Gate Screen, at Botanic Court, Botanic Gardens, Belfast, BT7 1QY

Gate screen, erected 1925, at the western end of Botanic Court (the stretch of road at the end of Agincourt Avenue, in front of Botanic Primary School), Belfast, providing access into Botanic Gardens on an east-west axis. The gate screen falls within the Botanic Gardens Park Register of Parks, Gardens and Demesnes, and sits within a conservation area. It was not considered to retain sufficient historic fabric to meet the legislative test for listing.

The screen comprises four identical square-plan smooth sandstone ashlar piers, each with a projecting plinth and flat-topped coping, and a simple rectangular relief panel on the outer face. Two central piers define the vehicular entrance and two flanking piers provide pedestrian access. The metal vehicle gates are of simple design, framed in two stages: a lower section in which shorter uprights topped with painted spikes alternate with full-height painted spiked verticals, the whole terminating in a transom section with a circular ring decoration inset. The pedestrian gates are narrower versions of the same design. In overall composition the screen is similar to the Embankment gate screen at Ormeau Park.

The original entrance at this location was a wooden structure, most likely dating from around 1910, built when Agincourt Avenue — laid out around 1880 — first gained access into the park. The present stone piers replaced this wooden structure in 1925 and are shown newly completed in a Belfast Telegraph photograph of 12th May of that year. The metal gates are most likely replacements for the originals, which were almost certainly removed as a contribution to the war effort during the Second World War. Although this drive to collect ironwork was of considerable propaganda value, it is now understood that only around a quarter of the iron collected across the United Kingdom was actually used for munitions, with the majority being dumped. Complaints were still appearing in the newspapers as late as June 1954 about the lack of replacement gates allowing young people to enter the park out of hours. The Botanic Court gates were most likely replaced at around the same period as the University Road entrance gates, which television footage confirms were in place by 1965.

The gate screen stands facing east onto Botanic Court, with a row of terraced housing to its left and Botanic Primary School to its right.

The wider history of Botanic Gardens is as follows. Belfast Botanic Gardens were laid out in the wake of a late 18th and early 19th century surge of interest in botany, horticulture and gardening that led to the establishment of botanic gardens across Britain and Ireland. Botanic gardens in Dublin had been established at Glasnevin in 1796 and at Ballsbridge (Trinity College) in 1806, with the Royal Cork Institution Botanic Garden opening in 1809. Unlike gardens or arboretums created purely on aesthetic principles, botanic gardens existed to study plants, provide instruction in their care and classification, and advance knowledge of horticulture and silviculture. They also served as showpieces for specimens brought back by colonial explorers. The gardens at Glasnevin and Belfast are the only botanic gardens in Ireland from this period to have survived in anything resembling their original form, though some researchers do not classify Belfast as a true botanic garden on the grounds that plant collections were not systematically maintained on site.

In February 1827 the Belfast Botanic and Horticultural Society was formed under the presidency of the Marquis of Donegall, with the intention of laying out a botanic and horticultural garden in Belfast. On 1st May 1829, a lease was signed on a 14-acre site at the junction of the Malone and Stranmillis Roads. Funds were raised through the issuing of shares supplemented by loans, and by the end of May 1829 a large number of shrubs and trees had been planted. Admission was charged to non-members of the Society after 1830. For a short period after 1865, funds were raised to allow working people free entry on Saturday afternoons, and employers were encouraged to purchase free tickets for their employees, but these schemes lapsed when Ormeau opened as a free public park in 1871. Entry to Botanic Gardens was therefore generally by ticket until the Corporation took over the gardens in 1895, and the number of access points was kept deliberately restricted in order to control revenue.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832-3 captions the Botanic Gardens within a landscape of fields and country houses, approximately a mile outside the town of Belfast. Tree-lined paths are shown, following roughly the same layout as today, along with two ponds towards the south-eastern end, the lower of which was drained in the 1930s; the site of the former upper pond is now occupied by a Japanese sunken garden. Initially there was only one main entrance to the gardens, with an additional pathway adjacent to Friars Bush graveyard. A small structure, possibly a lodge, is shown adjacent to the main entrance driveway on this early map, but it was soon replaced by a larger entrance building. A Pinetum was established in 1838 to the south-east of the main entrance, and by 1851 displayed over 170 species of conifers. Adjacent to the pinetum, a collection of deciduous and evergreen oaks was planted, and some trees from both collections remain in the park to the present day. In the early years the gardens were surrounded by a nine-foot wooden fence, the breaking of which was a continual problem. A wall between the gardens and Friar's Bush burial ground was agreed with the trustees of the burial ground in 1829. Today the park is bounded by metal railings along most of its perimeter.

