7 College Gardens, Belfast

7 College Gardens, Belfast

Number 7 College Gardens is an end of terrace, three-storey double-fronted red brick late Victorian town house built in 1877 to designs by architect William Batt. It forms the eastern end of a symmetrical block of four houses (Numbers 7 to 10), with its layout and elevation mirrored by Number 10 at the opposite gable end, while the two narrower properties (Numbers 8 and 9) sit between them. The house sits on College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled townhouses running from Malone Road to Lisburn Road and within the Queens Conservation Area. The building faces south and overlooks the grounds of Methodist College. It is currently used as student accommodation.

The main building has a natural slate roof in Bangor Blue with black clay ridge tiles. A large red brick chimney is centred on the main roof gable with a corbelled brick cap and eight circular red clay pots; a similar chimney on the opposite side with sixteen pots is shared with Number 8. A smaller red brick chimney is centred on the return gable with two octagonal yellow clay pots. Projecting stone eaves with corbelled brick details (roll-edged dentils on cogging and stretcher courses) and similar corbelled brick verge details run across the base of the chimney.

The front elevation faces south with a central entrance flanked by two projecting bays. The bay to the left (west) is squared and full-height with two windows per floor, shouldered at the second floor and terminating in a hipped roof with decorative cast iron rail and finials to the platform ridge. The bay to the right (east) is canted and two-storey with a lead roof. The base has a projecting rubble-stone plinth with a chamfered blue brick top. Dressed sandstone cills and lintels continue as two string courses of blue brick with a red course between them; the reveals are stop-chamfered. The round-arched central entrance is formed in alternating red and blue soldier courses (in groups of three) with a dressed sandstone hood mould and label stops. Above the double doors is a plain fanlight, flanked by grey marble colonnettes with dressed sandstone capitals, collar and base on toothed quoins. Carved foliage detail adorns the label stops, base and capitals. Alternating blue and red brick soldier courses are repeated as segmental relieving arches to windows above the door and at ground and first floor to the squared bay, with hoods formed in angled blue bricks. The ground floor window to the middle of the bay has leaded glass to its lower sash.

The red brick walling throughout is laid in Flemish bond with blue brick string courses and alternating soldier courses. Windows are single-glazed double-hung sashes with 1/1 panes to the main building and 2/2 panes to the return, unless otherwise described. Cast iron rainwater goods run along the south elevation; the north and return elevations have uPVC.

A two-storey gabled return is built at half-landing level to the rear (north), with a flat-roofed three-storey stair enclosure raised from two storeys at the re-entrant angle of the return. A separate single-storey building, approximately dating to the 1960s, stands in the rear yard.

The north elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews and is largely symmetrical. It is plainly detailed compared to the main building, with the two-storey gabled return centrally placed; a flat-roofed stair enclosure to the left; one window with 2/2 panes at each ground and first floor to the main building on either side of the return; and three windows at the second floor with 1/1 panes. Stone cills are shallower here; red brick soldier courses run above windows, and projecting headers appear at the eaves. A brick chimney sits at the gable end of the return with clipped eaves and a single window offset to the right at first floor. The flat-roofed projection has one casement window at each floor above ground: metal-framed to the first floor and timber-framed to the second.

The east elevation comprises three parts: the gable end of the main building, the flat-roofed stair enclosure, and the side elevation to the return. The gable is less formal than the front elevation but similarly detailed, including blue brick string courses and hood moulds with sandstone cills and lintels. It has three openings each to ground and first floor (the middle one on the ground floor is bricked up) and two windows at the second floor. A tall red brick chimney with a two-stage stack and corbelled eaves on scrolled brackets formed of brick specials is centred on the ridge. The bricked-up opening to the middle of the ground floor probably led to an original glass conservatory, shown on Batt's illustration published in 1878 in the Irish Builder; the footprint of this structure appears on Ordnance Survey maps up to the 1920s. The ground floor window to the left (south) has leaded glass to its lower sash and that to the right has obscured glass. Timber casement windows to the second floor are centred on the gable, with that to the right offset from its original position. The stair enclosure has one opening per floor, not aligned, all with concrete lintels and cills. The ground floor has a flush painted door; the first floor has a small timber-framed single-glazed casement window with a top-hung night vent, and the second floor has the same with a metal frame. Lighter brick to the uppermost level suggests a later addition. A uPVC gutter on rise-and-fall brackets discharges to a uPVC downpipe. The return is plainly detailed as the rear elevation with three windows at ground floor and two at first floor, informally arranged.

The west elevation is partially obscured as Number 8 abuts the west elevation of the main building. The west face of the return is detailed as the east face. Two windows with 2/2 panes appear at ground floor with a flush modern door between them, and two windows with 1/1 panes at first floor; all are offset to the right (south) and informally arranged. Evidence of a former door bricked up to the left remains, marked by soldier-coursed headers.

The building is set back from the tree-lined street by a front lawn and mature hedging on the south side of College Gardens. It forms the end of the terrace to the block of similar townhouses, which is rectangular on plan and aligned east-west parallel to the road. A gate opens to College Gardens with a tarmac-surfaced path running to the side of the house. The gable end overlooks access to Elmwood Mews, a shared alley running the full length of College Gardens and connected to Elmwood Avenue.

Hedging returns eastwards and joins a red brick wall with a rubble-stone base, taller to the north end and divided into five equal segmental arches formed in three alternating soldier courses each of red and blue brick with angled blue brick hoods and precast concrete coping. Red brick walling in English Garden Wall bond with a rounded terracotta cap (missing in parts) divides the yard from Number 8 and runs along the south boundary. A small section has been replaced with smooth modern brick toward the southeast corner. A square brick enclosure sits within the yard at the reverse side of the modern brick, roofless. Lean-to outhouses with artificial slate roofing, red brick walling and sheeted timber doors painted sit on the reverse side of the south boundary wall, in line with the return.