Former Bradford and Bingley Building, 2 Chichester Street, Belfast

Former Bradford and Bingley Building, 2 Chichester Street, Belfast

An attached two-storey plus attic late Victorian building built around 1894 to designs by Belfast-based architect Samuel Stevenson, located at the corner of Chichester Street and Callender Street. This eclectic design is a good representative example of the type of small commercial building that is becoming increasingly rare in the city. It is notable as an example of the minor works of a recognised architect who was involved with many of the significant civic buildings in Belfast.

The building was originally built for Reuben Payne, a merchant tailor. The main entrance is on the corner facing south-west. The roof is pitched and hipped natural slate with red brick chimneystacks set back behind dormers and a pierced parapet either side of a corner turret. The walling is red facing brickwork with beige granite pilasters and columns to the ground floor and sandstone dressings to the remainder. Windows are painted timber 1/1 sliding sash except where otherwise indicated.

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 above. The first floor left bay has a single square-headed 1/1 casement window and the right bay has a tripartite square-headed 1/1 casement window, both with sandstone sills, moulded mullions and architraves and triangular pediments above. The bays are separated by bipartite pilasters which extend to moulded corbelled eaves and sill course. The second floor right bay has a wall-head dormer with a tripartite square-headed window (with corner fillets) with red brick mullions, moulded sill course and lintels with drip moulding above, surmounted by a date stone with raised inscription '1894' set in a carved shield. The left bay has a pierced parapet.

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

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

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

A photograph taken in 1897 from the Francis Firth Collection shows the building sporting a conical natural slate roof with a ball finial over the turret, which was replaced with a flat roof around 1950.

Samuel Stevenson was later appointed in 1900 as the architect for the Municipal Technology Institute at College Square East. According to Marcus Patton's "Central Belfast A Historical Gazetteer", the building previously on this site was occupied by W Erskine Mayne, who ran the Ulster Religious Tract and Book Depository, a business founded by a number of ministers and gentlemen, and also published the Monthly Gleaner, described as the primary juvenile magazine in Ulster, as well as stocking magic lanterns for hire and photographic and sporting apparatus. An old double-fronted three-storey house with full-height bay windows and a railed garden linking Chichester Street and Callender Street stood at the corner until 1888, occupied by publisher William M'Comb and later by rent agent Conolly Sherrard.

The building is situated at the prominent corner of Chichester Street and Callender Street, to the north-east of City Hall, east of the former Water Office, and north of Ocean Buildings. The building is located within a conservation area.