56-58 Donegall Place, Donegall Square North, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 5BB

A corner-sited asymmetrical six-storey sandstone building with attic, built around 1888 to the designs of Young & Mackenzie. Originally a linen warehouse, it stands prominently at the junction of Donegall Place and Donegall Square North, opposite Belfast City Hall.

The building is L-shaped in plan with its principal elevation facing west onto Donegall Place and a secondary elevation facing south onto Donegall Square. A distinctive curved corner projects beyond the south elevation and is surmounted by a clock tower with cupola and copper-domed turrets that frame both elevations. The flat roof features natural slate mansard-type pitches to the attic storeys on both principal elevations, with natural slate and lead-lined lean-to dormers set behind the parapet. Rainwater goods are concealed.

The curved corner houses a sandstone drum containing a clock face, topped by a dentilled cornice and tempietto with slender round-headed openings flanked by engaged polished granite Corinthian columns. These support a full dentilled entablature and a copper-lined attenuated ogee dome with finial. Both elevations are terminated by octagonal turrets with slender round-headed window openings, dentilled friezes, and copper-lined ogee domes set behind the parapet. A balustrade parapet with moulded coping is punctuated by squat piers surmounted by segmental pediments, fluted frieze blocks, and anthemion. The centre of both elevations incorporates carved sandstone lettering reading "ROBINSON & CLEAVER".

Scrabo sandstone ashlar walling is channel-rusticated to the first floor and surmounted by a heavy dentilled cornice over the fourth floor. Tripartite window openings are framed by polished granite columns—Doric to the third, fourth, and fifth floors, and Ionic to the first and second floors—rising from continuous sill courses and fitted with timber casement windows throughout. The fourth and fifth floors have square-headed openings with bipartite arched central lights to the fifth floor. The third floor features round-headed openings with fluted archivolts and keystones, a central balconette supported on figurative brackets, and a central carved panel. The second floor has square-headed openings. First-floor windows have a central round-headed light flanked by square-headed sidelights, surmounted by a cornice supported on ancons with a central broken pediment and ball finial. Window bays are framed by full-height pilasters—those to the first floor have decorative panels and busts, the second floor have fluting with garlands, and the third and fourth floors are channel-rusticated, all corresponding to squat piers at parapet level.

The south elevation is six windows wide with a curved corner returning onto the east side elevation and set back from the street. An advanced ground floor is surmounted by a balustrade punctuated by squat piers having decorative carved cartouches. A series of retail units at ground level features delicate timber-framed glazing surmounted by polished granite fascia with incised lettering reading "ROBINSON & CLEAVER Ltd". Shopfronts are flanked by polished granite pilasters with fluted capitals rising to a full-span dentilled cornice at the base of the balustrade above. An entrance bay to the right has a mid-twentieth-century brass-framed glazed entrance screen. The curved corner projects beyond the south elevation with curved window openings at each level corresponding to the central window openings on each level, including a curved display window at ground level.

The west elevation is four windows wide with alternating shallow canted bays detailed as per the south elevation. Shopfront to the right is detailed as above, while those to the remainder have replacement late twentieth-century shopfronts while retaining the polished granite pilasters.

The north side elevation is abutted by an early twenty-first-century infill building. The functional east side elevation has an advanced central section with ceramic tiled walling and segmental-headed window openings with masonry sills and some timber sash windows. The curved corner has tripartite window openings as per the south elevation, flanked by a sidelight (one to the south elevation and one to the east elevation) repeating the decorative treatment of the south elevation, and a further pair of square-headed window openings to the east elevation with unadorned surrounds.

Steel gates enclose the east side elevation providing vehicular access. The building sits on a prominent corner site at the junction of Donegall Square North and Donegall Place.