Belfast Royal Academy, Cliftonville Road, Belfast, BT14 6JL

Belfast Royal Academy — Crombie Building, Cliftonville Road, Belfast

OVERVIEW

The Crombie Building is the original and principal building of Belfast Royal Academy, the earliest surviving educational institution in Belfast. It is an ambitious three-storey building with basement, designed in the Gothic-Scottish Baronial style by Robert Young of the practice Young & Mackenzie — himself a past pupil of the school — and constructed between 1878 and 1880. The builder was the local firm Thomas Dixon & Sons, who used locally quarried Scrabo sandstone throughout. The building takes its name from the Reverend Dr James Crombie, the founder of the Belfast Academy, which first opened on 1st May 1786 at premises on the corner of Donegal Street and Academy Street (the latter street taking its name from the institution). It is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of the Tudor collegiate style in Belfast, and the entrance tower bears a deliberate resemblance to that of Queen's University.

EXTERIOR — GENERAL CHARACTER

The building is rectangular on plan with a prominent four-stage square tower at the centre of the main front, flanked by symmetrical four-bay wings, each terminating in a shallow projecting gabled end with an attached circular stair turret. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with roll-top red clay ridge tiles. Gables have raised stone verges with kneelers and cut-stone coping. Rectangular chimney stacks have corbelled copings and clay chimney pots. Rainwater goods are ogee-profile cast iron guttering discharging to circular downpipes.

The walls are laid in random-coursed tooled ashlar Scrabo sandstone with cut-stone dressings, and a moulded string course runs between ground and first floor levels.

Windows are generally timber sash with horizontal panes unless otherwise noted. Basement windows have depressed three-centred arched heads with multi-paned timber frames. Ground-floor windows are typically two- or three-part square-headed mullioned openings with splayed cills and relieving arches above. First-floor windows are two- or three-part round-arched stone mullioned openings with splayed cills and stone transoms set at roughly two-thirds of the window height. On the south-facing elevation, dormer windows project from the face of the wall with raised stone verges, cut-stone kneelers, Tudor-arched openings, and moulded hoods. On the north elevation, dormer windows have projecting bracketed timber gablets over square-headed casement openings.

PRINCIPAL (SOUTH) ELEVATION

The south front is symmetrical. The central four-stage square tower is flanked by four-bay wings to each side, with shallow projecting gabled ends and circular turrets at the outer corners.

The tower has four-stage diagonal buttresses rising to octagonal pinnacles. At the first stage, a Tudor-arched door opening is framed by a deeply moulded surround with decorative carved foliate detail on both the architrave and the spandrels, the latter inscribed with the dates 1786 and 1881 to the left and right respectively. The entrance is fitted with a double-leaf timber panelled door set at the top of a flight of polygonal-plan nosed steps. Above the door, a three-sided canted oriel window has round-arched sash windows with stone transoms and mullions, and roundels above with coloured leaded panes. Two small round-arched windows occupy the second stage, with a flat-arched moulded hood over. The third stage has Tudor-arched traceried louvred openings to all four faces of the tower. The tower is crowned with castellations and octagonal pinnacles to the corners, with intricate carved foliate detail to the raised stone coursing at the junction between the pinnacles and their supporting buttresses, and at cornice level.

The four-bay wings are divided by four-stage buttresses topped by engaged pinnacles. A corbelled cornice with head and foliate carvings runs between the first floor and attic, above which are dormer windows and castellations. The projecting gabled ends each have two windows at basement level, two paired windows at ground floor, and either a large four-part traceried window (east gable) or a four-part window (west gable) at first-floor level. Above, the attic has three-part round-arched windows, the central light being taller, with a flat-arched moulded hood and relieving arch above. Gables terminate in a cut stone apex. The circular stair turrets at each corner have small ogee-arched openings, corbelled cornicing with carved foliate stonework matching the string course on the gables, conical slated roofs, and metal weather vanes.

