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

Number 12 Upper Crescent is one of the more ornate properties in a regency-style crescent of ten similar, though not identical, three-storey rendered town houses built in 1846. The row was developed by timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry, who himself lived at the eastern end, and for the first few years the development was known as Corry's Crescent. The authorship of the design is uncertain, though architectural historian Dr Paul Larmour has suggested that Charles Lanyon may have been involved. The building has since been converted to offices and flats, and sits within a conservation area.

Number 12 is positioned at the western end of the row. The crescent as a whole is set to the east of University Road and faces northward over a small public park toward Lower Crescent, a similar but straight-terraced development also built by Corry in 1852. The land on which these terraces were developed had formed part of Lord Donegall's Belfast estate, much of which was sold off in the early to mid 19th century. The area to the south of the town, along the Malone Ridge, became particularly attractive to developers from the mid 1830s onwards, a trend accelerated by the establishment of Queen's College nearby in the later 1840s. The new grand terraces were occupied by Belfast's professional and business classes, who vacated their older properties in the town centre, which gradually became shops and offices.

The front elevation of number 12 faces roughly north and is asymmetrical. The ground floor is finished in rusticated render, and the upper floors in plain render. The entire front elevation is painted, with different colours used to pick out the columns and pilasters. The most striking feature of the façade is a set of four large, evenly spaced Corinthian three-quarter columns spanning the ground and first floor heights, which support a projecting frieze below the second-floor cill course. The column at the far left is square rather than rounded.

To the right of the ground floor is the entrance, set in a recessed timber panelled door with panelled pilaster jambs and a rectangular fanlight above, reached by two stone steps. To the left of the door are two tall plain sash windows. At first-floor level, three larger windows sit on a continuous cill course; these have regency-style sash frames with horizontal panes in a 4/8 configuration. At second-floor level are three pairs of narrow semicircular-headed plain sash windows, resting on a more pronounced, cornice-like cill course projection with dentillations. At this upper level, four panelled pilasters correspond to the columns below and rise to form parapet piers, with a pierced, balustrade-like parapet between them.

The rear elevation, which could not be seen in its entirety, is in brick. To the left-hand, western side is a two-storey gabled return. The ground floor of the gable has two windows with modern frames. To the right, the return merges with another two-storey projection, which has a timber-sheeted double door at ground floor level and a window with a modern frame to its right. Both the gable and the south face of the projection are finished in a recent roughcast render. Internal evidence suggests that the ground floor of the return and the projection have been extended, and that as a result the ground floor level of the rear façade of the main part of the building is now completely covered over. On the rear façade there is a window at first-floor level and another to its right, along with a window to the right at second-floor level; this uppermost window has been enlarged and fitted with a modern frame, while the first-floor windows appear to retain plain sash frames. A stairwell window sits to the left between the first and second floors and also has a plain sash frame. The gabled roof is slated, with two skylight windows to the rear. A tall rendered chimneystack with projecting coping and uniform pots sits to the east. Rainwater goods are in cast iron.

To the immediate south of the crescent, where the church and small park now stand, Robert Corry originally held a large lawn as a garden. Shortly after it was laid out, he had it ploughed up and used for growing vegetables for workers suffering during the Great Famine. To the north of this garden ran an old watercourse flowing northward into the Basin, a reservoir east of the Dublin Road. To the east lay smaller gardens belonging to other residents of the crescent, and beyond those ran Albion Lane, a narrow semi-rural laneway connecting the north end of Bradbury Place to the east end of what is now University Terrace.

The wider area continued to develop through the second half of the 19th century. In the later 1860s a railway line was cut immediately 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 Lower Crescent, and two further houses were added to its east end by the close of the decade, the most easterly of which, Rivoli House, was designed by William Hastings and originally contained a dance academy run by a Frederick Brouneau. At Upper Crescent, two large properties designed by William Hastings were erected to the west end in 1869, one of which, Crescent House, now the Bank of Ireland, also fronted onto University Road. In 1878 to 1879 two further houses were added between these. In 1885 to 1887 the large Presbyterian church, now known as Crescent Church, was built to designs by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson on the west side of Corry's former garden. In 1898 a two-storey terrace, now Crescent Gardens, was built on the site of smaller garden plots to the east end.

Through the first half of the 20th century most properties in Upper and Lower Crescent and in Crescent Gardens remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many had passed into business use or been divided into flats, with the former Rivoli House, by then known as Dreenagh House, becoming the Regency Hotel. In the mid 1990s three of the 1860s to 1870s houses at the west end of Upper Crescent were demolished and replaced with a modern office block. In 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent was built over in preparation for a new development. By the beginning of the 21st century none of the properties in either crescent remained in private residential use.

The recorded history of number 12 itself begins at least as early as 1849, when a Robert Boag, listed in the Belfast Directory as connected with the Albion Cloth Company, was resident there. A Robert Boag continued to be recorded at the address until some time between 1910 and 1920, though it is likely that this represents a father and son rather than a single individual. By 1920 the building had become the Crescent Private Nursing Home, but had returned to ordinary residential use by 1930, when a Miss Mabel Simms was recorded as living there. Miss Simms remained at the property until at least 1960. By 1970 the building had been converted to an office, a use it retains today.