11 Malone Place, Belfast, County Antrim, BT12 5FD

11 Malone Place is a two-storey, two-bay Victorian mid-terrace dwelling built around 1850, situated off the Lisburn Road adjacent to Sandy Row, approximately one mile south of Belfast city centre. It forms part of a terrace built in at least two phases, with the earlier houses (numbers 9 to 19) dating from the late 1840s and further houses (numbers 21 to 29) added in the early 1860s. Although some historic features have been lost following refurbishment of the terrace around 2000, the exterior has retained its general character and the terrace as a whole remains a good surviving example of housing of this type. Number 11 makes a significant contribution to the group and to the wider character of the area.

The house is of square plan with a two-storey rear return. The roof is pitched and clad in natural slate with clay ridge tiles, replacement galvanised steel rainwater goods, and a red-brick chimney. The walls are of red brick laid in Flemish bond, with a replacement projected smooth rendered plinth course and a corbelled eaves course. Windows are 1-over-1 uPVC double-glazed sliding sash with horns, painted masonry cills and flat arches. The entrance is a replacement timber panelled door with a fixed rectangular overlight, flanked by replacement surrounds and a canopy.

The principal elevation faces south and is asymmetrically arranged: at ground floor level there is a door to the left and a single window to the right; the first floor has two windows. The left gable abuts number 13 Malone Place and the right gable abuts number 9 Malone Place. The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged though largely obscured from view, and the right bay is abutted by a replacement subservient red-brick two-storey return.

The terrace faces directly onto a narrow street. The opposite side of the street is bounded by a rubble masonry wall forming the embankment to the railway, and a small park enclosed by gated railings. On the opposing side of the Lisburn Road stands the University Road Moravian Church. The former Maternity Hospital lies to the west and a large modern apartment block to the north.

The site at the bottom of Sandy Row lay well outside the urban area of Belfast until the 1850s, with Sandy Row itself probably following a route of medieval origin. On the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33 a small structure is shown on the site, possibly associated with the Malone turnpike which was situated at this junction, but the area was otherwise little developed at that time, consisting mostly of housing along the major routes into Belfast. By the time the terrace was built, the surrounding landscape was a mixture of factories, brick fields, housing, larger mansions and much open ground. The most prominent structure in the area was the Union Workhouse and Fever Hospital, dating from 1841 and 1849 respectively, and several inhabitants of Malone Place were employed there at various times.

The site belonged from 1798 to a gentleman named William Irvine, and was purchased in 1826, together with the neighbouring plot, by Arthur Gaffikin, a butcher and property developer who later became the proprietor of a linen business. Gaffikin is commemorated in the name of Gaffikin Street, which runs to the rear of Malone Place. The terrace makes its first appearance on the Hodges and Smith map of 1850 and is absent from the street directory of 1846–47 but present in the 1850 edition, giving a likely construction date in the late 1840s for numbers 9 to 19. The terrace was built to the rear of a larger house called Malone Cottage, which faces onto Sandy Row (then known as Malone Road). It is possible that Malone Cottage and Malone Place were developed together by Gaffikin, or that he sold the land as building plots. In Griffith's Valuation of 1860, Sarah Warnock is listed as landlady and the houses are valued at £10. An advertisement in the Belfast Newsletter of 1857 described them as "neat, well-finished houses in Malone Place, adjoining the Post Office, containing Parlour, Kitchen, Three Bedrooms with Gas and Water at the greatly reduced rent of £11."

Numbers 21 to 29 were built between 1860 and 1863 by property developer Moses Tate and were valued slightly higher, at £11, with number 29 at £12, though these valuations were later reduced in 1888 to £10 and £11. The Belfast Newsletter of 1862 noted that "a number of respectable houses have lately been built on the above Ground and others are in progress of erection." Further building land offered by Arthur Gaffikin resulted in four slightly larger houses being built on the far side of Blondin Street between 1870 and 1877. These were subsequently taken over as the Midnight Mission Rescue Home, a refuge for women described as "fallen," which later catered for unmarried mothers and became a maternity hospital. The four dwellings were demolished in 1924 and a new Rescue and Maternity Home was built on the site to designs by William Godfrey Ferguson. In 1973 Malone Place Hospital was absorbed by the Jubilee Maternity Hospital, though it ceased to be used for maternity services after 1981 and has remained the property of the Health Trust.

The first valuation map to show the terrace, dating from around 1860, records ornamental railings and a step to the front of each of the original six houses, with a rear return and outbuildings in the yard of each property. A subsequent edition covering approximately 1860 to 1895 shows a boundary post and watering trough at the junction with the Lisburn Road, and a tramline running behind the terrace in Napier Street which provided employment for some residents.

The houses were home to people of varying social standing, mostly of the skilled manual, clerical and supervisory classes. Many trades are represented, though a large number of residents were employed in the textile industry, either in cloth manufacture or as drapers, tailors and other ancillary trades. The Belfast Newsletter occasionally recorded the less respectable side of life in the terrace: in 1867, Jane Crosbey of number 17 was summonsed for being disorderly in a public street, and magistrates received information "as to the character of the house she kept." In October and November 1876 the Newsletter ran a story over several weeks in which a boarder at number 23 was accused of stealing a top coat, umbrella, watch and chain, and £1 10s from a man staying overnight, culminating in a courtroom speech by the defendant and an angry riposte from his wife. By the time the 1901 and 1911 censuses provide a fuller picture, most houses were occupied by large extended families of the respectable skilled working class, rarely able to afford a servant, and where teenage children were often contributing a wage to the household.

The houses in the terrace were frequently renumbered during the latter decades of the 19th century, making it difficult at times to trace the residents of individual properties with certainty. As far as can be determined, number 11 was occupied in 1850 by a Mrs Nocher, followed by George Millar, clerk, in 1852. Subsequent occupiers included Hugh Petticrew, clerk (1858–59), William Russell, linen lapper (1860–61), Mrs Jane Sevey (1863–64), James Dillon (1865), and John Ramsay, linen lapper (1870). Between 1872 and 1877 the house was the residence of James Ewing, Assistant Master at the Belfast Workhouse, and his wife Maria. E. McDermott, canvasser, was resident in 1880, followed by Captain Gore of the Salvation Army and Samuel Bolton, foreman. A long period of residency by James Eakin, tailor, then followed. The 1901 census records James Eakin, a master tailor described as lame, living with his wife, seven children and a boarder; the oldest child, aged 13, worked as a jeweller, and the boarder, a 17-year-old girl, was described as an "ornamenter." By 1907 the house was occupied by the Kane family: James Kane, an artisan borer, lived there with his wife, six children, a niece and a grandchild. His children worked variously as an examiner, a railway clerk and a messenger; a 21-year-old son was an unemployed storeman and a niece was a seamstress. Kane's wife Mary remained resident in the house until her death in 1943.

The house continues in use as a domestic dwelling.