18 Donegall Square East, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 5HE

18 Donegall Square East, Belfast

This is a terraced, three-storey-over-basement former townhouse with attic, built in sandstone ashlar around 1830. It forms part of a pair with the adjoining No. 19 (and 2 May Street), and together these are the only survivors of what was once a longer residential terrace along the east side of Donegall Square. The building faces west onto the square, is rectangular on plan, and has a single-storey rear extension occupying the entire rear site. It was built for John Workman, a local shipowner and proprietor of the firm J. and R. Workman, and these two townhouses represent the last remaining evidence of Donegall Square's original residential character.

Exterior

The roof is a single-span mansard type, clad in natural slate to the front pitch, with a box dormer window. It sits behind a lead-lined parapet wall with a sandstone drip cornice, and square-profile cast-iron downpipes break through the parapet. A profiled red brick chimneystack rises from the slightly raised north gable wall, which has a masonry coping.

The main walling is sandstone ashlar, channel-rusticated at ground floor level below a continuous sill course at first floor, with a further pair of string courses at second floor. The rear elevation is red brick in Flemish bond.

The west-facing front elevation is three windows wide with the entrance to the right. Window openings are square-headed and fitted with replacement single-pane timber sash windows. The recessed entrance has a flat-panelled timber door flanked by simple pilasters supporting a lintel cornice with a rectangular overlight. An architrave surround is flanked by scrolled brackets supporting a hood cornice. The door opens onto a platform approached by four steps with replacement tiling, which bridge the basement area. The whole is enclosed by original spear-headed iron railings, with later iron lamp standards and steel gates.

The north side elevation is abutted by an adjoining infill building. The rear elevation is largely obscured by a fire escape, plant machinery, and later accretions, though it retains generally gauged brick flat-arched window openings with sandstone sills and single-pane timber sash windows. There are also later enlarged window openings and fire escapes to the upper levels. The south side elevation is abutted by the neighbouring No. 19.

Historical Development

The building first appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of Belfast (1832–33), which shows a terrace stretching along the eastern side of Donegall Square. The Townland Valuation of around 1830 records the property as valued at £80 and occupied by John Workman. Brett's Georgian Belfast: 1750–1850 records that Workman acquired the lease in September 1831.

By at least 1859, Workman had vacated the property. Griffith's Valuation of that year records a Mr. William Girdwood, a printer who operated the Oldpark Printworks in Donegall Place, as the occupant, leasing the site from Workman. The house had by then fallen in value to £56. Occupants changed with some frequency over the following decades: by 1868 a Mr. W. A. Robinson was recorded as occupant, and by 1877 the building had followed the trend of much of Donegall Square and been converted to commercial use. In that year, the Jaffe Bros., local linen and yarn merchants, occupied ground floor office space, while Alex Patterson and Co., a textile firm trading in muslin, occupied the upper floors.

By 1893, Alexander Patterson and Co. occupied the entire building, though the rateable value had fallen to £35 — a reduction attributed to the conversion to commercial use around 1870. That same year, the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) acquired the site and converted it into a meeting hall used principally for religious purposes and occasionally for lectures. By 1900, a revaluation recorded the building at £67 and included a ground plan depicting the current large rear return, which the YWCA had recently added and which included a restaurant for members. The main meeting hall on the first floor could accommodate 300 people. The adjoining No. 19 was simultaneously occupied by the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), who had acquired it in 1892.

The YWCA continued to occupy the building through the first half of the 20th century. Under the First General Revaluation of 1935, the site was valued at £75 and noted as having been purchased outright by the YWCA. In 1943, during the Second World War, the building was shared with A. E. Stevenson, a plumber and electrical engineer. By 1956, the YWCA had vacated and Stevenson's firm occupied the building alone, continuing to do so through the second revaluation period ending in 1972, when the basement was valued at £64 with no recorded value attributed to the upper floors.

The building was listed in 1986, together with No. 19. It is currently vacant.

Broader Context

The area was originally part of the Castle Gardens in the 17th and early 18th centuries, lying outside the city walls. The erection of the White Linen Hall in 1783–85 formed the present square, and Donegall Place was laid out to connect it with Belfast's historic 17th century centre. The square was named in honour of the Second Marquis of Donegall, who resided at Donegall House, formerly on the corner of the square and Donegall Place. In the early 19th century, Donegall Square stood at the very edge of Belfast, and the buildings erected around it were primarily private dwellings for the town's leading citizens, though even by 1819 only the south and east sides had been substantially developed.

Historical photographs show that Nos. 18 and 19 were once part of a continuous row of similarly designed three-storey townhouses, broken only by Donegall Square Methodist Church. The terrace was gradually converted to commercial use from the mid-to-late 19th century as Belfast's commercial centre shifted southward toward Donegall Place and the linen warehouses of what became known as 'linenopolis' were established in the streets south of the square. No. 18 is an excellent surviving example of a once-common type of Georgian townhouse around the square; comparable early 19th century examples survive on the neighbouring Chichester Street, Joy Street, Hamilton Street, and May Street.

Patton described both buildings as a "three-storey block with basement and attic, in gingery-brown ashlar which has decayed with an unusual pitted pattern. Painted stone doorcases with slender scrolled volutes supporting entablatures; channelled ground floor; roof set behind stone parapet; some six-pane sashes survive along with cast-iron railings."

Setting

No. 18 forms part of a pair with No. 19 at the junction of Donegall Square East and May Street. The listing covers the house and its railings. The building lies within a conservation area.