shown in an L-plan with an outlying building to the north-east. By around 1960, the layout was unchanged but the path to the front entrance at the foot of the north stairwell is shown. The third storey was added in 1966, and the reorganisation at that time appears to have involved demolition of the outlying structure and construction of the present engaged north return, the brickwork of which matches that of the upper storey of the main block.

The Malone Exchange forms part of a significant group of buildings representing the first extensive rollout of telecommunications infrastructure in Belfast. Roland Ingleby Smith served as Chief Architect from 1922 to 1942 and signed many of the office's designs, though his administrative duties meant he was often unable to be directly involved. Thomas Rippingham is believed to have been the actual designer of the Malone Exchange, as of several other buildings in the programme wrongly attributed to Smith. Around the same time, Smith and Rippingham designed automatic exchanges for Clifton Park, Upper Newtownards Road, Ormeau Road, Paullett Road, and Somerton Road, as well as Telephone House on May Street, which was opened in 1935 by the Postmaster General and the then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Viscount Craigavon. The Neo-Georgian style adopted for the Malone Exchange was characteristic of institutional architecture of the period.

The building is set back from the street frontage on its prominent corner site and is enclosed to the north and east by a tall brick boundary wall forming a yard. It sits within a conservation area and makes a positive architectural and historical contribution to Lisburn Road and its varied collection of public buildings.