59 University Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NF

59 University Road is a substantial late Georgian style terraced house with a stucco façade and decorative doorcase, built in around 1983 to replace an almost identical building of around 1840–43 that was demolished in 1979. It is one of a matching group of four (the remaining three being original), all now divided into flats with stairwell returns to the rear. The stretch of terrace to which the group belongs was originally named Botanic View and is situated on the west side of University Road, with Camden Street to the north and Fitzwilliam Street to the south. It consists of this property and its three identical neighbours, three similar but lower three-storey houses of around 1840–41 (also now converted to flats), and a short two-storey brick grouping of 1852 at the south end (now flats and offices). Number 59 sits roughly in the middle of the terrace.

The front, east-facing façade is asymmetrical. To the left on the ground floor is what appears to be the original entrance doorway, but is not and never has been used as such, since the flats are accessed from the rear stairwell return. This dummy doorway consists of a traditional-style panelled and glazed surround that functions as a window, with panelled pilaster jambs and a plain rectangular fanlight above. The whole ensemble is framed by plain pilasters with decorative console brackets supporting a cornice hood with a tympanum-like blocking course over. To the right of the doorway are two flat-arch windows with Georgian-paned sash frames, both six-over-six. The first floor repeats this arrangement directly above, with two matching windows, and the second floor has two similar but shorter windows in the same alignment. The ground floor level is finished in square-channelled rusticated render, while the first and second floors are in plain render with simple moulded surrounds to the window openings. There are in-out bevelled quoins to the left. The ground floor render and the quoins are painted in a darker shade than the upper floors. A portion of the left side and the very top of the south gable is exposed; the left side is rendered to match the upper floors of the front, with quoins as before, and the upper portion is slate-clad with a plain rendered projecting chimneybreast.

To the left-hand side of the rear, west-facing elevation there is a large full-height stairwell return shared with number 57, spanning across part of that building's elevation as well. On the west face of this return there is a sash window, broadly matching those on the front, at first half-landing level, and another slightly shorter one at second half-landing level. On the north face of the return, to the left at ground floor level, there is a doorway with a recent security door giving access to the stairwell and to the ground floor flats of numbers 57 and 59. Immediately to the right of this doorway is a single-storey flat-roofed brick projection housing the dustbins for the three flats of number 55. The south face of the return mirrors the arrangement of the north face, but with a small sash window with Georgian panes (four-over-two) at both first and second floor levels. To the right of the return on the rear façade of the main body of the building there are two windows on each floor; the right-hand window on each floor is the larger, and those on the second floor are shorter than those below. The ground floor windows are covered with security grilles, while those on the upper floors have Georgian-paned sash frames (first floor: four-over-two and six-over-six; second floor: four-over-two and six-over-three). The entire rear elevation is rendered and painted to match the upper floors of the front, with quoins to the right as at the front.

The main gabled roof is slated, with a mono-pitched lean-to-style slated roof over the return. There is a tall rendered chimneystack to the north with a string course and decorative matching pots, and a similar stack to the south. There is a bracketed verge course to the front and a plainer version to the rear, both with recent-looking moulded guttering and modern square downspouts. At the front, a small garden is enclosed by low rendered walls and filled with shrubbery; the pathway that formerly led to the front entrance has been removed.

The building's historical context is inseparable from the development of south Belfast in the early to mid 19th century. Before the early 19th century, the present University Road was the main southward route from Belfast to Dublin, running along the Malone Ridge. Long, narrow strip farms stretched westward from it, sloping down toward the Bog Meadows. By the mid 18th century many of these farms were leased by the Donegall estate to Belfast merchants and worked by undertenants whose farmhouses were scattered along the road. In 1819 the present Lisburn Road was laid out through the farms, and by 1839 the Ulster Railway had been cut through their lower fields. From 1823 the Donegall estate began granting perpetual leases on land to the south of Belfast, opening the area to developers once the coherence of the farm holdings had been broken. One such developer was John Alexander, whose family had held a lease on 31 acres in the townland of Lower Malone since the early 18th century and who acquired it outright from Lord Donegall in 1823 for £480. It was on this land that Alexander built the three-storey portions of Botanic View — the present numbers 53 to 65 University Road — between 1840 and 1843, while parcelling out adjacent parts of the holding to other developers, leading to the construction of Fitzwilliam Place (numbers 71–75) in 1846–48, dwellings along the newly laid out Fitzwilliam Street (numbers 2–8) in around 1849–50, and Camden Terrace along Camden Street in 1849–52, with the two-storey southern portion of Botanic View in place by 1852. These developments, alongside others nearby including Fountainville Terrace, Upper and Lower Crescent, Prospect and Claremont Terraces, and University Square to the east, marked the beginning of the suburbanisation of south Belfast and the movement of the town's professional and commercial classes away from its centre. The earliest inhabitants of Botanic View reflected this pattern, with a surgeon, an engineer, a drawing master, and various businessmen listed in late 1840s and early 1850s directories.

The whole of Botanic View remained in the ownership of the Alexander family until 1881, when the present numbers 53 to 65 were sold to Robert Kelso Mathewson. In 1950 the properties passed to Queen's University, with number 67 acquired by Queen's in 1963. In 1982 the University sold the entire grouping to the Malone Housing Association. Up to that point the properties had largely continued as private dwellings, some occupied latterly by University staff and students. Numbers 55 and 57–59 served respectively as a temporary post office and a branch of the Ulster Bank in 1971–72. Number 59 sustained damage in a bomb blast and was demolished in 1979. In the mid 1980s the Malone Housing Association converted the whole group into flats, rebuilding number 59 in the process. Numbers 53, 55, 57, and 59 each provide three flats, with six flats shared between numbers 61, 63, 65, and 67. All of the original rear returns were demolished to make way for new stairwell projections, with a single stairwell shared between each former house. In March 2000 the entire group was reconveyed to Queen's University.