24 College Gardens, Belfast

24 College Gardens, Belfast

24 College Gardens is a mid-terrace, three-storey over basement red brick late Victorian townhouse, built in 1882 by an unknown architect. It forms part of a symmetrical block of four townhouses — numbers 23, 24, 25 and 26 — in which number 24 is mirrored in plan and elevation by number 25, while numbers 23 and 26 form the gabled ends of the group. The building is currently in use as office accommodation, combined internally with the neighbouring number 23.

Setting and Context

College Gardens — originally named College Gardens Avenue — is a tree-lined street of similarly scaled townhouses running between Malone Road and Lisburn Road, lying within the Queens Conservation Area. The buildings face south and overlook the grounds of Methodist College. The street demonstrates the evolving architectural styles of its era, with various influences evident across the terrace, though the whole is unified in height and scale. Number 24 sits towards the western end of the street and is set back from the pavement behind a modest front garden. The rear of the building overlooks Elmwood Mews, a shared service alley running the full length of College Gardens and connecting to Elmwood Avenue.

The land on which College Gardens stands was, prior to the early 19th century, part of a series of strip farms running from what is now Malone Road and University Road towards the Bog Meadows. These farms were probably laid out in the early 17th century. Their integrity was broken up by the cutting of Lisburn Road between 1816 and 1819 and the construction of the Ulster Railway between 1837 and 1839. Around the same period, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of what remained of these farms, with small country villas being built or upgraded and modest demesnes laid out within the former farmland plots. The land immediately north and south of College Gardens belonged to one such villa, called Vermont, a house predating 1770 that was possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815 and enlarged again in the 1840s — on the latter occasion by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The construction of Queen's College a short distance to the north-east in 1845 sparked the suburbanisation of the area. In 1865, Vermont itself was sold for the building of Methodist College, which was completed in 1868. A new private avenue was then laid out on the lower ground immediately to the north, with building plots on the northern side. Construction along College Gardens proceeded eastward from the 1870s: numbers 1 to 6 were built in 1871, numbers 7 to 18 in 1877, numbers 33 and 34 in 1879, numbers 19 to 22 in 1881, numbers 23 to 26 in 1882, and numbers 27 to 32 in 1883. The developer responsible for everything from number 11 to number 32 appears to have been Reverend George Cron, then minister of the Evangelical Union Church in Wellington Place.

Roof

The main roof is covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. Some artificial slate has been noted on the east-facing slope of the hipped roofed return. The flat roof was not accessible for inspection. A large red brick chimney, centred on the ridge and shared with number 23, has been partly replaced with a reconstituted stone corbelled cap and retains several circular pots. To the front pitch there is a modern flat-roofed dormer; to the rear pitch there is a duo-pitched dormer and two roof-lights, one modern and one of conservation style.

Rainwater goods on the main south-facing roof are cast iron with an ogee profile gutter and square-section aluminium downpipes. To the north, uPVC gutters and downpipes are used.

Walls

The front elevation is built in red brick laid in Flemish bond, with painted moulded stucco dressings. The rear and return walls are red brick in English Garden Wall bond.

Front Elevation (South)

The front elevation faces south and is Italianate in style with classical proportions. It is asymmetrical in composition, with an aedicule framing the entrance to the left and a single-storey squared bay to the right, the bay having three windows and an openwork parapet. The entire ground floor is finished in painted stucco, with red brick above and moulded stucco dressings including continuous projecting cills at first and second floor levels.

There are three windows at each of the upper floors, diminishing in height as they rise. All upper windows have segmental arched heads. At first floor level, the windows have plain stucco surrounds with projecting hoods — pedimented to the middle window and shallow-pitched to the side windows. At second floor level, the windows have moulded stucco surrounds with corresponding brackets below the cill course. The bay at ground floor level has a projecting base plinth with a moulded top, cill, head, and cornice with a plain frieze. The dormer has double-glazed timber-framed windows, and the cheeks of the dormer have double-glazed fixed lights.

The entrance doorway is framed by an aedicule comprising Corinthian-style pilasters and topped by a deep moulded pediment with a foliated tympanum bearing the date 1882. The door itself is a timber-framed four-panelled door with a plain glass fanlight, the door having bolection moulding to the fielded and pitched panels. The inner face of the fanlight glass carries applied gold digits reading 24.

