Crescent Arts Centre, 2 University Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NH

This is a large, brooding former girls' school building of somewhat Scottish tenement-like character, built in 1873 to designs by Young & McKenzie. The building stands prominently on the east side of University Road at the west end of Lower Crescent, constructed in rock-faced Scrabo sandstone with a hipped slate roof and dormers.

Plan and General Arrangement

The building has an irregular plan comprising a long three-storey east-west range facing Lower Crescent, a slightly lower (though still three-storey) return to the northwest, and a large single-storey hipped-roof former gymnasium block to the northeast. The west end of the main range, where the building is now entered, originally contained the headmistress's house. This end, with its small garden fronting University Road, retains a domestic character in contrast to the longer, more austere school elevation to the south.

Materials and General Character

The entire façade, apart from the former gymnasium, is constructed in rock-faced Scrabo sandstone with dressed stone forming cill bands, lintels and reveals, all now brown-grey in colour. Most windows are flat-arched with timber mullioned and transomed frames, though there are some semicircular headed sashes to the southwest and east end. The hipped roof is slated with relatively large gabled dormers and tall stone chimneystacks. The roof has a slight overhang with exposed rafter ends. Rainwater goods appear to be mainly metal.

South Elevation

The long south elevation, from where the school was originally entered, is asymmetrical in composition. Just left of centre rises a shallow full-height bay marking the stairwell, whose buttressed edges and almost spire-like hipped roof give it a tower-like appearance. At ground floor level within this bay is a large panelled timber double door with a blind 'fanlight' containing quatrefoil recesses. The door sits within a semicircular arched reveal with moulded dripstone having decorative stops. Just below the dripstone, the date '1873' appears in typical High Victorian entwined numerals. The doorway is flanked by small slit windows with shouldered heads.

Directly above the doorway is a large semicircular headed half-landing window with a tracery-like frame comprising twin semicircular headed lights with a roundel above. Above this, at the second half-landing, is a pair of narrow flat-headed windows with plain sash-like frames. At the uppermost level is a roundel window with dripstone similar to the doorway below.

At ground floor level, left of the bay, is a grouping of three tall semicircular headed sash windows, with a further pair to the far left. Below the group of three windows are three flat-arched basement windows, blocked up with brick in recent years. To the right of the bay are four large six-light mullioned and transomed windows, with a pair of semicircular headed windows with mullioned and transomed frames at the far right.

The first floor arrangement is similar to that on the ground floor, with windows left and right of the bay. Those to the left have flat heads and mullioned and transomed frames. The pair at the far right are slightly smaller than their ground floor counterparts. The second floor follows a similar arrangement, but all windows are slightly smaller and the pair to the far right, where the roof level drops, are set in a gabled three-quarter dormer with a roundel window in the gable.

To the roof of this elevation are three relatively large gabled dormers to the right side of the bay, with mullioned and transomed windows, shaped bargeboards and finials. To the left of the bay roof are three large Velux windows. At the west end of the ridge is a tall Scrabo stone chimneystack, with another set at a lower level at the east end on the east face of the roof.

West Elevation

The west elevation is much smaller than the south but has a more complex appearance. The elevation is largely three-storey, but to the left (the northwest return) the roofline and floor levels are lower. At the far left is a much lower two-storey section. The tallest section to the right projects forward. At the intersection of this section and the lower three-storey section to the left sits a small single-storey hipped-roof porch. The west face of the porch contains a panelled timber door set within a shouldered reveal, while the north face has a pair of smallish sash windows with shouldered heads.

Above the porch, at first floor level on the short north-facing side of the taller three-storey section, is a tall narrow six-light mullioned and transomed window. The west face of the taller three-storey section features a centrally placed two-storey rounded bay with curved roof. At ground floor level the bay contains three tall semicircular headed sash windows, with three tall narrow flat-headed mullioned and transomed windows at first floor. At both ground and first floor the bay is flanked by windows matching those in the corresponding bay floors. At second floor are four symmetrically arranged windows as at first floor but marginally shorter.

The lower three-storey return section to the left has a canted north end. At each floor are two flat-headed mullioned and transomed windows, the left-hand windows set on the northwest cant. At the far left, the canted end of this lower three-storey section merges with the much lower two-storey section. On the northwest cant of this is a plain sheeted door set in a shouldered reveal with a small roundel window at upper floor level.

To the roof of this elevation are four Velux windows on the lower three-storey return section to the left, with a group of four arranged in square formation on the taller three-storey section to the right. The return section has tall chimneystacks as elsewhere.

North Elevation

The long north elevation presents a complex appearance. Much of the elevation to the left and centre comprises the north face of the long east-west school section, though much of this is obscured by the large single-storey (but two storeys in height) former gymnasium block. The right-hand end of the elevation shows the three-storey return and the two-storey section branching from it.

The long three-storey section is totally obscured at ground floor level. At first floor there is a large flat-headed mullioned and transomed window at the far left (left of the former gymnasium), with three more similar but smaller windows to the right of the gymnasium. The window at the far right is set within a full-height recess. At second floor are six windows as at first floor but slightly smaller. The window at far left, situated within the lower three-storey section at the east end, is set in a large flat-roofed half-dormer. Directly above the recessed window at far right is another slightly smaller casement window. Set between the second and third windows, and the fourth and fifth windows, are reducing chimney breasts which no longer rise above eaves level. On the north face of the roof of this long section are three large dormers as on the south face, with two Velux windows at the far right.

The large former gymnasium section has a plain cement-rendered façade, its north face blank and its east face largely obscured by the gabled return of the building to the east (No.1 Lower Crescent). On the exposed section of the east face is a large plain sheeted flat-arched door. The roof of this section is hipped and topped with a large central corrugated-metal-clad ventilation section having louvered north and south faces. The main roof has a large skylight to its north face.

At the far right (west) the former gymnasium abuts the two-storey section extending from the three-storey return. On the north face of the two-storey section are two boarded-up window openings, the left one smaller. At first floor are two tallish windows with mullioned and transomed frames, both set in small gabled quarter-dormers. The east face of this section is only exposed at upper floor level, where there are two centrally placed very small windows close to the eaves.

The canted north face of the three-storey return section is only exposed at second floor level, where there are two very narrow two-pane windows with a slightly broader mullioned and transomed window to the northeast cant. The east face, also only exposed at second floor level, has two narrow mullioned and transomed windows, with a slightly broader window set at a slightly higher level at the far left and another similar window below it. On the east face of the return roof are four Velux windows.