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

Crescent Arts Centre, 2 University Road, Belfast

This is a large, brooding and distinctly Scottish tenement-like school building, asymmetrical in plan, built in 1873–74 to designs by Young & McKenzie. It stands prominently on the east side of University Road at the west end of Lower Crescent, and makes an imposing contribution to both streetscapes. The building is now used as an arts centre, though it was originally constructed to house Ladies Collegiate, the first seriously academic school for girls in Ireland. The listing covers the former school together with its boundary wall and railings.

The building is irregular in plan. The main section runs east–west along three storeys and faces onto Lower Crescent. A slightly lower but still three-storey return projects to the northwest. To the northeast there is a large single-storey, hipped-roof former gymnasium block. The west end of the main section, where the building is now entered, originally contained the headmistress's residence and retains a domestic character, with a small garden fronting University Road. This contrasts with the long, more austere school elevation to the south. With the exception of the former gymnasium, the entire façade is faced in rock-faced Scrabo sandstone, with dressed stone used for cill bands, lintels and reveals — all now a brown-grey colour. Most windows have flat arched heads with timber mullioned and transomed frames, while semicircular headed sashes appear at the southwest and east ends. The hipped roof is slated and carries relatively large gabled dormers and tall stone chimneystacks.

South elevation

The long south elevation, from which the school was originally entered, is asymmetrical. Slightly left of centre is a shallow, full-height bay containing a stairwell. Its buttressed edges and almost spire-like hipped roof give it the appearance of a tower. At ground floor level within this bay is a large panelled timber double door with a blind fanlight incorporating quatrefoil recesses, set within a semicircular arched reveal with a moulded dripstone and decorative stops. Just below the dripstone the date "1873" is carved in typical High Victorian entwined numerals. The doorway is flanked by small slit windows with shouldered heads. Directly above the door is a large semicircular headed half-landing window with a tracery-like frame containing twin semicircular headed lights and 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 a dripstone matching that of the doorway below.

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

At first floor level the arrangement on both sides of the bay broadly mirrors that at ground floor. To the left the windows have flat heads and mullioned and transomed frames; the pair to the far right are slightly smaller than the corresponding ground floor pair. At second floor the arrangement is similar again but all windows are slightly smaller, and the pair at the far right — where the roofline drops — are set within a gabled three-quarter dormer with a roundel window in its gable.

To the right of the tower bay the roof carries three relatively large gabled dormers 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 stands a tall Scrabo stone chimneystack, with a further stack set at a lower level to the east end on the east face of the roof.

West elevation

The west elevation is smaller than the south but more complex in appearance. It is largely three storeys, though the roofline and floor levels of the northwest return to the left are lower, and at the far left a much lower two-storey section steps down further. The tallest section projects forward to the right. In the angle between this and the lower three-storey section to its left there is a small single-storey, hipped-roof porch. Its west face has a panelled timber door set within a shouldered reveal; its 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 window with a six-light mullioned and transomed frame.

The west face of the taller three-storey section features a centrally placed two-storey rounded bay with a curved roof. At ground floor the bay contains three tall semicircular headed sash windows; at first floor, three tall narrow flat-headed mullioned and transomed windows. On both the ground and first floors the bay is flanked by windows matching those of the bay itself. At second floor are four symmetrically arranged windows, similar to those at first floor but marginally shorter.

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

The roof of the west elevation has four Velux windows over the lower three-storey return section, and a group of four Velux windows arranged in a square formation over the taller three-storey section. The return section carries tall chimneystacks as elsewhere on the building.

North elevation

The long north elevation is complex. Much of its left and central portions are taken up with the north face of the main east–west school section, though much of this is obscured at ground floor level by the large former gymnasium block, which is single-storey in designation but two storeys in actual height. The three-storey return and the two-storey section extending from it occupy the right-hand end.

At first floor level on the long three-storey section, to the far left of the former gymnasium, is a large flat-headed mullioned and transomed window; three more similar but smaller windows appear to the right of the gymnasium, the rightmost set within a full-height recess. At second floor there are six windows of the same type, slightly smaller. The window to the 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 window in the recess to the far right is another, slightly smaller casement window. Between the second and third, and between the fourth and fifth windows at this level, there are reducing chimney breasts, which no longer rise above eaves level. The north face of the main roof carries three large dormers matching those on the south face, together with two Velux windows to the far right.

The former gymnasium has a plain cement-rendered façade. Its north face is blank; its east face is largely obscured by the gabled return of the adjacent building at 1 Lower Crescent, with only a section exposed, in which there is a large plain sheeted flat-arched door. The gymnasium roof is hipped and topped by a large central ventilation structure clad in corrugated metal with louvred north and south faces. The main roof has a large skylight to its north face.

