11 Wellington Place, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 6GB

11 Wellington Place, Belfast

This is a four-storey, three-bay late Georgian terrace house built in painted red brick, dating from around 1829–1830 and now in commercial use. It was designed by Adam McClean (1765/66–1849), an amateur architect and linen draper based in Belfast, and forms part of a surviving group of three houses (nos. 7, 9 and 11) that are the oldest remaining structures on Wellington Place. The terrace originally comprised six similar dwellings running between Fountain Street and Queen Street, forming part of the westward expansion of Belfast in the late Georgian period.

Exterior

The walls are of dark red brick laid in Flemish bond, and the roof is concealed behind a painted cornice and blocking course with a brick chimney stack to the right side. Rainwater goods are square-section metal. Windows throughout are plain timber sashes with painted reveals, jack arches and projecting sills; they are currently single-pane and without horns. The first and second floor windows reduce slightly in height at each successive floor, and the third floor windows are smaller still and have been bricked up — blocked from at least the 1970s.

The most significant feature of the front elevation is the original portico entrance to the upper floors, retained despite the conversion of the ground floor to retail use. It comprises a flight of three steps, fluted Doric columns on stone bases with pilaster responses, and a flat entablature with triglyphs and guttae. The front door is covered with a flush panel beneath a plain fanlight, with a Greek key pattern on the transom. The remainder of the ground floor has a modern shopfront whose columns and metopes are designed in imitation of the portico. A later bow window was added to the upper floors. The rear elevation is not visible.

Interior

Some original internal features remain intact. These include small-paned window sashes and the original doorcase with its fluted columns supporting the entablature. As recently as 1985, the building also retained a distinctive mirror positioned so as to reflect, through the fanlight, a view of visitors on the doormat to whoever was inside — a domestic detail only recently removed. A similar ornate doorcase survives at no. 7 Wellington Place, suggesting this feature was common across McClean's original terrace, though the central house, no. 9, has lost its Ionic doorcase.

Historical Background

Wellington Place was laid out in the 1790s as a superior residential terrace, named after the Duke of Wellington who lived in Belfast in his youth. By 1822 it was the most densely populated residential district in the city, favoured by doctors and other professionals. McClean accumulated his building plots from the Donegall family in the 1820s, apparently taking advantage of the second Marquess's financial difficulties to secure long leases at low rents, which he then developed. Beyond nos. 7–11 Wellington Place, McClean also built a terrace of nine houses on Donegall Square (of which only one survives, at the corner of Donegall Square West and May Street) and warehouses at 19–23 Franklin Street, and owned a large number of other properties in Belfast town centre. Despite his evident commercial interests, the architectural historian C. E. B. Brett concluded that McClean was genuinely interested in architecture and not merely in property speculation.

According to the Hodges and Smith Belfast Street Maps of around 1850, McClean's lease on the site commenced on 17 August 1829, suggesting the terrace was built that year. The Townland Valuation of around 1830 recorded no. 11 as valued at £62 and occupied by a Mr Thomas Ferguson. By 1843 it had passed to Dr Robert Stephenson, who lived there until 1869. Griffith's Valuation of 1860 recorded that Stephenson had purchased the property outright from the McClean estate, and that its value had risen to £70. On Stephenson's death in 1869, the property passed to his nephew David McCance, who had previously occupied the adjoining no. 9. By 1877 the house was occupied by Dr Richard Barnett, who practised as a dentist, though the valuation records continued to list Robert Stephenson as occupant for the remainder of the 19th century.

In 1898 the house was purchased by a Mr Alex McCullough and converted into a hotel by a new occupant, Ellen Brady; this change caused the site's valuation to jump from £70 to £240. By 1900 the Belfast Revaluation recorded it as the Royal Hotel, valued at £290, with an annual rent set at over £300. In 1911 the Census described the building as a first-class property with 22 inhabited rooms, administered by an Englishwoman, Kathleen Gritton, aged 28 and of the Church of Ireland. The Royal Hotel had closed by 1914, when a shopfront was installed on the ground floor and the building was converted to commercial use. The ground floor was taken by Frank E. Smith and Co., florists and nurserymen, while the upper floors became offices; the total value after conversion stood at approximately £455 10s.

By 1918 the florist had been replaced by Mr T. Edens Osbourne, whose general store, trading as Edison House, advertised cycles, household utensils, phonographs, gramophones, Pathéphones and records, books, filters, mangles, oil stoves, Doall Mop Wringers, Bissell carpet sweepers and Palestine olivewood goods. By the time the Annual Revisions ended in 1930 the ground floor was occupied by a Ms Jane Hackney, and the building was valued at approximately £477 15s. The First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935 raised this to £563 15s. The terrace survived the Belfast Blitz of 1941. From around 1954 the building was occupied by the Carlton Restaurant, which remained at the address until at least the 1990s; by the end of the Second General Revaluation in 1972 the building's value stood at approximately £1,522 15s.

Photographs taken during a survey around 1970–76 show no. 11 undergoing restoration, at which time the current shopfront was installed. The building was listed in 1979. At the time of writing, the ground floor shop is vacant and the upper floors are used as offices.

Setting and Significance

Brett observed in 1985 that nos. 7, 9 and 11 Wellington Place together illustrate a transitional moment in Belfast's architectural development: "gradually, good brickwork gave way to sleazy stucco… the meeting-point is exemplified by 7, 9 and 11 Wellington Place, three houses built by Adam McClean in [c. 1830], of which the central one has Regency stucco bows; its neighbours are of brick with formal Ionic porticoes." The group represents the earliest surviving development around Donegall Square and the White Linen Hall, and is a good example of a building type that was largely swept away during the Victorian building boom of the later 19th century. No. 11 is listed as part of this group, sharing group value with nos. 7 and 9.