68 Donegall Pass, Belfast, County Antrim, BT7 1BU

68 Donegall Pass is a three-storey, two-bay mid-terrace early Victorian townhouse built around 1845–1846, situated on Donegall Pass close to St Mary Magdalene Church, south of the city centre and east of Shaftesbury Square. It forms part of a terrace formerly known as Apsley Place and contributes positively to the group of listed buildings of which it is a part, retaining the style, proportions, and detailing of the terrace as a whole.

The building has a square plan form. Its pitched roof is covered in natural slate with clay ridge tiles, overhanging eaves with timber soffits and paired eaves brackets, and cast-iron rainwater goods comprising semi-circular gutters and circular downpipes. The chimney and clay pots are replacements. The external walls are of red brick laid in Flemish bond, with ruled-and-lined render to the ground floor and painted roughcast render to the rear elevation.

The windows are timber sliding sash, 6/6 and 6/3 pane configurations, with horns, flat arches over, painted masonry cills, and continuous cills to the first floor. The entrance doorway is a notable feature, comprising a four-panel raised-and-fielded bolection-moulded panelled door with a margin-paned overlight, flanked by panelled pilasters rising to foliated console brackets that support a moulded canopy surmounted by stuccowork.

The principal elevation faces south and is asymmetrically arranged, with the entrance to the left, accessed by replacement steps, and two windows at ground, first, and second floor levels. The left gable abuts number 66 Donegall Pass and the right gable abuts number 70. A large modern two-storey flat-roofed extension has been added to the rear, and a light well serves the original elevation window openings at the rear. Some architectural interest has been lost as a result of this extension. The interior has been modified to suit its use as offices, but the layout has largely remained unaltered, though some interior detailing has been lost. Interventions overall have been largely sympathetic, and the building retains much of its historic external fabric and late Victorian detailing.

To the front is a paved area used as a private car park; to the rear is a tarmac yard enclosed by a palisade gate. The immediate surroundings are principally two- and three-storey residential buildings from various periods. The former School of Music stands opposite on the south side of the street, and St Mary Magdalene Church lies to the west.

Apsley Place was built in 1846 in what was then a sparsely developed part of the growing town of Belfast. Donegall Pass had been laid out by the late 18th century across a heavily wooded area used as a deerpark by the Donegall family, Belfast's principal landowners at the time. The architectural historian Brett has suggested that Donegall Pass and the Ormeau Road were laid out as carriage drives through these woodland estates, and that it was not until the Donegalls' control over their pleasure grounds began to lessen in the 1820s that permission was given to build in the area. By 1823, the land on the north side of Donegall Pass had become the property of Henry Joy, proprietor of the Belfast Newsletter and an active figure in the political life of the town. The construction of the gasworks to the east in 1823 probably contributed to the development of the area, though at the time Apsley Place was built in the mid-19th century it was one of only a handful of terrace developments along the Pass to the north, while the land to the south was largely divided among substantial villas set in spacious grounds.

The developer of the terrace was Thomas Gaffikin (1809–1893), a farmer's son and butcher who built several other terraces in south Belfast. Gaffikin himself lived at number 70 and later number 56 Apsley Place from the time of construction until he moved to a new terrace he had built at Queen's Elms, where he remained for the rest of his life. He later became the proprietor of a linen and linen-yarn business and served as a town councillor for Cromac and then St George's Ward. He is remembered historically for his 1875 lecture entitled "Belfast Fifty Years Ago", which gives a vivid account of the social life of early 19th-century Belfast.

The houses were occupied over the years by a succession of tenants reflecting the range of occupations available to the middle and petty bourgeois classes during Belfast's period of most rapid expansion. Early residents were often wealthy business proprietors or gentlemen, but as the merchant class gradually moved out to the more prosperous surroundings of North Down and elsewhere, the tenantry shifted perceptibly towards the well-to-do petty bourgeoisie. The censuses of 1901 and 1911 show that by the early 20th century some tenants were wealthy enough to employ a domestic servant, and others supplemented their income by taking in boarders. Commercial use of the houses appears to be a modern development.

The recorded tenants of number 68 include: G. L. Miller, landing surveyor (1846–1850); W. Roger (1852); W. Close, woollen draper of High Street (1858); William Close and then James Martin, as listed in Griffith's Valuation of 1859, which records the house as three storeys high with a valuation of £30; Mrs Mary Carter (1863–1864); Alfred Wigglesworth of the Bedford Street Weaving Company (1865, the same year an outbuilding to the rear was demolished and the valuation reduced to £27); John M. Greer (1877); Miss Black (1890); and Frances Gibson, draper (1896–1897). At the time of the 1901 census the building was run as a boarding house by Elisabeth Lonsdale, dressmaker, whose boarders worked variously as a cashier, a clerk in the Income Tax office, an apprentice to the seed trade, a bookkeeper, and a dressmaker; her household servant was a 50-year-old widow from County Down. By the 1911 census the resident was John Heaney, a retired builder, living with his wife, children, and grandson; two of his daughters were national school teachers and his son was a clerk in a biscuit factory. Mary Poole was the occupier from 1916 to 1935. The building is currently in use as offices.