13 Upper Crescent, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NT

13 Upper Crescent is a relatively large and fine three-storey rendered town house, one of a Regency-style crescent of ten similar — though not identical — properties built in 1846, now converted to offices and flats. It is one of the plainer buildings within the group.

Upper Crescent sits to the east of University Road and faces, across a small public park, Lower Crescent — a similarly styled development of 1852 which, unlike its counterpart, is arranged as a straight terrace rather than a crescent.

The front elevation is asymmetrical and faces roughly south. On the ground floor to the left is the entrance, comprising a four-panel timber door with a rectangular fanlight; the upper panels of the door have semicircular heads. The door surround consists of panelled pilaster jambs. To the right of the doorway are two tall plain sash windows. The first floor has two larger windows set on a cill course, with sash frames featuring Regency-style horizontally orientated panes to the top sash (a 4-over-8 arrangement). The second floor has two much smaller windows with Georgian-paned sash frames (3-over-6), resting on a more pronounced, cornice-like cill course. The ground floor is finished in rusticated render, the upper floors in plain render. There is a broad plain course above first-floor window height and below the second-floor cill course, on which sits a thin moulded string course. Above second-floor window height there is a plain course, above which is a parapet with plain — probably stone — coping.

The rear elevation could not be seen in its entirety. To the right-hand (east) side is a two-storey gabled return with a Georgian-paned sash window (6-over-6) to the right on the first floor. To the left (west), the return merges with a two-storey projection that probably has a mono-pitched roof. This projection has a timber-sheeted door at ground floor level and a matching window at first-floor level. Both the gable and the south face of the projection are finished in brick. Of the rear façade of the main building, only partial views were possible: there is a window to the left on both the first and second floors of the main rear façade, and almost certainly one at ground-floor level too. Both visible windows are Georgian-paned sashes (6-over-6 at first floor, 3-over-6 at second floor). Between the first and second floors, to the right, is a tall stairwell sash window, also with Georgian panes (6-over-6). The gabled roof is slated, with two small skylight windows to the rear. There is a tall rendered shared chimneystack with projecting coping and uniform pots to the west. Rainwater goods are cast iron.

Historical context: Upper and Lower Crescent

The sale of much of Lord Donegall's Belfast estate in the early to mid 19th century opened up large areas of land around the town for development. The lands to the south, along the Malone Ridge, were particularly attractive, leading to the construction of many fine late Georgian-style terraces from the mid-1830s onwards — a trend accelerated by the establishment of the prestigious Queen's College in the area in the later 1840s. These grand new terraces were occupied by Belfast's professional and business classes, who vacated their older residences in the town centre, which were in turn gradually converted to shops and offices.

Upper Crescent was perhaps the grandest terrace development undertaken to the south of the town: an elegantly curving row of three-storey dwellings in a late Regency style, built in 1846 by the timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry. The authorship of the design is uncertain, though Dr Paul Larmour has suggested that Charles Lanyon may have been involved. Corry himself undertook the building work and took up residence in the house at the east end; for the first few years the row was known as Corry's Crescent. Immediately to the south of the crescent, where the church and small park now stand, Corry held a large lawn as a garden. Shortly after it was laid out, however, he had it ploughed up and used for growing vegetables to relieve local workers suffering as a result of the Great Famine. To the north ran an old watercourse flowing into the Basin — a reservoir east of the Dublin Road — and to the east lay some smaller gardens belonging to other residents of the crescent. Further to the east and north-east ran Albion Lane, a narrow semi-rural laneway stretching from the north end of Bradbury Place to the east end of the present University Terrace.

In 1852 Corry built a further terrace to the north of his garden and just south of the old watercourse. This new development — the somewhat erroneously named Lower Crescent — was much in the same style as the crescent to the south and was occupied by the same mix of professionals and businesspeople, though by as early as 1860 the ground floors of some properties were already in office use. In the later 1860s a railway line was cut immediately to the north of Lower Crescent, along the line of the old watercourse. In 1873 a large sandstone building — originally Victoria College for Girls — was added to the west end of the terrace, and two further houses were added to the east end by the close of the decade. The most easterly of these, Rivoli House, designed by William Hastings, originally contained a dance academy run by a Frederick Brouneau. The new railway line cut across Albion Lane and presaged the laying out of a new, broader thoroughfare, Botanic Avenue.

Upper Crescent also saw further building in the 1860s and 1870s. Two large properties designed by William Hastings were erected at the west end in 1869, one of which — Crescent House, now the Bank of Ireland — also fronted onto University Road. In 1878–79 two further houses were added between those of 1869, and in 1885–87 the large Presbyterian church now known as Crescent Church was erected to designs by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson on the west side of Corry's former garden. In 1898 a two-storey terrace, the present Crescent Gardens, was built on the site of the smaller garden plots at the east end.

During the first half of the 20th century most properties in Upper and Lower Crescent, as well as Crescent Gardens, remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many had been given over to business use or divided into flats. The former Rivoli House — later known as Dreenagh House — became the Regency Hotel. By the beginning of the 21st century none of the properties were occupied as private dwellings. In the mid-1990s three of the 1860s–70s houses at the west end of Upper Crescent were demolished and replaced by a modern office block. In 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent was built over in preparation for a new development.

History of No. 13

In 1849 this property was occupied by a William Brown of Day, Bottomley & Co. In the later 1850s Brown leased the house to a Mrs Esther Orr, who remained there until around 1880. The next occupant was a James Hyndman, followed in the early 1900s by a Mrs Cron, and then Mr E. Matthews, whose family remained in residence from before the 1920s through to the 1960s. By 1970 the house was being used by a group of elocution teachers, but appears to have reverted to a private dwelling in the late 1970s, before becoming an office or offices in the mid-1980s. In the Belfast Directory of 1910 the building is listed as 12½ Upper Crescent — perhaps reflecting a superstitious occupant.