2 Malone Road, Belfast, Co. Antrim, BT9 6BN

2 Malone Road, known as 'Abbotsford', is a prominently located, well-proportioned red brick former townhouse built around 1888 to designs by architect James J. Phillips. It stands at the hub of south Belfast's three main thoroughfares — Stranmillis, Malone and University Roads — and makes a considerable contribution, together with its neighbour No. 4, to the character of the Queen's Conservation Area. The building is now in commercial use, with a café at ground floor and counselling rooms on the upper floors.

The building is three storeys over basement, corner-sited, with an irregular and complex plan form that is ostensibly V-shaped to fit the wedge-shaped site. It comprises north and east bays extended by a slightly lower return running south from the east bay. The north bay is topped by a cruciform roof plan, finished at the north by a wall-head dormer. The north and east bays are separated by an acute angle. The wedge-shaped configuration has resulted in a highly complex roof plan and internal layout, representative of the challenges arising from redeveloping existing plots to meet late 19th-century aesthetic standards. Despite this, the building maintains a fairly regular frontage.

Walling is red and orange brick in Flemish bond, with a variety of gauged brick, red sandstone and terracotta embellishments. Basement walling is rock-faced sandstone. Windows rest on continuous painted masonry cills, each extended to form a string course, and each bay window is finished with a decorative gauged brick cornice also extended to form a string course. Windows are replacement uPVC casements with pole-moulded sandstone surrounds and raised keystones; those to the first floor are segmental-headed, while those to the ground floor and rear elevation are square-headed. There are two-storey canted bay windows to each principal elevation. Terracotta panels depicting sunflowers are set to either side of the north first-floor bay window.

The roof is steeply hipped over the principal northern bay and pitched to the rear. It is generally finished in natural slate, with some areas of asbestos tile replacement, and has a mix of angled blue and black and original terracotta ridge tiles. Original profile cast iron rainwater goods with hoppers rest on a projecting brick cornice embellished with quadrant and egg-and-dart cornicing over a painted Lombardic frieze. The tall feature red brick chimneystacks to the east have been partially rebuilt, with deep stepped caps and multiple pots. There is a lozenge-shaped stack to the west which appears to be original.

The principal entrance elevation faces west and is dominated by a two-storey canted projecting porch set into the re-entrant angle with the adjoining No. 4. The ground floor of the porch is neo-Baroque in style, with a painted masonry surround, a front entrance and ornate stained and leaded windows to either side. There is an original timber door with four raised panels and original cast iron door furniture, surmounted by a plain segmental fanlight topped by an open scrolled pediment with anthemion, over egg-and-dart cornicing, scrolled brackets and neoclassical panelled spandrels. Above the ground floor porch is a timber-framed conservatory accessed at first floor, having a glazed pavilion roof. The conservatory is fully glazed over a brick plinth, with three vertically divided windows each spanned by a replacement wire-glazed rectangular toplight; each window is framed by slender colonnettes with foliated capitals, and the roof has dentil cornicing. To the right of the porch is a two-storey canted bay window. Above this, a break in the string course and a variation in brick indicates the likely presence of a former window opening, now infilled. Original street signage is affixed to the left margin at ground floor, and at first floor there is a name plaque reading 'Abbotsford'.

The north elevation has a two-storey canted bay centrally placed, surmounted at attic level by a stylised dormer with a Dutch gable embellished with three tall finials, string courses and volutes. It is lit by a pair of segmental-headed windows with small keyblocks. The east elevation comprises the east side of the north bay, set back behind the projecting east bay, with an acute angle between them infilled at ground level by a projecting canted later extension. Above the extension, the north bay wall and the inner cheek of the east bay are blank. The east bay is lit by a two-storey projecting canted bay with a pair of square-headed windows over. To its left, the return sits flush with the east elevation; it shares cornice detailing but is otherwise plainly detailed, with a single enlarged window opening to the first and second floors and a projecting box bay to the ground floor, with painted masonry lintels over each window. The rear elevation is plainly detailed, with two staggered windows to each floor.

The building is set slightly back from street level on a raised platform laid with concrete flagstones and bounded by a modern timber fence, accommodating a café seating area. Access from the street is via a set of modern paved steps flanked by dwarf red brick piers with profiled stone caps painted black. The building is paired with No. 4 Malone Road immediately to the south, which is contemporary with No. 2 and shares some detailing, though each property is individually detailed to good architectural effect. The group is sited opposite Methodist College to the west and the Ulster Museum to the east.

The fittings and fixtures throughout are of notably high quality, consistent with the neighbour at No. 4, and the decorative elements are representative of the stock catalogue items popular at the time of construction. The impact of conversion to commercial use has been contained to the ground floor; although the subdivision of the ground floor entrance hall is regrettable, it has been carried out to a basic standard and is reversible.

Abbotsford was first shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1901, though it had been built around 1888. The second edition Ordnance Survey map records that the wedge-shaped site formerly contained a small house and garden occupied by a James Cunningham. This had been replaced by Abbotsford at No. 2 by 1889, with No. 4 following by 1891. Both properties were built for Robert Walsh, a chartered accountant of Johnston and Walsh in central Belfast (later Robert Walsh and Sons). Each was noted as comprising a house, conservatory, yard and small garden, with No. 2 valued at £67 and No. 4 at £52. Both houses appear to have remained vacant until around 1906, when Robert Walsh was recorded as the occupier of No. 4 and Abbotsford was occupied by a Thomas Kennedy and a Mrs Wheeler. Both properties received increases in valuation in 1906, with No. 2 rising to £82 and No. 4 to £70, though no alterations to the buildings are noted in the valuation documents. No. 2 remained as a single residence until at least 1936. By 1943 it had been taken over for use by His Majesty's Government, and by 1951 the building was in use as a preparatory and nursery school.

This stretch of Malone Road, which formed part of University Road until around 1931, was developed from the mid-19th century onwards by wealthy citizens seeking to build grand villas and residences away from the increasingly overcrowded and industrial city. Following the end of the Second World War, the area experienced a change in function, with a departure from residential use towards office-based accommodation for commercial, educational and institutional purposes.