7-19 Royal Avenue, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 1FB

7-19 Royal Avenue (also known as Corry House) is a five-storey, ten-bay commercial building on the east side of Royal Avenue, Belfast, built in 1881 to designs by the architect David Salmond. Nothing definitive is known about Salmond personally, though the Dictionary of Irish Architects suggests he may have been a son of Thomas Ross Salmond (1828–1917), engineer to the Belfast Harbour Commissioners between 1871 and 1892 and the engineer responsible for the Alexandra Graving Dock on Queen's Island. The building sits within a conservation area and is privately owned, currently in use as offices and ground-floor retail.

Architectural Overview

The building is designed in the Italianate style and constructed of painted render with extensive decorative mouldings. The pitched roof is not visible from street level. The building forms part of a larger coherent block with the adjacent building to the south (nos 1–5 Royal Avenue), sharing the same roofline, rhythm, materials and decorative details, together representing the expansion of city-centre commerce in the late Victorian era. Although the building has been compromised by modern alterations, much historic fabric and detailing survives.

The walls are finished in painted render with a bracketed cornice over the third floor, string courses at first and second sill level, and giant semi-fluted Corinthian pilasters rising between the second and third floors. Rusticated pilasters appear at first-floor level. Windows are dressed with architraves and aprons throughout.

External Detail by Floor

The fourth-floor windows have flat lintels. The third-floor windows have reeded stucco sides, foliate brackets, floral roundels and moulded cornices; triplet windows have segmental pediments and single windows have triangular pediments, with coffered aprons to the sills. The second-floor windows match those of the third floor but without pediments or aprons to the sills. The first-floor windows have lugged architraves, with the single window matching the third-floor treatment.

The ground-floor shop fronts are modern replacements with the exception of the northernmost one, which is framed by rusticated and moulded pilasters. Above the doorway, supported on oversize foliate brackets, is a segmental arched pediment and a foliate-decorated frieze. Sitting on the segmental arch, either side of a cartouche, are two sculptural figures: a gentleman with a forked beard holding a book, and a woman with a pail. According to Patton (1993), there was originally a second corresponding doorcase with different figures at nos 1–5 Royal Avenue, but this had been removed by the time of the First Survey Image in 1977. The windows to the upper floors are four-pane metal casements; the first-floor windows are three-pane timber. The entrance door is a timber double six-panelled door. Rainwater goods are uPVC, with swan-neck rainwater pipes penetrating the wall at the base of the attic floor.

Other Elevations

The west elevation is symmetrical around the central doorway, with single windows above. The flanking window architraves are tripartite — six in total — and at second and third floor they each frame two windows with a central blank panel; at first floor they frame three windows. The north elevation is abutted by a modern building. The rear east elevation is not visible. The south elevation abuts nos 1–5 Royal Avenue.

Historical Context

Nos 1–19 Royal Avenue was one of the first commercial properties to be erected on the newly created boulevard of Royal Avenue, originally laid out in 1880–81 by the surveyor J. C. Bretland, a process that involved the relocation of approximately 4,000 people. Prior to the redevelopment, Donegall Place and Hercules Street — the precursor to Royal Avenue — were divided by an additional line of buildings on the eastern side of the current street. The demolition and clearing of Hercules Place and Hercules Street created the long open boulevard now extending from Donegall Square to York Street, requiring the destruction of almost all buildings predating the 1880s. The only building to survive the clearance is the former Provisional Bank of Ireland, which continues to occupy the original line of Hercules Place and as a result sits further back from the street than the adjoining buildings.

The building was designed for John Robb of J. Robb & Co., silk merchants, wool drapers and general warehousemen, and was originally intended to connect with Robb's other properties on Castle Place. From its completion in 1881, the block was subdivided into two main sections: nos 1–5 and nos 7–19. The annual revisions record that not a single part of the building had been occupied as late as 1882, one year after completion, when its total assessed value was set at £511. By 1901 the six ground-floor retail units were occupied by R. G. Bolster & Co. (glovers and outfitters), James Tate (pharmaceutical chemist), W. J. Fletcher (watchmaker and jeweller), A. P. Dalzell (hat maker), Rankin Bros. (watchmakers, jewellers and opticians), and Milligan & Co. (steamship owners and coal importers). The four upper floors were used as office space by F. G. Robb's solicitors firm and as storage for A. P. Dalzell's store.

By 1907 Thomas Brown (jeweller) and the linen merchant D. Lyle Hall had taken over two of the ground-floor units. By 1918 David W. Corry, a goldsmith, had opened a shop on the ground floor — a presence from which the building later took its current name, Corry House. The 1929 annual revisions note that nos 7 and 9 were merged into a single premises for Tate's chemists. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935 increased the total rateable value to £1,440 and recorded D. Lyle Hall as owner of the entire nos 1–19 Royal Avenue. Occupants in 1935 included Tate's chemists, Corry's goldsmiths, Dalzell's hatters, D. Lyle Hall's linen and tailors shop, and a watchmaker named Sydney Hanna. No further revaluation was carried out for over two decades owing to the Second World War. By the second revaluation in the 1950s, Tate, Corry, Dalzell and Hall all continued to operate from the site, while the upper floors were occupied by H. J. Coutts & Co. Ltd. (a merger and acquisition firm), offices for the Northern Ireland Ministry of Commerce, and the Loyalist Charity & Benevolent Pool Club. By the end of the second revaluation period (1956–72) the total rateable value of nos 7–19 stood at £3,852. Tate's chemist vacated nos 7–9 in approximately 1990 after occupying the site for almost a century. The building was listed in 1992.

Patton (1993) described the building as originally topped with a variety of small pediments, mostly segmental with ball finials, and noted that the giant order semi-fluted Corinthian pilasters support a bracketed cornice and separate bays of mostly triple-light windows in moulded surrounds, with pediments over central windows at third floor. At the time of the field inspection, the ground-floor units were occupied by a jewellery store, two mobile phone warehouses, and a fast food outlet, while the upper floors — accessed via the ornamental doorcase — were occupied by the offices of Diamond Heron Solicitors.

Setting

The building sits on the east side of the busy commercial Royal Avenue. To the south it is joined by nos 1–5 Royal Avenue, which continues the same roofline, rhythm, materials and details. Facing the building across Royal Avenue are four further listed buildings.