18 College Gardens, Belfast

18 College Gardens, Belfast

18 College Gardens is a late Victorian end-of-terrace townhouse, three storeys with attic, built in 1877. The architect is unknown. It forms the eastern end of a symmetrical block of four properties — numbers 15, 16, 17 and 18 — in which number 15 mirrors number 18 at the opposite gable end, with the narrower numbers 16 and 17 between them. The house sits midway along College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled townhouses running between the Malone Road and the Lisburn Road, within the Queens Conservation Area. The buildings face south, overlooking the grounds of Methodist College. The street was originally known as College Gardens Avenue.

Exterior

The main front elevation (south) is asymmetrical. To the right (east) at ground floor level is the entrance; to the left (west) is a projecting square rendered bay containing two windows at ground floor, repeated slightly more shallowly at first floor in red brick, with a further window aligned above the entrance. The second floor has three equally spaced windows, and a flat-roofed dormer sits centrally above the eaves cornice at attic level. All windows are segmental-headed and decrease in height from ground to second floor. The front bay is clad in PVC membrane at roof level.

The main walls are in red brick laid in Flemish bond, with stucco dressings to the south and east elevations. The north (rear) elevation is in English Garden Wall bond, with simpler detailing: two projecting brick courses at eaves level, soldier-coursed brick headers, and square-edged painted cills. The ground floor stuccoed bay has stop-chamfered heads and jambs to the bay windows, with heavy bull-nosed cills set within the reveals, a decorative string course above the windows, and a projecting moulded cornice on block modillions. This moulded cornice is repeated at the first floor projecting bay, supported on a band of dentils.

The projecting eaves to the front elevation feature curved moulded brackets alternating with a pitched square motif at a deep frieze, on a projecting string course with a continuous band of dentils below. This detailing is returned at the south-west corner onto the gable end. At the north-west corner, the decorative eaves and frieze are also repeated, forming the base to a simple rendered verge band and projecting moulded timber bargeboard.

The entrance door is square-headed in timber, comprising two full-height arched panels with raised fields and bolection moulding, with a plain glass segmental arched overlight on a deep moulded transom. The stucco surround is elaborate: it has a roll-edged reveal, foliated scrolled console brackets, and a moulded hood, with a floral stone roundel between the console brackets and plain spandrels. All is painted. The first floor window above the entrance door has a similar hood with smaller scrolled brackets.

At first and second floor level, the walls are predominantly red brick with projecting moulded stucco surrounds and cills, all painted. The window heads at first floor in the square bay carry decorative flower carvings framed within the surround, and foliated details appear above the surrounds at second floor.

There is a painted render base plinth with a moulded top, and vermiculated toothed quoins to the south-west corner.

The gable end (west elevation) is in red brick in Flemish bond, with toothed quoins returned from the main façade and the decorative eaves returned at north and south ends. Two segmental-headed windows with moulded stucco surrounds are centred at ground floor, and two small round-arched windows with painted rendered reveals sit near the eaves at attic level.

The east elevation abuts number 17 and is largely blank, with detailing matching the rear of the main building. The wall is rendered smooth and painted below first floor cill height, except for a single window at first floor overlooking the yard of number 17.

A three-storey gabled return has been built at half-landing level to the rear (north) on the east side, with one window to each of the ground, first and second floors on the right (west) side. The north elevation of this return has one window at second floor offset to the right and two windows at first floor offset to the left. Remnants of flashing on the brick wall indicate the former presence of a gabled single-storey return, now gone.

The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles and a wide flat-roofed dormer to the front pitch, clad in PVC membrane. There are two red brick chimneys, both rebuilt in modern red brick, each with several circular clay pots: one is shared with number 17 and one is centred on the gable end. Rainwater goods to the main roof and front are ogee-profile cast metal gutters with square-section cast metal rainwater pipes; the bay has cast iron rainwater pipes; and cast metal is used at the rear.

Replacement windows are timber-framed double-glazed sliding sashes with 1-over-1 panes throughout, unless otherwise noted.