At the far west, the former gymnasium abuts the two-storey section extending from the three-storey return. On the north face of this two-storey section there are two boarded-up window openings at ground floor, the left one smaller than the right. At first floor are two windows with mullioned and transomed frames, both set within 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 is exposed only at second floor level, where there are two very narrow two-pane windows and a slightly broader mullioned and transomed window at the northeast cant. The east face of the return, also exposed only at second floor level, has two narrow mullioned and transomed windows, a slightly broader window set at a marginally higher level to the far left, and another similar window below it. The east face of the return roof carries four Velux windows.

Throughout, the entire roof has a slight overhang with exposed rafter ends. The rainwater goods appear to be mainly metal.

Historical context

The building of Ladies Collegiate in 1873–74 took place within a broader pattern of development in the University Road and Crescent area which had begun several decades earlier. The sale of much of Lord Donegall's Belfast estate in the early to mid 19th century opened up large areas of land south of the town for development. The Malone Ridge lands in particular attracted developers, and from the mid 1830s onwards many fine late Georgian-style terraces were built there, a trend accelerated by the establishment of the prestigious Queen's College in the later 1840s. These grand terraces were taken up by Belfast's professional and business classes, who vacated their older residences in the town centre.

Upper Crescent, perhaps the grandest of these developments, was an elegantly curving row of three-storey dwellings in a late Regency style built in 1846 by timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry, with possible involvement from the architect Charles Lanyon, as suggested by Dr Paul Larmour. Corry himself undertook the building work and initially resided at the east end; for its first few years the row was known as "Corry's Crescent." To the immediate south, where a church and small park now stand, Corry laid out a large lawn as a garden, though he subsequently had it ploughed up to grow vegetables for the relief of local workers suffering during the Great Famine.

In 1852 Corry built a further terrace, the erroneously named Lower Crescent, to the north of his garden, in much the same style as the upper row. This too was occupied by professionals and businessmen, though by as early as 1860 some ground floors had been converted to office use. In the later 1860s a railway line was cut immediately to the north of Lower Crescent, along the line of the old watercourse that had previously run there. In 1873 the large sandstone school building was added to the west end of Lower Crescent, and two further houses were added to the east end by the end of the decade. The easternmost of these, Rivoli House, designed by William Hastings, originally housed a dance academy run by a Frederick Brouneau. The new railway line cut across Albion Lane, a narrow semi-rural laneway that had formerly stretched from the north end of Bradbury Place to the east end of the present University Terrace, and the cutting presaged the laying out of the new, broader Botanic Avenue.

Upper Crescent also saw further development in the 1860s and 1870s. Two large properties designed by William Hastings were erected at the west end in 1869, one of which — Crescent House, now the Bank of Ireland — also fronted University Road. In 1878–79 two further houses were added on the ground between those of 1869. Between 1885 and 1887 the large Presbyterian church, now the Crescent Church, was erected to plans by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson on the west side of Corry's former garden. In 1898 a two-storey terrace, the present Crescent Gardens, was built on the site of smaller garden plots at the east end.

During the first half of the 20th century most properties in Upper and Lower Crescent and in Crescent Gardens remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many had been converted to business use or divided into flats, with the former Rivoli House — later known as Dreenagh House — becoming the Regency Hotel. This process continued, and by the early 21st century none remained in private residential occupation. In the mid 1990s three of the 1860s to 1870s houses at the west end of Upper Crescent were demolished and replaced by a modern office block. In 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent was built over in preparation for a new development.

The school building itself was designed by Young & McKenzie for Ladies Collegiate, the first seriously academic school for girls in Ireland, founded by Margaret Byers, a pioneer of women's education. In the jubilee year of 1887, Queen Victoria decreed that the institution should thenceforth be called Victoria College and School. The school remained on the premises until the early 1970s, when it relocated to new premises in south Belfast. After lying vacant for some years, the building was leased in 1978 by the Crescent Youth Resource Centre. Owing to the lack of arts provision in the area, the centre gradually moved towards arts-based activities and became a fully fledged arts centre in 1984, acquiring the property outright in 1988.

Originally the west end of the building housed the headmistress's residence, and to the north side there appears to have been a rear garden. The large gymnasium block was added later, approximately between 1910 and 1920, on the site of that garden. At the time of the listing record, an extensive programme of restoration and refurbishment was at an advanced stage of planning.