17 College Gardens, Belfast

17 College Gardens is a mid-terrace, three-storey with attic, red brick late Victorian townhouse built in 1877. The architect is unknown. It forms part of a symmetrically arranged block of four houses together with Nos. 15, 16 and 18 College Gardens, where No. 15 mirrors No. 18 at the gable ends, with the narrower Nos. 16 and 17 between them. The house sits midway along College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled townhouses running between Malone Road and Lisburn Road, within the Queens Conservation Area. The buildings face south and overlook the grounds of Methodist College.

EXTERIOR

The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and flat-roofed dormers with glazed cheeks sit over both front pitches. There are three chimneys, two of which are shared with No. 16: one centred on the main ridge, replaced in modern red brick with several yellow clay pots; one centred on the gable of the rear return, rendered with no cap or pots; and a third rising from the eaves at the north elevation, with replacement brick above gutter level. The projecting moulded eaves are carried on curved brackets alternating with a pitched square motif on a deep frieze, all set on a projecting string course with a continuous band of dentils below. The rear eaves are simpler, consisting of two courses of projecting brick.

The rainwater goods on the south elevation comprise an ogee-profile cast metal gutter with square-section cast metal downpipe to the main roof, and a uPVC gutter and downpipe to the canted bay. On the north elevation there is a half-round gutter with a cast iron downpipe.

Walls to the front (south) are red brick in Flemish bond with unpainted stucco dressings; to the rear (north) they are in English Garden Wall bond.

Windows are timber-framed single-glazed sliding sashes with 1/1 panes to the south elevation and 2/2 panes to the north, unless noted otherwise.

FRONT ELEVATION (SOUTH)

The front elevation is asymmetrical but well proportioned. The entrance sits to the right (east) at ground floor level, and a stuccoed canted bay with three windows projects to the left (west) at ground floor. There are three equally spaced windows at first and second floor levels, and a narrow flat-roofed dormer offset to the left above the eaves cornice at attic level. All windows are segmental-headed and diminish in height from ground to second floor. A rendered base plinth has a moulded top.

The ground floor bay has stop-chamfered heads and jambs to the windows, with heavy bull-nosed cills set within reveals, a decorative string course above the windows, and a projecting moulded cornice on block modillions.

The entrance door is square-headed, timber-framed, and comprises two full-height arched panels with raised fields and bolection moulding. Above it is a plain glass segmental arched overlight. The stucco surround is elaborate, with roll-edged reveals, foliated scrolled console brackets, a moulded edge to the hood, and a floral stone roundel between the console brackets with plain spandrels.

At first and second floor level the walls are predominantly red brick, with projecting moulded stucco surrounds and cills. Decorative foliated stucco detail appears above the surrounds to the second floor window heads. No. 17 differs from the rest of the terrace in that the rendered and stone dressings are unpainted and the first floor windows are without hoods.

REAR ELEVATION (NORTH)

The north elevation was surveyed from Elmwood Mews, as access to the rear yard was not obtained. A three-storey return is built at half-landing level to the left (east) side, with one window each at first and second floor to the right (the ground floor was not seen). The red brick walling is in English Garden Wall bond, detailed more simply than the front, with a projecting brick eaves course, soldier-coursed brick headers, and square-cut stone cills (unpainted). An external metal escape stair spans the yard, with landings at the return and the main building, suggesting the house was formerly converted into flats, though this has been noted as requiring confirmation from the file history. The house has recently been restored to a single family dwelling.

The north elevation of the return has a projecting timber bargeboard with an exposed curved bracket at the purlin end and a sheeted timber soffit, all painted. There is one window to the second floor, offset to the right (west), and two windows to the first floor — the left-hand first floor window has 1/1 panes with translucent glass and coloured glass margin panes. At ground floor level the return is abutted by a hipped-roofed appendage, narrower on plan than the return, with a natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles, a painted timber eaves board, and red brick walling in stretcher bond, which suggests a later construction date. The north face of this appendage has a single timber sliding sash window with 1/1 panes, painted reveals, and a soldier-coursed header.

