15 College Gardens, Belfast

15 College Gardens is an end-of-terrace, three-storey with attic, red brick late Victorian town house, built in 1877. The architect is unknown. It forms the western end of a symmetrical block of four properties together with Nos. 16, 17 and 18 College Gardens, with No. 15 mirrored by No. 18 at the opposite gable end and the narrower Nos. 16 and 17 between them. The house sits midway along College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled town houses running from Malone Road to Lisburn Road within the Queens Conservation Area. The buildings face south and overlook the grounds of Methodist College.

Historical Background

College Gardens — originally called College Gardens Avenue — occupies land that before the early 19th century formed part of a series of strip farms running from what is now Malone Road and University Road to the Bog Meadows, probably laid out in the early 17th century. The integrity of these farms was broken up by the cutting of Lisburn Road in 1816–19 and the construction of the Ulster Railway in 1837–39. Around the same time, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of what remained, with small country villas being built or upgraded and modest demesnes laid out. The land immediately north and south of College Gardens belonged to one such villa, Vermont, a pre-1770 house possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815 and enlarged again in the 1840s, on the latter occasion by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The building of Queen's College a short distance to the north-east in 1845 triggered the suburbanisation of the area, and in 1865 Vermont was sold for the construction of Methodist College, which was completed in 1868. A new private avenue was laid out on the lower ground immediately to the north, with building plots on its northern side. Development proceeded from the eastern end: Nos. 1–6 were built in 1871, Nos. 7–18 in 1877, Nos. 33 and 34 in 1879, Nos. 19–22 in 1881, Nos. 23–26 in 1882, and Nos. 27–32 in 1883. The developer of everything from No. 11 to No. 32 appears to have been the Reverend George Cron, then minister of the Evangelical Union Church in Wellington Place.

The original occupant of No. 15 was John M. Barnett, a surgeon. He was followed by William Heburn of flax spinners Wm. Ross & Co. around 1886, Major Walter P. Alexander of the Scots Greys around 1889, and Robert John Hilton, a tobacconist, around 1891. By the 1901 census, Mr Hilton — by then a widower describing himself as a tobacco manufacturer — was living there with his four grown-up children and two domestic servants; the house was recorded as a first-class dwelling with 15 rooms in family use. By 1907 a Mrs McCalmont was in residence, followed by the Reverend Joseph Worthington in 1908 and John Black, manager of a wholesale drapery business, from 1910. In the 1911 census Black was occupying No. 15 with his five grown-up children and a single domestic servant. His daughter Josephine was still living there in the mid-1930s, but by 1943 the building had passed to the British Sailors' Society. It returned to domestic use by 1951 under an R. R. Browne, then reverted to office use by the end of that decade when it was acquired by the architects and engineers' firm of Ferguson and McIlveen, who remained until the early 1970s. The building subsequently became a doctor's surgery under Dr I. G. Doran and partners, still operating in 1980 but recorded as vacant in 1986 with no tenants noted in subsequent directories. It was thereafter converted to student accommodation. No. 15 College Gardens was listed in September 1979. A planning application was submitted in 1985 to convert the property to student housing. The building fell vacant around 2011 and suffered vandalism at that time, but has since been refurbished and re-occupied.

Exterior

The main south-facing front elevation is asymmetrical but well proportioned, with fine stucco detailing and a projecting square rendered bay to the right (east) at ground floor. The entrance is to the left (west) at ground floor level. The projecting bay is repeated at first floor, slightly shallower and in red brick, with a single window aligned above the entrance. Three equally spaced windows appear at second floor, and a flat-roofed dormer is placed centrally above the eaves cornice at attic level. All windows are segmental-headed and diminish in height from ground to second floor.

The walls are laid in red brick with stucco dressings to the south and east elevations and in English Garden Wall bond to the north. The base of the front elevation has a painted render plinth with a moulded top and vermiculated toothed quoins to the south-east corner. The ground-floor projecting bay has stop-chamfered heads and jambs to the windows, with heavy bull-nosed cills set within the reveal, a decorative string course above the windows, and a projecting moulded cornice carried on block modillions. This moulded cornice is repeated at first-floor level on a band of dentils with a simpler moulding below.

The entrance door is square-headed in a timber frame, with two full-height arched panels having raised fields and bolection moulding, and a plain glass segmental arched over-light on a deep moulded transom. The stucco surround is elaborate, with roll-edged reveals, foliated scrolled console brackets, a moulded edge to the hood, a floral stone roundel between the console brackets, and plain spandrels — all painted. The window at first floor above the entrance door has a similar hood with smaller scrolled brackets. At first and second floor level the walls are predominantly red brick, with projecting moulded stucco surrounds and cills (painted). There is decorative flower carving framed within the surround at the window heads of the first-floor windows in the square bay, and foliated detail above the surrounds to the second-floor windows.