At the rear boundary there is a variegated brownish-red brick wall with a curved terracotta cap, which steps down to newer red brick containing a modern steel lintel over a polyester powder-coated metal roller shutter giving access to the hipped-roofed detached garage on the other side. A flush timber door with a precast concrete lintel opens from the yard onto Elmwood Mews. There is also a lean-to outhouse at the rear boundary.

Setting

Number 18 is set back from the tree-lined street by a low red brick wall with stone coping and hedging. A painted metal gate, not original, opens onto a concrete paved path with a lawn, planted areas, and a semi-mature beech tree at the south-west corner. A painted metal railing divides the front garden of number 18 from that of number 17. The same low wall and hedge aligns the boundary with number 19. The front door opens onto two replacement steps, flanked by painted dwarf walls with an open balustrade between square end piers, all with painted cambered caps. Painted rendered walling with the open balustrade adjacent to the entrance enhances the quality of the setting.

Historical background

College Gardens occupies land which before the early 19th century formed part of a series of strip farms running from what are now the Malone and University Roads toward the Bog Meadows. These farms were probably laid out in the early 17th century. The cutting of the Lisburn Road between 1816 and 1819 and the construction of the Ulster Railway between 1837 and 1839 broke up their continuity. Around the same period, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of what remained of the farmland, with small country villas being built or upgraded and small demesnes laid out within formerly farmed plots.

The land immediately north and south of College Gardens belonged to one such villa, known as Vermont, a house predating 1770 that was possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815, and enlarged again in the 1840s — on the latter occasion by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The construction of Queen's College a short distance to the north-east in 1845 triggered the suburbanisation of the area. In 1865 Vermont itself was sold for the construction of another educational establishment, Methodist College, which was completed in 1868. A new private avenue was then laid out on the lower ground immediately to the north, with building plots on the northern side. Building proceeded from the eastern end: present numbers 1 to 6 were constructed in 1871; numbers 7 to 18 in 1877; numbers 33 and 34 in 1879; numbers 19 to 22 in 1881; numbers 23 to 26 in 1882; and numbers 27 to 32 in 1883. The developer of everything from number 11 to number 32 appears to have been the Reverend George Cron, then minister of the Evangelical Union Church in Wellington Place.

The 1880 street directory records the first occupant of number 18 as Robert Woodside. By 1887 the lease had been taken up by Alexander M. Carlisle, described as being of Harland and Wolff, surveyor to Bureau Veritas, and registrar of shipping — British and foreign. After a period of vacancy of a year or two, the house was occupied from around 1893 by J.C. White, a solicitor. It was recorded as vacant again in 1896–97. M. Wilson, secretary of the Belfast Bank, is named as resident in 1899, followed by Mrs Elizabeth S. Sinclair in 1900. The 1901 census records Mrs Sinclair, a widow, living there with her daughter Emily and two domestic servants; the building was recorded as a first-class dwelling with 13 rooms in family use. By the time of the 1911 census, Miss Emily Sinclair and a single domestic servant were the occupants, though street directories indicate she was sharing the house with a Dr F.H. Sinclair, whose principal residence appears to have been at Cooleen in Warrenpoint. Miss Sinclair is listed as householder up to at least 1932.

By at least 1943 the property had passed into government hands. By 1951 it was occupied by Queen's University's Air Squadron, remaining so until at least 1969, before serving as a university-run student residence during the 1970s and 1980s. It appears to have returned to private hands by 1996, when Nuala M. McLoughlin is named as occupant in the final street directory of that year.

The property was listed in September 1979. Historic Environment Division files record that the chimneys were replaced around 1989 and the guttering to the front of the house was replaced in 1991, when the property was owned by Queen's University Belfast. By 2006 the property was in a decrepit state, and that year an application was submitted to rebuild the two-storey bay and the dormer window to the front, re-point the brickwork, and replace windows and doors. In 2016 planning approval was granted to replace the existing garage and rear yard and to insert double doors in place of a ground floor rear window. The replacement windows and reconstruction of the front bay have been handled sensitively and do not diminish the historic character of the building.