192 Belmont Road, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT4 2AT

192 Belmont Road is a well-proportioned late-Victorian semi-detached house built in 1897, forming one half of a matched pair with its neighbour at 190 Belmont Road. The building is recorded for historical interest but is not considered to possess special architectural or historic significance.

The house is constructed of red brick and comprises three storeys with attic accommodation, arranged in an asymmetric three-bay plan. It is distinguished by a central three-storey tower to the south elevation, projecting gables, and a dormer window. A single-storey red-brick extension extends to the north, creating an L-shaped footprint. The south front elevation features a two-storey canted bay with a hipped leaded roof and round-headed windows to the second storey. Square-headed openings with projecting painted stone sill courses serve the canted bay at ground level.

The external walls display characteristic late-Victorian detailing. A projecting smooth rendered plinth runs around the base, with a torus brick string course between ground and first floors and a dog-tooth string course at the first-floor impose level. A moulded string course divides the first and second floors. A half-dormer window sits on an egg and dart moulded bracket. Red-brick chimneys with corbelling and recessed coping feature terracotta pots. The pitched slate roof carries saw-tooth terracotta ridge tiles and is finished with projecting eaves decorated with dog-tooth and egg and dart brick cornice. The tower is crowned with a pyramidal slate roof and cast-iron finial. Ogee moulded uPVC guttering and downpipes are modern replacements.

Windows throughout are one-over-one timber sliding sash with moulded horns and single panes. The east elevation of the tower contains a square-headed door opening with a drip mould and floral label stops, leading to a five-panelled timber entrance door with fanlight above. Three terracotta-tiled steps provide access. A single-storey projecting bay on the east elevation features a rendered eaves course and leaded flat roof with moulded brick detailing. A single-storey red-brick entrance porch with a low monopitch roof has been added to the north-east. The north elevation displays an asymmetrical pitched roof to a brick-built rear return with square-headed windows and rendered ground-floor walling. The west elevation is adjoined to the neighbouring property and is therefore blank.

The building is set back from Belmont Road with a dwarf red-brick wall and formal hedge to the south, and a pair of brick entrance piers with flat rendered coping and decorative cast-iron gateway. Elevated brick planting beds front the property, with bitumac parking to the east and north, and lawns and garden areas to the north and south. The site is enclosed by tree-lined boundaries to the west and north.

Historical Context

The pair of semi-detached houses at 190–192 Belmont Road were constructed in 1897 on land originally belonging to Strathearn, a two-storey manor built in 1864 for William and Robert Mullan. Following Belfast's rapid expansion in the late 19th century and the subsequent development of the Belmont area as a middle-class suburb, land bordering Belmont Road was leased for new residential construction. The third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1902 confirms that these two houses were the first dwellings built on this plot between Wandsworth Drive and Pembridge Court, aside from the gate lodge to Strathearn.

The house was originally known as 'Melville' and was initially leased by James Bennett, a bank manager residing at the neighbouring Belavon House to the north-east. The 1901 census recorded it as a first-class dwelling containing ten rooms, with a rateable value of £27 and 10 shillings. Its first recorded occupant was Saxon Payne, a clerk with Harland & Wolff and secretary to the company's chairman William Pirrie. By the 1911 census, William J. Anderson, a local wine merchant, had taken occupancy. The Ireland family occupied the property from approximately 1920 until the 1950s. Ownership passed to Robert Wallace by the 1930s, with the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) recording the house value at £48. The Second General Revaluation (1956–72) raised this to £52, at which point S. McDowell was recorded as occupant. Throughout both surveys the building remained in use as a private dwelling. A single-storey flat-roofed entrance porch was added to the east side during the late 20th century.