The projecting moulded eaves run on curved brackets that alternate with a pitched square motif on a deep frieze, all set on a projecting string course with a continuous band of dentils below. To the rear the eaves are simpler, comprising two courses of projecting brick; however, the decorative eaves and frieze are repeated at the north corner of the main gable end to match the opposite side, and there form the base to a simple rendered verge band and a projecting moulded timber barge board.

There are four red brick chimneys. One is shared with No. 16 and has been replaced in modern red brick. One is centred on the gable end and appears to be original, with a rendered lower stage, red brick above, decorative stone brackets to the corbelled cap, and eight circular clay pots. One rises from the eaves to the rear and is largely rebuilt above gutter level. The fourth is centred on the gable of the rear return, rendered, with no cap or pots.

The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. Later flat-roofed dormers clad in PVC membrane have been added to both the front and rear pitches. Rainwater goods comprise ogee-profile cast metal gutters with uPVC hoppers and rainwater pipes to the main roof, and uPVC guttering with cast iron rainwater pipes to the return.

The north (rear) elevation was surveyed from Elmwood Mews, as access to the rear yard was not obtained. A three-storey gabled return is built at half-landing level to the right (west) side of the rear elevation, with one window to each of the ground, first, and second floors to the left. An external metal dog-leg stair spans the yard and provides a fire escape from both the return and the main building. Detailing is simpler than the front, with a projecting brick eaves course, soldier-coursed brick headers, and square-edged painted cills. At attic level there is a flat-roofed dormer with a modern casement window. The second-floor window retains a timber-framed single-glazed sliding sash with 2/2 panes. The first-floor window has been replaced with a modern flush fire exit door, though the width of the original opening is unchanged. The ground-floor window has metal bars fixed to the external reveal, and a further opening below appears to have been bricked up in modern red brick, possibly the former access to a basement.

On the rear return, there is one window at second floor (offset to the left, east) and two at first floor (offset to the right), all timber-framed single-glazed sliding sashes with 2/2 panes. There is also a small barred window at ground floor, two blocked-up openings, and evidence of a former gabled single-storey return that is now gone.

The west elevation abuts No. 16 College Gardens. The west face of the return is painted brick and largely blank, with a single window at first floor overlooking the yard of No. 16 and a heavy timber eaves board.

The east elevation comprises the gable end of the original building and the east face of the return. The gable is red brick in Flemish bond with toothed quoins returned from the main façade and the decorative eaves returned at both north and south ends as described above. At ground floor there are two segmental-headed windows with moulded stucco surrounds centred on the gable, one similar square-headed window at first floor, and two at second floor aligned directly above. All have square-edged unpainted stone cills. Near the eaves at attic level there are small round-arched windows with painted rendered reveals. On the east face of the return, some brick soldier-coursed headers have been replaced, suggesting altered openings. The windows are informally arranged: two at second floor, appearing original with 2/2 panes; three at first floor, of which one has 2/2 panes, one is a small metal-framed window with a top-hung night vent, and the third has been replaced with a modern flush fire exit door with a precast concrete lintel over; and two windows at ground floor.

All windows throughout the building, unless otherwise noted, are timber-framed single-glazed sliding sashes with 1/1 panes.

Setting

The building forms the end of a terrace of similar town houses, rectangular on plan and aligned east–west parallel to the road. Three doorbells at the entrance indicate the house has been subdivided into apartments.

The boundary walling at both front and rear has been removed to provide off-street parking areas. A path formed in precast concrete paving slabs leads to the entrance. A low red brick wall with hedge over aligns the boundary with the front of No. 14, and hedging marks the boundary with the front garden of No. 16. The front door opens onto two stone entrance steps flanked by painted dwarf walls with an open balustrade between square end piers, all having painted cambered caps. A cast iron boot-scraper, thought to be original, sits on the top step. A carved sandstone pillar at the south-east corner is presumed to form part of an original gated entrance from College Gardens; together with a nearby tree, it enhances the character of the setting. The listing formally extends to the former townhouse itself, the steps, the walling, the boot-scraper, and the stone pillar.

While the removal of boundary walling and the addition of flat-roofed dormers diminish the historic character to some extent, the original rear return complete with its sliding sash windows survives, and the house remains significant as an integral part of the intact terrace of late Victorian dwellings.