Rear Elevation (North)

The north elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews. It is asymmetrical and plainer in character than the front, with red brick walling and soldier courses above flat-arched windows, and simple stone cills, with the exception of the attic cill which is concrete. The full-height rear projection is built at half-landing level and adjoins the equivalent projection at number 25; it is abutted by a double return comprising a three-storey hipped-roofed part and a two-storey flat-roofed part, all offset to the right and built over the basement.

To the left of the return, there is one window at each floor of the main building: at attic level, a modern sliding sash in a duo-pitched dormer clad with artificial slate to the walls and cheeks; at second and first floor, original sliding sashes with 2 over 2 panes; at ground floor, a sliding sash with 1 over 1 panes; and at basement level, a fixed timber-framed replacement window. A former chimney centred on the full-height projection has been capped.

All windows on the north face of the double return are timber-framed replacement sliding sashes with 1 over 1 double-glazed panes and concrete cills. The hipped-roofed return has a single window at second floor level centred on the ridge, but is otherwise blank. The flat-roofed return has a larger window offset to the right at first floor level — reduced in height, with modern red brick infill below the cill — and a smaller window to the left at first floor. At ground floor there is a centrally placed window and a modern sheeted timber door to the right. There are no remaining openings at basement level, though evidence of a former segmental-arched door and an adjacent window is visible from salvaged brick infill.

East Elevation

Number 23 College Gardens abuts the east side of the main building. On the east face of the full-height rear projection there is one window at each half-landing level: at ground floor, a replacement timber-framed sliding sash with 2 over 2 panes; at first and second floor, original sliding sashes with 1 over 1 panes having coloured margins; and at attic level, a replacement timber-framed sliding sash with 1 over 1 panes.

The east face of the double return has informally arranged openings: two original sliding sashes at first floor, both with 2 over 2 panes; and two further sliding sashes at ground floor with 1 over 1 panes, these being double-glazed replacements with timber slips. The ground floor windows flank a modern zinc-clad bridge that spans the yard and connects to number 23 College Gardens. At basement level there is a sheeted timber replacement door.

West Elevation

Number 25 College Gardens abuts the west elevation of the main building, including the return.

Windows

The principal windows on the front elevation are single-glazed double-hung sliding sashes with 1 over 1 panes.

Front Garden and Boundary

Mature hedging and modern metal railings define the boundary with the adjacent front gardens of numbers 25 and 23. The original entrance steps have been replaced by a ramped access, with buff-coloured precast concrete paving slabs and small pavers to the border. There is a gravel bed to the perimeter of the square bay and behind a small section of dwarf brick wall at the boundary to College Gardens, with tarmac covering the remainder of the front garden to provide off-street parking. A young tree grows in the gravel bed at the boundary.

Rear Yard

The rear yard is shared with number 23 and is accessed from Elmwood Mews. A modern red brick wall with a galvanised steel lintel and metal roller shutter forms a wide vehicular entrance to the off-street parking area within the rear yard. Red brick walling in English Garden Wall bond with a curved terracotta coping and simple metal railings over divides the yard from number 25. Modern concrete steps, retained by salvaged red brick walling and modern metal railings, lead from an exit door at ground floor level down to the tarmacked yard at basement level.

Interior

Despite conversion to office use and the resulting alterations to the plan form through combination with number 23, a good deal of original joinery and authentic historic detailing survives intact, including the original staircase.

Historical Occupancy

The first street directory in which the property appears, dated 1887, records the occupant as J.S. Poole, a medical doctor. He was followed by William M. Whitaker around 1889, who vacated the property around 1891. Reverend George Shaw, minister of Fitzroy Presbyterian Church, succeeded him and was in turn followed by Robert T. Martin, a solicitor, who in the 1901 census is recorded as occupying number 24 with his wife Edith, their two young children, and three domestic servants. The building was noted at that time as a first-class dwelling with 16 rooms in use. The Martins vacated the house that same year, and James H. Stirling, director of York Street Flaxspinning Co. Ltd., was in residence by 1907. Mrs. Stirling, presumably his widow, is listed as occupant in 1910. The 1911 census records the householder as Baptist Gamble, a widowed railway manager, who was living there with his two teenage children, two sisters-in-law, their parents, and a single domestic servant. R.J. Brandon, a chartered accountant, was residing at number 24 by 1918, and an ophthalmic surgeon, W.A. Anderson, by 1924, remaining there until at least 1951. By 1960 the property was in use as offices for the Iron Trades Employers' Insurance Association Ltd., continuing as such until at least 1996. It remains in office use today, linked internally to number 23 by a modern connection spanning between the returns of each property, installed as part of a major refurbishment carried out around 2013 to 2014.