525 Antrim Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT15 3BS

525 Antrim Road is a three-storey with attic mid-terrace house built in 1878 in the Georgian Revival style, possibly to designs by the Belfast-based engineer and architect Redfern Kelly (1845–1928), and constructed for local builder and contractor John Smith. It forms part of a terrace of nine houses on the east side of Antrim Road, situated between Glandore Gardens and Glandore Avenue. Five of these houses — originally known as Castleton Terrace and comprising Nos 519–527 — are very similar to one another and were the first of the nine to be erected. The listing extends to the house and its yard walling.

The attribution to Redfern Kelly, though not certain, rests on the terrace's striking resemblance to Nos 416–428 on the opposite side of Antrim Road, a three-storey two-bay terrace also possessing ground floor bay windows and entablatured doorways supported by Ionic columns with fanlights above, which Kelly designed and built in the year following the construction of Nos 519–527. Kelly was primarily an engineer who worked predominantly for the Belfast Harbour Commissioners, and is noted in the Dictionary of Irish Architects as responsible for the deepening of the Victoria Channel, the reconstruction of the Alexandra Graving Dock following its collapse in 1905, and the construction of the Thompson Graving Dock.

The wider terrace was built on the former grounds of Ashfield House, the home of solicitor Thomas McClelland, which was demolished at the turn of the 20th century, though most of its grounds had already been built over during the 1870s and 1880s. The Antrim Road itself was originally laid out in 1830. By the 1850s, the land to the north of the Belfast Waterworks and the Limestone Road remained predominantly rural in character, as recorded on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858. With Belfast's rapid population growth and the development of the shipbuilding, rope-making and textiles industries in the city, the townland of Skegoneill swiftly became one of the most affluent areas in Belfast, attracting gentlemen's mansions and wealthy merchant's houses. The nine-building terrace was constructed in three phases, with the five Georgian-style houses at Nos 519–527 erected first. All nine structures appear on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1901–02, by which point the entire surrounding area had been developed with terraced streets.

No. 525 was initially valued at £36. Its first occupant was Edward O'Rourke Dickey, a local solicitor. By 1901 the property had passed to Francis M. Leonard, Principal Clerk at H.M. Customs. The 1911 census building return classified the house as a first-class dwelling comprising 13 rooms, with a coal house as its sole outbuilding. Ownership of the terrace remained with the Smith family until the 1970s. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by Dr John Alexander McVicker and its assessed value had risen to £38. The building was converted to office premises in 1969, and by the end of the Second Revaluation its value stood at £86. At the time of the second survey it was in use as a private skincare clinic. The roof was reslated and the dormer window restored in 1989. Nos 517–533 Antrim Road were listed in 1987.

The building is rectilinear on plan with a three-storey return to the rear. The roof is pitched natural slate with angled black clay ridge tiles, projecting eaves on block modillions, and half-round metal guttering discharging to circular downpipes. There is a painted moulded cornice and plain frieze. The rectangular-section red-brick chimney stack has a corbelled coping and clay chimney pots. The dormer window has projecting eaves, moulded timber bargeboards on corbels, and slated cheeks.

The two-bay principal elevation faces west. The ground floor walls are smooth rendered, with the upper floors in red brick laid to English bond. Window openings are square-headed throughout, fitted with 1/1 double-hung timber sash windows with ogee horns. The upper floor window openings have painted and moulded architraves, with a flat moulded hood to the first floor windows and a painted moulded string course at second floor cill level. The entrance is in the north bay at ground floor level: a square-headed door opening with an entablature supported on columns with fluted Ionic capitals, an elliptical arched fanlight above, a panelled timber door, and three concrete steps. The ground floor also features a three-sided canted bay window with a raised parapet and moulded cornice; the outer reveals of this bay have been fitted with modern surface-mounted roller shutter boxes and the inner reveals with secondary glazing. A uPVC hopper discharges to a circular downpipe at this bay.

The north and south elevations are adjoined to the neighbouring properties, Nos 527 and 523 Antrim Road respectively. The rear elevation is red brick laid to English garden wall bond and comprises the rear of the main house together with the projecting return. Its window openings are square-headed with flat arches above and projecting cills.

To the front, the building shares a tarmacked parking area with Nos 523 and 527, enclosed by a modern dwarf brick wall and painted metal railings with a plain metal gate on metal upright posts. The rear yard is enclosed by original red brick walling, with a square-headed door opening fitted with a sheet metal door leading to a narrow alley accessed from Glandore Gardens.

Despite conversion to a clinic and the intrusive addition of roller shutter boxes to the ground floor window reveals, the principal elevation, the less formal gabled rear return, the original brick yard walls, and much of the original external fabric survive in good order, and some original historic fabric is retained inside. The well-proportioned facade with its stuccoed detailing to the ground floor, fine entablatured entrance, and original timber sash windows make it a good example of its period. The building has group value with the other listed buildings in the terrace.