SIDE AND WEST RETURN ELEVATIONS

The east elevation is abutted by No. 16 College Gardens, including its return. The west elevation of the main building is abutted by No. 18. The west face of the return overlooks the yard and is detailed to match the rear of the main building, with brick walling, soldier-coursed headers, and square-cut stone cills. Projecting brick eaves support a half-round gutter, and the downpipe appears to be cast iron. Openings are informally arranged: at second floor level the original timber-framed sliding sashes with 2/2 panes appear to be retained; first and ground floor windows were not seen, with the first floor largely obscured by the external fire escape stair. The west face of the ground floor appendage has a single opening with a precast concrete lintel over.

SETTING AND BOUNDARY FEATURES

The building sits mid-terrace in a block of similar townhouses, rectangular on plan and aligned east to west parallel to the road. The front boundary is marked by a low red brick wall with chamfered edges to stone coping and hedging above. The front garden has lawn and planting, with hedging along the boundary with No. 16 and modern metal fencing along the boundary with No. 18. A copper beech tree stands at the south-west corner.

A wrought iron gate opens from Elmwood Avenue onto a concrete-surfaced path, with two bull-nosed stone steps at the entrance flanked by painted dwarf walls with open balustrades between square end piers, all having cambered caps (unpainted). A cast iron boot-scraper sits on the top step and is thought to be original. The rear boundary is formed by a variegated brownish-red brick wall in English Garden Wall bond with a rounded terracotta cap, which steps in height where a single-storey lean-to outhouse abuts the yard side. A sheeted timber door leads from the yard to Elmwood Mews on the right (west) side, and there is evidence of a former opening to the left, now filled with modern red brick — possibly a former coal delivery opening.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

College Gardens (originally called College Gardens Avenue) is laid out on land that before the early 19th century formed part of a series of strip farms running from what is now Malone Road and University Road to 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 in 1816–19 and the construction of the Ulster Railway in 1837–39. Around the same time, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of what remained of these farms, with the building or upgrading of existing structures to create small country villas and the laying out of small demesnes within the formerly farmed plots.

The land immediately north and south of College Gardens belonged to one such villa, Vermont, a pre-1770 house possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815 and enlarged again in the 1840s, on the latter occasion by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The building 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 laid out on the lower ground immediately to the north, with building plots on the northern side. Development proceeded from the eastern end: the present Nos. 1–6 were constructed in 1871, Nos. 7–18 in 1877, Nos. 33 and 34 in 1879, Nos. 19–22 in 1881, Nos. 23–26 in 1882, and Nos. 27–32 in 1883.

No. 17 belongs to a terrace of four symmetrically arranged single-fronted townhouses built in 1877. While the architect is unknown, the developer of everything in College Gardens from No. 11 to No. 32 appears to have been the Reverend George Cron, then minister of the Evangelical Union Church in Wellington Place.

The original occupant of No. 17 appears to have been R. Graham, listed in the 1880 street directory as a commission agent. He was succeeded around 1882 by Robert O. Cunningham, Professor of Natural History and Geology at Queen's College (now Queen's University Belfast), who was in turn followed by a Mrs. E. Philpot around 1889, Captain A. B. Crake of the Rifle Brigade around 1891, the Reverend D. A. Taylor around 1893, A. F. Porter, solicitor, in 1896, and Mrs. Katherine Rosa Martin in 1901. In the census of that year Mrs. Martin (née Kennedy), a widow, is recorded as living there with an infant daughter, a younger brother and sister, and a domestic servant; the building is described as a first-class dwelling with 13 rooms in use by the family. By 1911 Mrs. Martin, her daughter, and a sister were still in residence, along with her father William Archer Kennedy and a domestic servant.

By 1951 the property had passed to Mrs. Martin's daughter, Anna Hessy Martin, who is noted in the directories as a masseuse. She was still there in 1964, but by 1969 the property had come into the possession of Queen's University and was in use as student accommodation, remaining so until at least 1996. The present owners took possession around 2007 and the property is once again in use as a domestic dwelling. No. 17 College Gardens was listed in September 1979.