1-3 DONEGALL SQUARE EAST AND 1-5 CHICHESTER ST. BELFAST, **Ocean House**

Ocean House is a corner-sited, asymmetrical five-storey commercial building (with basement and attic) built around 1902 to designs by Young and Mackenzie. Constructed in red sandstone in the Perpendicular Gothic Revival style, it occupies a prominent position at the northeast of Donegall Square, Belfast, with its L-shaped plan presenting principal elevations to the west onto Donegall Square and to the north onto Chichester Street, connected by a chamfered corner entrance bay.

The building's roof is steeply pitched, clad in natural slate with roll-moulded clay ridge tiles, lead valleys and leaded flat sections over the attic storey. The roof sits behind an arcaded parapet. At either end of the west elevation stand squat towers with steep pyramidal slate roofs topped by copper finials and set behind crenellated parapets; the northern tower is further surmounted by crocketed pinnacles. Randomly placed clustered red sandstone chimneystacks with terracotta pots project from the roofline. Large gables rise at attic level to the centre of the west elevation and as a pair on the north elevation, all with moulded coping and flanked by decorative finials and statuary. The building features decorative cast-iron box hoppers and square-profile downpipes with moulded iron guttering supported on a deep moulded eaves cornice enriched with grotesques and gargoyles.

The principal west elevation is rendered in red sandstone ashlar and is five windows wide. A central gabled attic-storey dominates, below which rises a three-tiered oriel extending from first to third floors, topped with a pierced stone balcony and flanked by full-height angled shaft mouldings. The oriel is corbelled out with decorative foliate carvings flanked by grotesques and a pair of blind Gothic canopies. Either side of the oriel, windows to the first, second and third floors are framed by three-tiered angled shafts. Most windows are square-headed, mullioned openings aligned vertically, grouped in two, three or four lights with continuous sill courses from first to third floors. Below third floor windows are cusped panels; below second floor windows are horizontal cusped panels. Windows throughout feature steel casement frames, except those on the fourth floor which are pointed-headed.

An off-centre pointed-headed door opening serves as the principal entrance, flanked by a pair of retail units with depressed Tudor-arches and leaded cusped overlights on a full-span transom. The entrance and retail units are flanked by panelled piers on raised plinths with foliate capital mouldings enriched with figurative carvings and topped by robust finials with crocketed heads; decoratively carved spandrel panels surmount the arched shopfronts. The retail units have replacement timber shopfronts, and the entrance features a replacement glazed screen with original leaded cusped overlight. To the left is a further Tudor-arched window opening with fixed-pane display window and a series of attenuated cusped overlights flanked by angled shaft mouldings and surmounted by responding cusped panels.

The chamfered corner entrance bay is articulated as a three-sided canted oriel rising from first to third floors, surmounted by a blind balustrade enriched with cartouches and crocketed finials. A blind corner window is filled with a shield depicting a lighthouse, the Ocean House trademark. The corner is corbelled out above the principal entrance as a miniature rib-vaulted soffit with three carved heads of British monarchs fronting the principal brackets. The balustrade above features cusped blind panels and extends across the entire north elevation with open cusped balustrade.

The principal door opening to the corner entrance is pointed-headed with a compound moulded and voussoired arch supported on engaged paired octagonal polished stone colonettes rising from raised octagonal plinths set on three nosed compass steps. The door opening is flanked by slender carved panels and further octagonal colonettes surmounted by shield-wielding angels and a hood moulding. The original double-leaf timber doors have linenfold panels and cusped panels to the upper half.

The secondary north elevation fronting Chichester Street is six windows wide, with a pair of three-tiered oriels rising from a slightly advanced ground floor. The oriel to the left is set below a large triangular gable; that to the centre is surmounted by a diminutive attic-gable. All facade and window detailing follows the pattern of the west elevation.

The east elevation is abutted by the adjoining building at No. 7 Chichester Street. The east gable rises by a further two storeys above the adjoining structure, rendered in ruled-and-lined cement with a course of red sandstone ashlar coping at the top and vertical incisions matching the chimneystacks. The rear of the north-facing section and the east-facing rear elevation are constructed in machine-made red brick laid in Flemish bond, with gauged brick segmental-headed window openings containing single-pane timber sash windows and sandstone sills. The south side elevation is also red brick with later applied ceramic tiling and largely tripartite stone-framed window openings with steel casement windows. The decorative Gothic detailing of the front elevation returns across a single bay of the south elevation, featuring a shop display window at ground floor and a series of sandstone piers with carved capitals.

The building stands as the tallest structure on this side of Donegall Square and bookends the entrance to Chichester Street.