The distinctive early Victorian Palm House — also initially known as the conservatory — was designed by Sir Charles Lanyon and partially executed by Richard Turner of Dublin, a pioneer in the use of curved iron ribs and curved glass. The Palm House is one of the earliest surviving examples of curvilinear cast and wrought ironwork, pre-dating those at Glasnevin and Kew. Turner was engaged as contractor between 1839 and 1840, constructing only the wings of Lanyon's design: the west wing opened as a cool house and the east wing as a tropical house. In 1840, at the instigation of the Marquis of Donegall, the Society and Gardens received the title Royal from Queen Victoria. As Turner subsequently became heavily involved in other projects, Charles Denoon Young (1822-1887), ironworker of Edinburgh — also responsible for the Dublin Exhibition Building of 1853 and the Kensington Gore Museum of Science and Art of 1856 — was engaged to complete Lanyon's original design for the centre house, with the addition of a dome, some years after the wings had been built. The dome, constructed between 1852 and 1853, shows the influence of Turner's Palm House at Kew, which had been completed five years earlier; it was glazed by Messrs H McKendry and Co of Waring Street using Hartley's patent rolled plate glass.

The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 captions the Royal Botanic Gardens now adjacent to Queen's College, completed in 1849. The college was constructed on grounds adjoining the northern boundary of the gardens and was one of several public buildings to fill the surrounding area in the mid-19th century, the gardens gradually becoming enclosed by the rapid outward expansion of the town. The conservatory was at this period accessed from the main entrance at University Road, where visitors entered through an entrance building constructed between 1832 and 1858. A second subsidiary entrance to the south-west gave access to the curator's house, and a promenade at the south-east corner led to the tidal banks of the River Lagan. As the area to the north-east of the gardens (formerly known as the Plains) began to be developed for housing, a second lodge — built in 1865 and extended to the rear before 1902 — and gate screen were constructed at a new Botanic Avenue entrance to the park at a cost of £200. Gates costing £75 were provided as a gift of Robert Corry, the main developer of housing in the Plains area.

In 1877, the then garden foreman Charles McKimm was appointed curator, remaining in the post until his death in 1907. Already projected at the time of his appointment was a new gate lodge to replace the earlier entrance building. The architect was William Batt (died 1910), who conducted a vigorous practice in the High Victorian style and designed numerous Belfast churches and villas, as well as Ballynafeigh and Clifton Street Orange Halls. Construction was completed in April 1878, the lodge containing public toilets and commodious living accommodation for the gatekeeper. Carving on the lodge and gate piers was by Alexander Stevens, sculptor of Chichester Street, who was active in the 1870s and is also known to have executed carving on the Theatre Royal and on Fitzroy Presbyterian Church. The contractors for the lodge and gate screen were Messrs Dixon and Co, and the total cost was £1,300 including the gates.

McKimm's next major building project was to oversee the construction of a Fernery — now known as the Tropical Ravine, and formerly also called the Intermediate House or the Glen — on the site of a former Orchid House and propagating house. Construction took place between 1887 and 1889, largely carried out by McKimm and his gardeners. The fernery, a building of stone walls with a glazed roof enclosing a sunken ravine, was initially roughly half its present length.

Raising money to maintain the gardens was a continual problem, which the Society addressed with regular garden fetes and events featuring balloon ascents (to facilitate which a gas pipeline was installed in the main lawn), archery, boats on the Lagan, dancing, band music, firework displays, military tournaments, flower shows, and on at least one occasion a submarine explosion in one of the ponds. Notable events included a tightrope display by Mr Blondin, the first man to walk across the Niagara Falls on a tightrope, and a performance by Herr Holtum, the Cannon King, who could catch a cannon ball fired towards him. Political meetings were another regular occurrence, the largest being the Ulster Unionist Convention of 1892, which attracted a crowd estimated at 300,000. Entry and hire fees for these events helped to fund the maintenance of the gardens and the construction of new buildings.

Belfast Corporation took over the gardens in 1895, renaming them the Belfast Botanic Gardens Park and opening them free to the public from 1st January of that year. Following a programme of restoration to the Palm House, the Corporation extended the Ravine under McKimm's supervision, providing a heated lily pond and separating the building into tropical and temperate areas. The new fernery, double the length of the original structure and brick-built with a lantern ridge, was opened in 1902. No architect for the new building is recorded in contemporary sources, although Paul Larmour has speculated that the Dutch gable at the east elevation may be the work of William Batt.

A site for the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery within the gardens was reserved in 1912 and the new museum opened in 1929, with an extension completed in 1972 that required the demolition of the former curator's house, built in 1844. Images of the museum shortly after opening show a low wall and railings built between the museum and the main entrance to the park, replacing a wall of 1887. The museum appears to have retained its original pre-war gates and railings at the Stranmillis Road entrance to the present day.

