Former Bradford and Bingley Building, 2 Chichester Street, Belfast

Former Bradford and Bingley Building

This is an attached two-storey building with attic, built around 1894 to designs by Belfast architect Samuel Stevenson. It occupies a prominent corner position at Chichester Street and Callender Street, with the main entrance facing south-west.

The building features a pitched and hipped natural slate roof with red brick chimneystacks set back behind dormers and a pierced parapet on either side of the corner turret. The walls are constructed of red facing brickwork with beige granite pilasters and columns at ground floor level and sandstone dressings above. Windows are painted timber 1/1 sliding sash where not otherwise described.

The principal south elevation is two bays wide with a corner turret. The ground floor bays have modern square-headed plate-glass display windows separated by pilasters with cream painted Ionic capitals supporting a cream painted stone entablature. The first floor features a single square-headed 1/1 casement window on the left bay and a tripartite square-headed 1/1 casement window on the right, both with sandstone sills, moulded mullions, architraves and triangular pediments. The bays are separated by bipartite pilasters extending to moulded corbelled eaves and sill course. The second floor right bay contains a wall-head dormer with a tripartite square-headed window with red brick mullions, moulded sill course, and lintels with drip moulding above. A date stone with raised inscription '1894' in a carved shield is set above. The left bay has a pierced parapet.

The corner turret on the south-west elevation has a ground floor entrance behind round columns with cream painted stone Ionic capitals and entablature supporting the first floor jetty. Above this, a bipartite square-headed 1/1 curved casement window with sill and moulded mullions is surmounted by a clock face set in a carved surround with triangular pediment. The top stage of the turret contains seven square-headed windows with red brick mullions, moulded sill course, lintels with roundels between windows, surmounted by a curved moulded entablature and flat roof.

The west elevation is four bays wide with a corner turret. The ground floor right three bays feature modern square-headed plate-glass display windows separated by pilasters with cream painted Ionic capitals supporting a cream painted stone entablature. The left bay has a six-panel painted timber door with overlight in a moulded surround, flanked by two granite pilasters. The first floor left and right bays have single square-headed 1/1 casement windows with sills, moulded architraves and triangular pediments. The middle two bays have tripartite square-headed 1/1 casement windows with sills, moulded mullions, architraves and triangular pediments. The bays are separated by bipartite pilasters extending to moulded corbelled eaves and sill course. The second floor middle two bays have wall-head dormers with bipartite square-headed windows with red brick mullions, moulded sill course, lintels and triangular pediments.

The north and east elevations have windows of varying sizes at various locations. The east elevation is abutted by a neighbouring building.

The building stands at a prominent corner location to the north-east of City Hall, east of the former Water Office, and north of Ocean Buildings. Rainwater goods are cast iron.