Old Museum Buildings

The Old Museum Buildings, No. 7 College Square North, Belfast

The Old Museum Buildings is a three-storey, five-bay Greek Revival building constructed between 1830 and 1831 to designs by the architectural partnership of Thomas Duff (c.1792–1848) and Thomas Jackson (1807–1890). Duff and Jackson formed their partnership around 1829, making this one of their first joint commissions and among Jackson's earliest completed works. The partnership was dissolved in 1835 when Jackson established his own independent practice. Although now generally attributed primarily to Jackson, the building was officially designed by both men. Jackson is also believed to have designed the adjoining Nos. 5–6 College Square North in a similarly classical style.

The building was constructed for the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, making it the first privately funded museum in Ireland. The foundation stone was laid on 4th May 1830 by the Marquis of Donegall. Sealed within the first stone was a bottle containing several documents: papers of the Belfast Natural History Society, a list of its members and subscribers, a Belfast Almanac for 1830, coins then in circulation in the United Kingdom, and a passage from the 12th chapter of Job translated into fifteen different languages. The Society had originally been established on 5th June 1821, when eight scholars from the Royal Belfast Academical Institution met at the home of Dr. James Drummond, its President. In a short time members accumulated impressive collections of antiquities and botanical, zoological, and mineral specimens, meeting first at the Institution and later at the Commercial Buildings on Bridge Street, before outgrowing that accommodation and acquiring the College Square North site by 1830. P. D. Hardy, writing shortly after the building's completion in his Twenty-one Views in Belfast and its Neighbourhood (1837), described the Society as having been initiated by a few respectable young gentlemen of the town, nearly all engaged in commercial business, who devoted their leisure hours to literary and scientific pursuits, eventually attracting the admiration and support of the older and wealthier citizens, who subscribed to provide the Society with a public edifice for their meetings and a depository for their valuable museum.

Architectural Character and Design

Paul Larmour noted that Jackson's design incorporates several Greek Revivalist elements reflecting the ancient ruins of the Aegean, with details compiled from various Athenian sources. Specifically, the sloping architraves to some windows echo those of the Erechtheum; the laurel wreaths across the frieze number eleven, like those on the Choragic Monument of Thrasyllus; and the distinctive water-leaf and acanthus capitals of the portico are copied from those on the Tower of the Winds. C. E. B. Brett described the portico as an exact copy of that of the octagonal Tower of Andronicus at Athens, and the upper portions as reminiscent of the Temple of Minerva, regarding the building as an expression of Belfast's academic revival during a period when the town was styled the Athens of the North.

Exterior

The building is set back at the centre of a terrace on College Square North. It is rendered in stucco throughout the principal south-facing elevation, with a dentilled pediment over the central three bays, which are slightly advanced. Plain giant-order pilasters run between the bays at first- and second-floor level.

The first- and second-floor windows are double-hung sashes with lugged architraves: six-over-six panes at second-floor level and nine-over-six panes at first-floor level. The first-floor windows have entablatures over their architraves, and ornamental cast iron ventilation grilles above them. A continuous cill course runs across the second-floor windows, broken by the pilasters. The ground floor features round-headed double-hung sashes — six-over-six with additional panes in the head — set within moulded architraves in rusticated stucco with voussoirs. The cills are contained within the architraves, which descend to a plain plinth. A cornice runs over the ground floor, and the entablature carries small plaster wreaths.

The central portico has fluted Corinthian columns and plain responding pilasters, with a flat moulded and dentilled entablature and frieze. The column bases enclose five stone steps leading to the front door. The double door has five moulded panels framed by iron rosette studs and is surmounted by a fishscale fanlight.

The roof is slated with a panelled parapet to the front and cast iron rainwater goods to the rear. Rendered chimney stacks at each gable may belong to the adjoining No. 8.

In front of the building is a paved area on two levels; the rear level was originally planted. The paving at the front is sandstone, enclosed by a sandstone dwarf wall that originally supported cast iron railings.

