12 Lower Crescent, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NR

12 Lower Crescent is a relatively large but relatively plain three-storey rendered town house, built in 1877–78 to designs by architect William Hastings. It was constructed as an addition to the east end of the Lower Crescent terrace, which was originally built in 1852 in a Regency style. The building has since been converted to a public house and is integrated with the larger neighbouring hotel to the east (no. 13), which Hastings had also worked on two years earlier.

Lower Crescent is set to the east of University Road and faces south over a small public park towards Upper Crescent, a similarly styled development of 1846 that, unlike Lower Crescent, is arranged in a true crescent form.

The front elevation faces roughly south and is asymmetrical. On the ground floor to the right is the entrance, consisting of a panelled timber door with a rectangular fanlight. To the left of the doorway are two tall plain sash windows with Georgian panes (6/6 configuration). These windows, along with all the other front windows, have simple moulded surrounds. On the first floor are three similarly sized windows with more recent frames made to resemble sash windows. On the second floor are three segmental-headed windows with frames matching those on the first floor. The front façade is finished in plain painted render, with a prominent moulded eaves course.

To the rear of the property is a large two-storey gabled return with a basement. This is not original — the original return was considerably smaller — and appears to have taken its present form in the 1980s. To the east, this return merges with a two-storey flat-roofed extension at the rear of no. 13. The gable of the return is blank. At basement level of the return there is a small flat-roofed projection with an open doorway at its east end, which leads to a taxi waiting room. The west face of the return was not accessible for inspection. Only a small section of the rear façade of the main part of the building could be seen, at second-floor level; this section is in brick and has a window with a recent frame to the right. The main roof is hipped on the east side and slated. The return roof appears to be covered in an artificial tile.

Historical context

The development of this part of south Belfast followed the selling off of much of Lord Donegall's Belfast estate in the early to mid 19th century, which opened up large areas of land around the town for development. The lands to the south, along the Malone Ridge, were particularly attractive to developers and led to the building 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 new grand terraces were occupied by Belfast's professional and business classes, who left their older residences in the town centre, which were gradually converted into shops and offices.

Upper Crescent was perhaps the grandest of these terrace developments. It is an elegantly curving row of three-storey dwellings in a late Regency style, built in 1846 by timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry. Its authorship is uncertain, but Dr Paul Larmour has suggested that Charles Lanyon may have been involved. Corry undertook the building work himself and took up residence in the house at the east end; for the first few years the row was known as "Corry's Crescent". To the immediate south of the Crescent, where a 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 the cultivation of vegetables to provide relief for local workers suffering as a result of the Great Famine. To the north of this garden ran an old watercourse flowing northwards into the "Basin," a reservoir east of the Dublin Road. To the east lay smaller gardens belonging to other occupants of the Crescent, and 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 Lower Crescent to the north of his garden and just south of the old watercourse, in much the same style as Upper Crescent. It was occupied by a similar mix of professionals and businessmen, though by as early as 1860 the ground floors of some properties were in use as offices. 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 the Ladies Collegiate, later Victoria College — was added to the west end of the terrace. Two houses were added to the east end by the close of the decade, the most easterly of which, 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 the new, broader Botanic Avenue.

Upper Crescent also saw further development in the 1860s and 1870s, with two large William Hastings-designed properties 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 on the ground between those of 1869. In 1885–87 the large Presbyterian church (the present Crescent Church) was erected to plans by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson on the west side of Corry's former garden, and in 1898 a two-storey terrace, the present Crescent Gardens, was built on the site of smaller garden plots at the east end.

During the first half of the 20th century most properties in Upper and Lower Crescent and 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–1870s 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.

No. 12 Lower Crescent itself was originally occupied by a William J. Morrison. A William Campbell was recorded in residence in 1899 and remained until sometime between 1910 and 1920, when a Miss Gardener is recorded as occupying the house. In 1930 a journalist named Alex Riddle and a Professor Ivor Arnold are listed as residents; by 1940 three occupants are recorded, two in 1951, and three again in the 1960s and 1970s directories, indicating that the property was split into flats at around 1930. In the later 1980s the building was converted to a restaurant, linked with the neighbouring Regency Hotel (no. 13), with hotel rooms on the upper floors. In the later 1990s the restaurant was converted to a public bar.