53 Malone Road, Belfast

53 Malone Road is an end-of-terrace, four-storey, two-bay red brick late Victorian town house, built in 1886–87 to designs by William Eaton, an architect then based on Botanic Avenue, Belfast. It stands at the northern end of Malone Road, on the corner with Malone Avenue, and forms the southernmost end of a terrace of nine similar houses running between Malone Avenue and Eglantine Avenue. Together, numbers 37 to 53 Malone Road constitute one of the most impressive terraces within the Malone Road Conservation Area. The terrace was originally named Windsor Gardens and was built for James Johnston — possibly the insurance agent of that name recorded in contemporary directories as operating from Waring Street — on land that had formerly been the grounds of Eglantine Hill, a pre-1832 house bounded by the Malone and Lisburn Roads. The entire group appears to have been completed by mid-1888, and all properties were recorded as occupied in the earliest available street directory of 1890. The building is now in commercial office use, though its internal layout and domestic scale remain largely intact, with a substantial amount of fine historic detailing that contributes significantly to its character.

The terrace is particularly striking along its Malone Road frontage due to the strong rhythm created by each house having a full-height bowed bay with a conical slate roof and a wealth of ornate detailing. Number 53, sitting on the corner with Malone Avenue, is rectangular on plan on a north–south axis with gabled ends, and has a three-storey gabled return built at half-landing level to the rear (west). This return is in turn abutted by a single-storey flat-roofed brown brick extension added around 1980, which fills the rear yard and is of little architectural interest.

The roof is covered in natural Bangor Blue slate, with bands of fish-scale slates to the bowed bay, and red terracotta saw-tooth ridge tiles and finials. A large red brick chimney, centred on the main gable end, has a simple corbelled brick cornice and eight circular pots — one in red terracotta, the rest yellow. A smaller red brick chimney centred on the gable end of the return carries three octagonal yellow clay pots. A decorative timber bargeboard with a pierced motif projects from the main gable end. Cast iron guttering, supported on scrolled terracotta brackets, runs along a projecting eaves course to the front elevation (east). The bowed bay rises above the main eaves and is highlighted by a cornice of classical ornamentation in stuccowork below the gutter. Rainwater goods to the rear return are in uPVC.

Walls throughout the main building are in red brick laid to Flemish bond with painted stucco dressings. Windows to the main building are single-glazed double-hung painted timber sliding sashes with 1/1 panes; those to the return have 2/2 panes. Some windows have been replaced, as noted below.

The front elevation faces east and is two bays wide, with the bowed bay offset to the left and the entrance to the right. A deep base plinth, projecting moulded cill, string courses, and a continuous plat band to all floors are carried out in painted stucco. The bowed bay is also finished in painted stucco, except for some brick courses between each floor level. Bay windows and the segmental-arched door all have incised decoration in stuccowork above the openings with an edge roll moulding. The door surround has a moulded stucco hood with label stops, and above the plat band it is supported on pink marble colonnettes with moulded stucco caps featuring classical heads and foliage. A plain fanlight sits above a square-headed five-panelled timber door. Below the plat band is a toothed stucco surround, and above the door head is a decorative terracotta panel. The colonnettes and terracotta panel are repeated on the first- and second-floor windows directly above the door. Ground-floor windows in this elevation have been replaced with modern double-glazed plain fixed lights; those at first, second, and third floor remain as originally described above.

The south elevation onto Malone Avenue comprises three distinct sections: the gable end of the main building, the flank elevation of the three-storey return, and the brown brick extension. The deep painted stucco plinth continues from the front elevation to the end of the return. The gable end is relatively plain compared to the main facade. The bargeboard terminates in a projecting terracotta eaves course on scrolled brackets to both the east and west sides. There are three windows at ground, first, and second floor level, arranged informally — one to the outer edge on each side and a third offset to the left — and two smaller round-arched windows at third-floor level, next to the eaves. Window heads are in brick with soldier coursing, and masonry cills are painted. Ground-floor windows in both the gable and the return have been replaced with modern plain casements with top-hung night vents. First- and second-floor windows in the return are double-hung single-glazed painted timber sliding sashes with 2/2 panes. The brown brick extension has a single opening offset to the right.

The west elevation faces onto a shared alley. It is two bays wide, with the three-storey gabled return to the right (south), a two-storey lean-to projection of shallower plan to the left (north), and a further single-storey flat-roofed abutment beyond. Detailing is generally plain, as on the south elevation. The third-floor window above the gabled return has 1/2 panes, with a small square window to the left. At second floor above the lean-to, a single-glazed sliding sash with 2/2 panes matches those at first and second floor within the gabled return. At the first-floor half-landing there is a sliding sash window with margin panes in etched and coloured glass; directly below this, the original window opening has been replaced with a modern door opening onto the flat-roofed extension. The brown brick extension at ground level has three flush doors: the left-hand door, metal-plated, opens onto the rear alley; the other two were locked shut at the time of survey.

The north elevation of the main building is abutted by number 51 Malone Road. The flank elevation of the return is blank.

In terms of its setting, the building is set back from the tree-lined street by a paved front garden on low walling, on the west side of the Malone Road, forming the end of a terrace of nine similar town houses. It stands directly opposite Fisherwick Presbyterian Church, and viewed from that angle, at the corner of Chlorine Gardens, it makes a particularly impressive impression.

The building's first recorded occupant was A.M. Tippetts, noted in the 1890 street directory as Deputy Surgeon General, Medical Staff. He was followed around 1894 by William McCormick, described as a house and land agent and accountant. In the 1901 census the property is recorded as a first-class dwelling containing 15 rooms, occupied on the night of the census by Mr McCormick, his wife Margaret, their five young children, and two domestic servants, Lizzie and Mary McMahon. The whole family were still in residence at the time of the 1911 census, by which point they had a single domestic servant, Agnes McPhillips. The McCormick family vacated in the early 1920s, and the next occupant recorded in the directories was Captain H.J. Gaussen. After a period of vacancy in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the property was divided into flats, with four occupants recorded in 1935, five in 1940, and four again in 1945, continuing in that form until the mid-1960s, when the building became the Malone branch of the Belfast Banking Company. That institution was taken over by the Northern Bank in 1970, which appears to have occupied only the ground floor, with the upper levels leased out as offices and a flat by at least 1974. It remained a Northern Bank branch until at least 1996. The single-storey rear extension was added around 1980. The building was listed in November 1986.