21 Bloomfield Road, Belfast

21 Bloomfield Road is a Grade B2 listed semi-detached three-storey house in the Arts & Crafts style, built in 1900 and most likely designed by architect W.J. Moore. It forms part of a row of three pairs of semi-detached houses along the south side of Bloomfield Road in east Belfast.

The house is constructed of red brick laid to a variation between English-garden bond and Scottish bond (four courses of stretchers to one of headers), with a projecting plinth course. The pitched roof is clad in natural slate with roll-top red-clay ridge tiles, red-clay knob finials, and a shared red-brick chimneystack with corbelled coping and red-clay chimney pots. All gables feature timber barge boards, and the property has half-round uPVC guttering and circular uPVC downpipes throughout.

The front elevation (facing north) has a three-storey gabled bay with a two-storey three-sided canted bay base. This bay was originally decorated with mock timber framing but is now rendered. It retains timber brackets, a continuous painted sill course, a flush painted lintel course, and terracotta mouldings, with a terracotta plaque at the centre of the bay. The west elevation includes a two-storey single-bay gabled projection, also with painted sills, flush painted lintels, terracotta mouldings, and a terracotta plaque over the main doorcase.

All window openings are square-headed with stop-chamfer jambs to brick openings on the principal elevations. Current windows are uPVC top-hung casements. A segmental-headed door opening on the north elevation, approached by two tiled nosed steps, serves as the entrance to No. 21; a square-headed uPVC half-glazed door paired with a window on the west elevation serves as the entrance to No. 21a.

The rear elevation has a two-storey red-brick return with pitched natural slate roof, roll-top red-clay ridge tiles, and a single course of decorative bricks. Two single-storey modern extensions have been added to the rear. The east side elevation is abutted by the adjoining house No. 23.

The property has been divided into two separate dwellings since 1968, when it was converted from a single private house into a residential flat on the ground floor and offices on the upper storeys. It is now used again as domestic accommodation. Both properties are accessed from the west elevation fronting onto Woodcut Avenue. A modest front garden is paved and enclosed by a rendered dwarf wall and a painted metal gate. An alleyway directly to the rear separates the property from a row of three-storey terraced houses.

The house was first recorded vacant in the Annual Revisions of 1900. It was owned by Mr. Francis Quinn of Francis Quinn & Sons and the Beechpark Estate Company. The first occupant was John Campbell, a local draper. By the 1911 census, it had passed to R.J. Eagleson, an ex-Royal Irish Constabulary Sergeant, and was described as a first-class dwelling consisting of 11 rooms. Ownership later passed to Mr. Joseph McMaster by 1935, who let the property to tenants until 1968. The building was listed in 1984.

Architect W.J. Moore (circa 1873–1921) was a Belfast-based practitioner who established a private practice in Ann Street by 1896. No. 21 and its adjoining houses would be among the earliest domestic buildings Moore completed during his independent practice. Moore derived his architectural style from Scottish architect Norman Shaw, whose work represented a significant break from established classical and gothic traditions and was instrumental in launching the Arts & Crafts movement.

Despite alterations to the exterior, the building is of interest as part of a group of early Arts & Crafts movement houses in east Belfast. The group makes use of terracotta mouldings that were manufactured locally in Belfast at the time.