4 Lower Crescent, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NR

4 Lower Crescent is a relatively large, three-storey rendered town house forming part of a regency-style terrace of eleven similar, though not identical, properties built in 1852. The terrace is set to the east of University Road and faces southward over a small public park towards Upper Crescent, a comparable development of 1846 that, unlike Lower Crescent, is actually arranged in a true crescent form. The building is currently in office use and sits within a conservation area.

The front elevation is asymmetrical and faces roughly south. At ground floor level, the recessed entrance to the right comprises a four-panel timber door with glazed upper panels and a two-pane rectangular fanlight above. To the left of the entrance are two tall, plain sash windows. The ground floor is finished in rusticated render, with moulded voussoirs to the window and door openings. At first floor level, three larger windows are set on a sill course, each fitted with sash frames in regency-pane configuration (two over four). At second floor level, three much smaller windows with semicircular heads and sash frames (two over four) rest on a more pronounced, cornice-like sill course ornamented with dentillations. The upper floors are in plain render. A broad plain course sits above first floor window height and below the second floor sill course, and on this broad course runs a thin moulded string course. Above second floor window height is a further plain course, above which sits a parapet with plain coping. A tall rendered chimneystack with projecting coping and uniform pots rises from the west end of the roof; a smaller, plain rendered chimneystack sits on the gable of the rear return. The gabled roof is slated and has two small skylights to the rear. Rainwater goods are a mix of cast iron and PVC.

To the rear, the elevation appears to be wholly rendered. To the left-hand, eastern side is a three-storey gabled return. At ground floor level on the gable of this return there is a plain sheeted door with two small windows to its right, fitted with security bars. At first floor level there is a sash window with Georgian panes to the upper sash (three over one), and at second floor level another sash window with Georgian panes (six over six). To the right, the return merges with a two-storey projection with a monopitched roof. On the north face of this projection there is a sash window at first floor level with Georgian panes to the upper sash (six over one), and at ground floor level a plain sheeted door and a broad, modern-looking window. At second floor level on the west face of the return there are two windows of differing size: that to the left has a sash frame with Georgian panes (six over six) and appears to serve as a fire escape, with a projecting metal platform beneath it; that to the right is considerably smaller and appears to have a plain sash frame. The inner south face of the projection and the ground and first floor levels of the inner west face of the return could not be observed, as access to the yard was not available at the time of inspection. The rear façade of the main house features a Georgian-paned sash window (six over six) that also appears to function as a fire escape, with a platform and ladder alongside it; the ground and first floor levels of the rear façade could not be seen. The valuation of 1860 records the return as two storeys, and the decoration to the second floor landing — which matches that of the first floor — suggests that it may have been raised by a storey not long after that date.

The broader historical context of the terrace is significant. The selling off of much of Lord Donegall's Belfast estate in the early to mid 19th century opened up large areas of land around the town for development. The lands to the south along the Malone Ridge were particularly attractive to developers and led to the building of many fine late Georgian-style terraces from the mid 1830s onwards, a trend accelerated by the establishment of the prestigious Queen's College in the area in the later 1840s. These grand new terraces were occupied by Belfast's professional and business classes, who left their older residences in the town centre, which were in turn gradually converted to shops and offices.

Upper Crescent was perhaps the grandest of these southern terrace developments: an elegantly curving row of three-storey dwellings in a late regency style, built in 1846 by timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry. Its authorship is uncertain, though Dr Paul Larmour has suggested that Charles Lanyon may have been involved. Corry himself undertook the building work and took up residence at the east end of the row, which for its first few years was known as Corry's Crescent. To the immediate south of the crescent, where a church and small park now stand, Corry held a large lawn as a garden; shortly after it was laid out, he had it ploughed up and used for growing vegetables to relieve local workers suffering as a result of the Great Famine. To the north of the garden ran an old watercourse flowing northward into the Basin, a reservoir east of the Dublin Road; to the east lay smaller gardens belonging to other residents of the crescent; and further to the east and north-east ran Albion Lane, a narrow semi-rural laneway stretching from the north end of Bradbury Place to the east end of the present University Terrace.

In 1852 Corry built Lower Crescent to the north of this garden and just south of the old watercourse. The new terrace was much in the same style as Upper Crescent and was occupied by a similar mix of professionals and businessmen, though by as early as 1860 the ground floors of some properties were already in office use. In the later 1860s a railway line was cut immediately to the north of Lower Crescent, along the line of the old watercourse. In 1873 a large sandstone building — originally the Ladies Collegiate, later Victoria College — was added to the west end of the terrace, and before the close of the decade two further houses were added to the east end, the most easterly of which was Rivoli House, designed by William Hastings and originally containing a dance academy run by a Frederick Brouneau. The new railway line cut across Albion Lane and presaged the laying out of the broader thoroughfare now known as Botanic Avenue.

Upper Crescent also saw further development in the 1860s and 1870s, with two large properties designed by William Hastings erected to the west end in 1869, one of which — Crescent House, now the Bank of Ireland — also fronted onto University Road. In 1878–79 two further houses were added to this end, on the ground between those of 1869. In 1885–87 the large Presbyterian church, now Crescent Church, was erected to plans by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson on the west side of Corry's former garden; and in 1898 a two-storey terrace, the present Crescent Gardens, was built on the site of the smaller garden plots at the east end.

During the first half of the 20th century most properties in Upper and Lower Crescent and Crescent Gardens remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many had been given over to business use or divided into flats, with the former Rivoli House — later called Dreenagh House — becoming the Regency Hotel. By the beginning of the 21st century none were in private residential use. In the mid 1990s three of the 1860s to 1870s houses at the west end of Upper Crescent were demolished and replaced by a modern office block; in 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent was built over in preparation for a new development.

No. 4 Lower Crescent is one of the original eleven houses of the terrace. In 1858 it was occupied by Thomas Hanlon, of Messrs George McTear & Co., Steam Packet Agents, Donegall Quay, and in 1860 by a Miss Jane Vance. Miss Vance was followed a few years later by Dr Peter Redfern, who remained there until around 1915. The property appears to have remained a private dwelling until the 1950s, when it was divided into flats — three are listed in the directory of 1960 and four in 1970. It remained as such until the early 1980s, when the flats were converted to offices.