WEST ELEVATION

The west elevation comprises the circular turret at its southern end, a projecting gabled central bay, and a recessed bay to the north. The projecting gabled bay is flanked by three-stage diagonal buttresses and has paired square-headed mullioned windows at ground and first floor, and three-part round-arched windows at attic level. Square-headed door openings are located on the south face of the projecting wall at both ground and first floor levels. A narrow metal bridge with railings connects the gabled projection to the circular turret at first-floor level, and stone steps lead to the door at ground-floor level. The recessed bay has a square-headed door opening with a chamfered dressed stone surround at ground floor, fitted with a timber panelled door that opens onto a raised stone platform approached by stone steps.

EAST ELEVATION

The east elevation is broadly a mirror image of the west. It comprises the circular turret at its southern end, a projecting gabled central bay flanked by three-stage diagonal buttresses, and a recessed bay to the north. The projecting bay has paired square-headed mullioned windows at ground and first floor, three-part round-arched windows and a small square-headed window at attic level. A square-headed door opening is located on the south face of the projecting wall at ground-floor level. A part-glazed link corridor connects the projecting gable to the circular turret at attic level, and stone steps serve the ground-floor door.

NORTH (REAR) ELEVATION

The rear elevation is symmetrical and faces north. It has a central projecting gabled return flanked by four-bay wings, with shallow projecting gabled bays and recessed bays to each side. The central return has a small square-headed basement window, a four-part window at first-floor level, and a four-part Tudor-arched traceried window at second-floor level, both of the upper windows having stained leaded glazing. Square-headed door openings at ground floor face east and west, with a paired square-headed window above. The east opening has a double-leaf timber panelled door at the head of six steps; the west has a single-leaf timber panelled door. Floor levels within the central return are lower than those on the main south front.

The west wing has segmental-arched openings at basement level, with a window to the first bay and glazed double-leaf timber door openings to the remaining bays. The east wing mirrors this arrangement at basement. Both wings have three-part square-headed mullioned windows at ground and first floor with relieving arches above.

At the west end of the rear elevation, a two-bay wide gable has a segmental-arched basement opening with a window to the east bay and a square-headed glazed timber door to the west. Paired square-headed mullioned windows serve both bays at ground and first floor, and a three-part round-arched window with a taller central light occupies the attic. A recessed two-bay section beyond has square-headed windows and a square-headed ground-floor door with a replacement glazed timber door. The equivalent two-bay wide gable to the east has a segmental-arched basement with a window to the west bay and a square-headed glazed timber door to the east bay, paired square-headed mullioned windows at ground floor, a four-part traceried window at first floor, and a three-part round-arched attic window with a taller central light. The recessed bay to its far side mirrors the corresponding bay on the west.

INTERIOR

Some historic features survive internally, most notably the double-return principal staircase. The former Common Hall — used originally for examinations and prize-giving — was converted into the school library during the 1973 renovation.

MATERIALS SUMMARY

Roof: Natural slate. Rainwater goods: Cast iron. Walling: Random-coursed tooled Scrabo sandstone with cut-stone dressings. Windows: Timber sash.

SETTING AND BOUNDARY FEATURES

The building sits within the wider Belfast Royal Academy campus, which also includes a number of modern two- to four-storey buildings. There is a tarmacked parking area to the south and a tarmacked yard to the north. The main Cliftonville Road frontage is defined by random-coursed tooled ashlar Scrabo sandstone boundary walling topped by vertically stacked stone coping and tall metal fencing. The main gateway has two round-section pillars with conical stone coping and ball finials. The south-east gateway has two square-section pillars with cut-stone coping with gablets, and the south-west gateway has round-section pillars with rounded stone coping. These boundary walls and gate pillars, which are included within the listing, contribute significantly to the character and setting of the Crombie Building along the Cliftonville Road frontage. The boundary walling continues past the school to meet the dressed sandstone pillars that define the boundary of the adjacent St James' Church of Ireland. Directly opposite the Crombie Building on the south side of Cliftonville Road stand two villas designed by Thomas Jackson; while very different in architectural character from the school, they contribute to the quality of the overall setting.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Belfast Royal Academy is the oldest surviving educational institution in Belfast. The Academy was founded by prominent members of Belfast's Presbyterian community in the years before the 1798 Rebellion. The Reverend Dr James Crombie, minister of First Belfast Presbyterian Church, conceived the idea of establishing an institution where the town's merchant families could have their sons educated to a high standard. The founding of the Academy took place against a backdrop of growing political radicalism in the wake of the American Revolution: many of the First Officers of Belfast's 1st Volunteer Company — a militia movement established in 1778 whose membership was drawn mainly from the urban and rural middle classes, and which took on broader political importance as an expression of emerging middle-class consciousness — were prominent local Presbyterians who became the first subscribers of the Belfast Academy.

