108 North Street & 1 Gresham Street, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT1 1LE

A three-storey Mannerist-style corner block at the junction of North Street and Gresham Street in Belfast, built c.1908 as the Gas Showrooms. The building was designed by James Gamble, principal city architect, and constructed to designs from the City Surveyor's Office. It cost £1,900 to build and was completed in time to appear on the sixth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1931. The building represents an important new building type – the showroom – and reflects the aspirations and commercial progress of the Gas Company and the city's expanding commercial centre in the early twentieth century.

The structure is rectangular on plan, measuring one bay wide along North Street with a chamfered corner bay, and four bays wide along Gresham Street. The exterior walls are painted stucco over a projecting plinth, embellished with heavy mouldings and decorative motifs throughout. Storeys are defined by heavy cornices, and bays are defined by piers at second-floor level. Three partially hipped slate roofs cover each linear bay, with black roll-moulded ridge-tiles extending east to west. The southern roof has been levelled, with a square-plan timber frame and glazed addition constructed above it. The main roof is concealed behind a solid parapet with heavily moulded and projecting eaves course. Rainwater goods are hidden behind the parapet with square cast-iron downpipes.

The north-east proportion of the ground floor is characterised by five openings, including a canted entrance bay. Each of these openings features octagonal polished granite columns on either side, carrying a heavily corbelled cornice above. The large recessed openings are timber-framed and glazed over a mosaic tile plinth, with modern curved plastic-coated awnings overhead. Windows across the building are generally segmental-headed with replacement timber or metal frames, featuring moulded and lugged architraves and cills with projecting keystones and intersecting string courses.

The principal elevation faces north, presenting a single window width with a chamfered corner to the far left-side. Single openings appear on each floor, with a Venetian window to the first floor and a shop window with modern glazed entrance door at ground floor to the chamfered corner. The east elevation displays four regularly arranged windows across the upper floors, except for a single oculus to the far left of the first floor. The ground floor is asymmetrical, with three shop windows to the right-side and a replacement six-panelled timber door with plain glass transom and hood mould to the left-side. A round-headed window sits to the right of this door and a Venetian window to its left, with a semicircular window at the far left-side. The south elevation is one bay wide with a single window to the first floor. The west elevation is largely roughcast brick with some smooth render and paint to the upper right-side, and remains blank as it was previously abutted by an adjoining building.

The building entered valuation records in 1909 as a showroom, offices and stores valued at £150 and owned by the Corporation of Belfast. It functioned as the Corporation Gas Appliance showroom until the 1980s, when it was taken over as a butcher's shop. This commercial use continues to the present day.

The building occupies a prominent corner site near the principal crossroads between Royal Avenue and North Street, clearly visible from the junction. It forms part of a group of important structures at this location, including the Bank of Ireland, Sinclair's Store, and No.104 Royal Avenue. The building has lost its original setting as the only block now remaining from a former terrace, though it retains considerable architectural significance through its distinctive Mannerist styling, ornamental features, and historical importance as an early example of a purpose-built showroom building type.