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

Ocean Buildings is a large, asymmetrical, five-storey red sandstone commercial building in the Perpendicular Gothic Revival style, built around 1902 to designs by the Belfast architectural firm Young and Mackenzie. Constructed for the Ocean Accident Guarantee Corporation Ltd at an estimated cost of £27,000, the building is L-shaped on plan and occupies a prominent corner site on the northeast of Donegall Square, with its principal elevation facing west onto Donegall Square and a secondary elevation facing north onto Chichester Street. It is commonly known as the Ocean Buildings. The contractor was Robert Corry, and the elaborate carvings and sculpture were executed by Winter and Thompson. The stained glass windows are the work of Ward and Partners. Prior to construction, the site was occupied by three terraced houses fronting Chichester Street, later used mainly as offices and commercial premises by the late 19th century, and recorded as the Prince George Hotel in 1887. The building was constructed between 1899 and 1902 and was designed to contain around 78 shops and offices to let. Marcus Patton, writing in 1993, described it as a splendid asymmetrical building in red Ballochmoyle sandstone, designed by Robert Young in a Scottish-Baronialesque Gothic style. The stone was extensively cleaned in 1982.

The building stands over a basement with an attic storey above the five main floors. The roofs are steeply pitched in natural slate with roll-moulded clay ridge tiles, lead valleys, and leaded flat sections over the attic storey. The roofline is set behind an arcaded parapet, with a squat tower at either end of the west elevation, each topped by a steep pyramidal slate roof with copper finials and enclosed by crenellated parapets. The northern tower is further embellished with crocketed pinnacles. There is a large gable at attic level to the centre of the west elevation and a further pair of gables to the north elevation, all with moulded coping and flanked by decorative finials and statuary. Randomly placed clustered sandstone ashlar chimneystacks with terracotta pots rise from the roof. Decorative cast-iron box hoppers and square-profile downpipes with moulded iron guttering are supported on a deep moulded eaves cornice below the parapet, enriched with grotesques and gargoyles.

The principal elevations are faced in red sandstone ashlar. The east gable is cement rendered, the inner-facing elevations are built in red brick laid in Flemish bond, and the south elevation facing Pattersons Place is in tiled brick. Window openings throughout are square-headed with mullioned Perpendicular Gothic cusped tracery, vertically aligned, with steel casement windows and pointed-headed openings to the fourth floor only.

The principal west elevation is five windows wide, with a central gabled attic storey and a three-tiered oriel window rising from first to third floor beneath the gable. The oriel is topped by a pierced stone balcony and flanked by full-height angled shaft mouldings. To either side of the oriel, the first, second and third floor windows are framed by three-tiered angled shafts. Most windows are grouped in two, three or four lights, with continuous sill courses from first to third floor, cusped panels below the third floor windows, and horizontal cusped panels below the second floor windows. The oriel is corbelled out with decorative foliate carvings flanked by grotesques and a pair of blind Gothic canopies. An off-centre pointed-headed door opening at ground floor is 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, surmounted by robust finials with crocketed heads. The spandrel panels over the arched shopfronts are decoratively carved. Both retail units have replacement timber shopfronts, and the entrance has a replacement glazed screen, though the original leaded cusped overlight to the entrance survives. To the left of the entrance is a further Tudor-arched window opening with a fixed-pane display window and a series of attenuated cusped overlights flanked by angled shaft mouldings, surmounted by responding cusped panels.

The chamfered corner entrance bay, at the junction of the west and north elevations, is articulated as a three-sided canted oriel rising from first to third floor, surmounted by a blind balustrade enriched with cartouches, crocketed finials, and a blind corner window filled with a shield depicting a lighthouse — the trademark of the Ocean Corporation. The corner is corbelled out over the principal entrance as a miniature rib-vaulted soffit, with three carved heads of British monarchs fronting the principal brackets. The balustrade above has cusped blind panels and extends across the entire north elevation, with an open cusped balustrade. The corner entrance itself has a Tudor-arched door opening 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, with a hood moulding over. The original double-leaf timber doors survive, with linenfold panels to the lower half and cusped panels to the upper half.

The secondary north elevation is six windows wide, with a pair of three-tiered oriels rising from a slightly advanced ground floor. The left-hand oriel sits below a large triangular gable and the central oriel is surmounted by a diminutive attic gable. All facade and window detailing matches that of the west elevation. The east elevation is abutted by the adjoining building at No.7 Chichester Street. The east gable rises two storeys above the adjoining property, with ruled-and-lined rendered walling topped by a course of red sandstone ashlar with moulded coping and vertical incisions matching those of the chimneystacks. The rear of the north-facing section and the east-facing rear elevation are built in machine-made red brick 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 by a single bay onto the south side elevation, with a single shop display window at ground floor and a series of sandstone piers with carved capitals.

The elaborate decorative programme throughout includes gargoyles and grotesque creatures, animals bearing fruit, capitals depicting the heads of Queen Victoria, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and detailed mermaids carrying lighthouses on shields representing the Ocean Corporation's trademark — all carved by Winter and Thompson.

The building contains approximately 78 units of office and shop space and has been in continuous commercial use since its construction. During the early 20th century the Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation occupied the ground floor offices, the safe deposit, basement and strong rooms, achieving a rateable value of £415, while the upper floors were leased as office space valued at approximately £930. Throughout the 20th century the building housed a wide variety of companies and businesses, including solicitors, insurance companies, accountants, engineers and architectural practices, among them those of T.W. Henry, architect of Shankill Road Public Library, and James A. Hanna, architect of Antrim Road Baptist Church.

The building occupies a corner site on the northeast of Donegall Square, standing as the tallest structure on this side of the square and bookending the entrance to Chichester Street. Three buildings of the original larger terrace to the east remain directly adjacent. Despite the loss of some original external carvings, the overall external and internal appearance remains largely intact, and the building is considered one of Belfast's most notable landmarks.