The original Academy building on the corner of Donegal Street and Academy Street was, by contemporary accounts, a three-storey structure not unlike an old warehouse, with classrooms on the ground floor and dormitories on the upper floors. It opened on 1st May 1786 as a non-denominational institution and by 1802 had 250 pupils, 50 of whom were boarders. Griffith's Valuation recorded the building as a three-storey school leased from the Marquis of Donegal, valued at £38 in 1859.

The school built a strong reputation. An 1852 Ulster Town Directory described it as 'the first important seminary established in the town' and credited it with inspiring the later Royal Academical Institution. However, the opening of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution in 1814 and the introduction of the National School System in the 1830s led to declining attendance, which reached a catastrophic low of just 13 pupils in 1863. The original building, which had required near-constant renovation, was no longer fit for purpose.

The decision was made to move the school to a fashionable northern suburb. The new building on Cliftonville Road was constructed in 1878–80 at a cost of over £9,950. Robert Young, a past pupil of the school and a partner in Young & Mackenzie — described in the Dictionary of Irish Architects as the most successful architectural practice in Belfast, the leading architects for the Presbyterian church in the north-east, and recipients of many of the city's most important commercial commissions — designed the building in the emerging Scottish Baronial style, making it one of the first examples of that style in Ulster.

The ground floor originally housed three departments (Classical, English, and Mathematics). The first floor contained the Headmaster's office, a library, additional classrooms, and the Common Hall, which served as an examination and prize-giving room. The second floor was fitted out as dormitories, though these were surplus to requirements almost immediately given the low number of boarders.

The Academy was officially opened in August 1880. The school was valued at £250 following the move, and the former Donegal Street premises were let to other tenants. In 1887, Queen Victoria consented to a petition requesting that the school be renamed in her honour; from 1888 it has been known as Belfast Royal Academy. From 1900 girls were admitted to the school.

In 1929, Young & Mackenzie designed a new wing added to the rear of the building, constructed by F. B. McKee & Co.; this two-storey block was considered unsympathetic to the Scottish Baronial character of the original school and increased the valuation to £340 in 1930. Post-war expansion brought further additions: a two-storey block at the north-west corner of the site, erected in 1955 and named the Jackson Building; the Derbyshire Building at the south-west corner, opened in 1968 and named for a former headmaster; and the four-storey Bruce Building to the north of the original school, opened in 1971 and named after Dr William Bruce, the most celebrated headmaster of the Academy. A second general revaluation of property in Northern Ireland placed the Academy's value at £1,378 by 1972.

In 1973 the original Scottish Baronial building underwent extensive renovation, during which seven new classrooms were created, the Common Hall was converted into the school library, and a new lecture room and sixth-form centre were established. Following this work the building was renamed the James Crombie Building in memory of the Academy's founder. The school's entrance gate pillars were also relocated to their current position in the same year; Ordnance Survey maps record that the original gate entrance was positioned to the north-west of the present entrance.

Belfast Royal Academy was listed in 1982. Further extensions followed during the 1980s, including a new Art Block (the Pollin Building) opened in the year of listing, and by 1985 a kindergarten block, sports hall, new sixth-form centre, and technology suite had all been added to the site. The school celebrated its bicentennial on 24th February 1985 with a ceremony held at St Anne's Cathedral, close to the original Donegal Street site.