The rear elevation is cement rendered, with two gabled bays projecting above the basic roof level. Various windows appear across this elevation, mostly double-hung sashes of differing fenestrations. The window on the landing above the first floor was formerly a nine-over-six double-hung sash; the window above it is six-over-six with additional margin panes at top, bottom, and sides. Both of these retain their original lamb's tongue glazing bars. A two-storey painted brick return is slated with cast iron rainwater goods. The main portion of this return is three bays wide with a central door and single-pane double-hung sashes behind protective iron bars.

Materials: slated roof; stucco walls to principal elevation, cement render to rear; timber windows; cast iron rainwater goods.

Setting and Group Value

The building forms the centrepiece of a terrace of substantial late Georgian buildings on College Square North, regarded as the best surviving example of an 1830s terrace in Belfast. The plain Georgian character of the terrace and its historic interest make it a significant surviving fragment of Georgian Belfast, comparable to the houses at Nos. 7–11 Wellington Place. College Square itself was laid out in the early 19th century around the newly established Royal Belfast Academical Institution. Throughout the mid-to-late 19th century, College Square North was one of the most desirable addresses in Belfast, attracting doctors, businessmen, and professionals. This began to change when the large Belfast Technical College was constructed at the corner of the square between 1900 and 1907, cutting off the pleasant view across the Institution's lawns and prompting many professionals to relocate to South Belfast.

Historical Use and Occupancy

The Townland Valuation of around 1830 recorded the museum building at a value of £66 when first completed. By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1860, this had risen to £130, and the valuer noted that the museum also possessed a private residence for the curator — at that time a Mr. William Darragh, who was also employed as a taxidermist. The Belfast Revaluation of 1900 slightly reduced the value to £116, while the two-storey curator's house to the rear was individually valued at £9. The valuer noted the museum at that time comprised nine rooms fitted with gas installations.

From its earliest years the building served as the premises of several local scientific institutions. By 1901 the Ulster Medical Society and the Belfast Naturalist Field Club also held offices there. The census of that year records Mr. Samuel A. Stewart, originally from the United States of America, as curator; he resided in the curator's dwelling with his widowed sister. By 1910 Stewart had been replaced by a Mr. J. Sinclair, and the Ulster Photographic Society had also taken up offices in the building.

In 1929 the Belfast Municipal Museum and Art Gallery — Northern Ireland's first national museum — opened in Botanic Gardens, and the artefacts of the Old Museum were transferred there. No longer required as exhibition space, No. 7 College Square North became primarily a lecture venue and office space, though the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society continued to meet there. By the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930, the building was valued at £131; the Society's lecture hall occupied the first floor, with remaining offices taken by the College of Nursing, the Ulster Society of Architects, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants. By the First General Revaluation of 1935 the value had risen slightly to £143, with occupants unchanged. During the Second World War the Ulster Hospital Libraries Association and the Ulster Academy of Arts also took up offices in the building.

College Square North survived the heavy bombardment of Belfast's city centre during the 1941 Blitz. In the second general revaluation, which ran from 1956 to 1972, the First Church of Christ Scientist had occupied the former first-floor lecture hall as reading rooms, though the organisation had vacated by 1966 when the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors took over that floor. By the close of the revaluation in 1972 the building remained leased by the Trustees of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, and was valued at £410.

During the Troubles of the 1970s, College Square North — known at the time as Bomb Alley — was repeatedly targeted by bomb attacks and vandalism. While the adjoining terrace fell vacant and into an advanced state of disrepair, No. 7 was well maintained and remained open throughout the period. The adjoining No. 8 was completely demolished in 1977. The Old Museum was listed in 1979.

The building continued to be used by various organisations until 1990, when it was converted into the Old Museum Arts Centre, a venue for creative arts, theatre, and live events. In 2006 the Old Museum Arts Centre announced that a new £9.2 million venue would be constructed in the Cathedral Quarter. The organisation continued to operate from College Square North until April 2012, when the Metropolitan Arts Centre opened. At the time of recording, the Old Museum was lying vacant.

Although the building has not been significantly altered in the roughly 180 years since its construction, it retains much of its historic fabric and detailing. It is substantially complete and forms a fine and rare surviving example of early 19th-century Greek Revival architecture in Belfast.