Once the park passed into Corporation ownership and became a free public amenity, and as the surrounding area became more densely developed and the park itself was extended westwards and southwards, several new entrances were opened. The area to the north-east of the gardens known as the Plains was sparsely developed at the time of the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, but by the third edition of 1901-2 was filled with working and middle-class terraces. Agincourt Avenue was laid out around 1880, but there was no access from the avenue into the park until around 1910, when the wooden gate screen was constructed. The present stone pier screen was erected in 1925.

The area to the south-west of the gardens remained relatively free of development until around 1900, when a ladder of streets was set out to the east of Stranmillis Road, as shown on the large-scale map of 1902. By 1920 all the houses now facing onto Colenso Parade were in place, and an entrance into Botanic Gardens had been provided at the location of the Colenso gate screen. This was a wooden structure, most likely similar to that provided at the Agincourt Avenue entrance around 1910. It was replaced by the present gate screen in January 1934, and an image of the new piers and gates appeared in the Belfast Newsletter of 23rd January of that year. The Colenso Parade entrance was one of three new entrances from this period, at least two of which used identical designs for gates and piers; no information survives regarding the third entrance.

In the 1920s and 1930s further land was acquired to the south of the park, including 12 acres alongside the River Lagan formerly laid out as allotments. Stranmillis Embankment road was constructed in the early 1930s along the west bank of the Lagan, bordering these new parklands. In February 1932 the Belfast Newsletter reported that tall iron railings were being erected to enclose the area from the high ground at the Stranmillis roadside to the footpath along the embankment road, which was nearing completion at that time. Two new entrances to the park along Stranmillis Embankment were created around this period: one opposite King's Bridge and one at the location of the present-day children's playground. Neither of these two gate screens has survived, but an image of the King's Bridge entrance gate screen shortly after completion, published in the Northern Whig in May 1932, shows identical piers and gates to those constructed eighteen months later at Colenso Parade.

An image held by the National Museums Northern Ireland, dated 1947, shows that by that date the railings between the University Road entrance and the museum had been removed, as had the original University Road gates to the park, which had been replaced with plain wooden gates. The original gates had most likely been removed as a contribution to the war effort, a similar fate probably having befallen the original gates at the Botanic Avenue and Botanic Court entrances. As noted above, the drive to collect ironwork during the Second World War was of great propaganda value, but it is now understood that only around a quarter of the iron collected in the United Kingdom was actually used for munitions, with the majority being dumped. As late as June 1954, gates and railings had still not been replaced, and complaints appeared in the newspapers about young people accessing the park out of hours and causing damage. The wooden gates at the University Road entrance were eventually replaced with relatively plain iron gates, visible in television footage of 1965, and possibly re-used as the basis of the present-day gates; this footage also shows detail of the original wrought iron gates to the gate lodge archways. The Botanic Court and Botanic Avenue gates were most likely replaced at around the same period.

In the early 1960s, Queen's University reached an agreement with the Corporation to exchange its athletic fields at Cherryvale in the south of Belfast for part of Botanic Gardens. Queen's used the new acquisition to build a physical education centre, which was initially used as part of the Ulster '71 exhibition to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Stormont parliament. Road widening measures were undertaken around the same period, and King's Bridge was rebuilt; originally constructed in 1911, its substructure was rebuilt in 1973 when the Governor's Bridge was added as an additional crossing of the Lagan to form a one-way system. As a consequence of these events, new fencing and gates were erected along the embankment, and it is most likely at this point that the two gate screens along Stranmillis Embankment were demolished, leaving the Colenso Parade entrance as the only surviving gate screen from the park's expansion in the 1930s.

After being threatened with demolition, the Palm House benefitted from a major restoration programme in the late 1970s, including ironwork cleaning, preservation and replacement where necessary. The Tropical Ravine was included in the same programme, both buildings being completed simultaneously in May 1983. The Tropical Ravine underwent a further restoration project costing £3.8 million between 2016 and 2018.

In the late 1980s, a Department of the Environment scheme was launched to upgrade the streetscape within the Queen's Conservation Area. Work on the entrance to Botanic Gardens was ongoing in June 1989, and it appears likely that the remodelled gates at the University Road entrance were installed at this time. The new gates, with an overthrow bearing the name Botanic Gardens in Art Nouveau style lettering, are visible in a photograph dating from 1990-91 in the National Library of Ireland collection.

The gardens have gained additional acreage on several occasions, but the layout of the original 1829 site has remained largely unaltered since the 1840s. Although various features have come and gone, elements such as the flower beds shown in front of the Palm House on the large-scale map of 1873, the open lawn at the centre of the park, and some original trees remain in place today. The park continues to be heavily used for leisure and as a thoroughfare, and the 20th-century entrances — including the Botanic Court gate screen — continue to provide important access points while reflecting the increasing permeability of the park as it transitioned from private to public space.