8 College Gardens, Belfast

8 College Gardens, Belfast

This is a mid-terrace, three-storey, two-bay red brick late Victorian town house, built in 1877 to designs by the architect William Batt. It forms part of a symmetrical block of four properties — numbers 7, 9 and 10 College Gardens — in which No.8 is mirrored by No.9, with the wider properties at Nos.7 and 10 anchoring the gable ends. The building is a good example of late Victorian domestic architecture, notable for its well-proportioned façade, polychromatic brick detailing, and sandstone embellishment. It is listed along with Nos.7, 9 and 10 as a group. It now serves as student accommodation and has been internally connected to No.9, which has slightly altered the plan form, though some original historic interior detail survives.

Location and Setting

College Gardens is a tree-lined street of similarly scaled town houses running between Malone Road and Lisburn Road, within the Queens Conservation Area. The buildings face south and overlook the grounds of Methodist College. No.8 sits at the eastern end of the terrace, set back from the street by a front lawn and mature hedging. A gate opens onto a tarmac path leading to the entrance. To the rear, the building overlooks Elmwood Mews, a shared alley running the full length of College Gardens and connecting to Elmwood Avenue. Stone entrance steps, dwarf walling and a lawned front garden, together with yard walls to the rear, add significant character to the setting.

Exterior

The roof is natural slate (Bangor Blue) with black clay ridge tiles. A large red brick chimney, centred on the ridge and shared with No.7, has a corbelled cap formed in brick specials and sixteen circular red clay pots. The eaves are projecting stone with corbelled brick specials in the form of roll-edged dentils on cogging and stretcher courses. Two modern skylights are present on the rear (north) roof slope. Rainwater goods are cast iron to the south elevation and uPVC to the north and return. There is a three-storey return to the rear, built at half-landing level, which adjoins the equivalent return of No.9 to form a wide shared gable.

The main walls are red brick in Flemish bond with blue brick string courses and alternating soldier courses. The rear and return elevations are in English Garden Wall bond.

Windows throughout the main building are single-glazed double-hung sliding sash with 1-over-1 panes; the return has 2-over-2 panes unless otherwise described below.

Front Elevation (South)

The south-facing front is asymmetrical, with the entrance to the left and a two-storey canted bay with a lead roof to the right. There is a projecting rubble-stone base plinth with a chamfered blue brick top course. Dressed sandstone cills and lintels continue as two string courses of blue brick with a red course between them, and reveals are stop-chamfered.

The central entrance is a round arch formed in alternating red and blue soldier courses in groups of three, with a dressed sandstone hood mould and label stops — the left-hand label stop is shared with No.9. There is a plain fanlight over square-headed panelled timber double doors, which are flanked by grey marble colonnettes with dressed sandstone capitals, collar and base, set on toothed quoins. Carved foliage detail appears on the label stops, base and capitals. Above the door, the alternating blue and red brick soldier course is repeated as a segmental relieving arch to the window, with an angled blue brick hood over.

Rear Elevation (North)

The north elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews and is plainer than the front. It is asymmetrical, with the three-storey return to the left and one window per floor to the right (2-over-2 panes at first floor). Detailing is simpler: shallower stone cills, red brick soldier courses above windows, and a row of projecting brick headers at the eaves. The return has clipped eaves and a single window offset to the right on each floor, diminishing in height, with the remainder of the return walls otherwise blank.

East and West Elevations

No.7 abuts the east elevation of the main building. The east face of the return is plainly detailed in the same manner as the north elevation. Fenestration on this elevation is informal, with a single window to the north and south ends at all levels and additional openings between: a tripartite window (1-over-1 panes) and a flush modern door at ground floor; twin 1-over-1 sliding sashes offset to the left with translucent glass at first floor; and a single window with translucent glass at second floor. No.9 abuts the west elevation, including the return.

Rear Yard

Red brick walling in English Garden Wall bond, with a rounded terracotta cap (partially missing), divides the rear yard from Nos.7 and 9 and along the south boundary. Concrete steps at the north end of the yard lead to a basement below, used as a bin store, which exits onto Elmwood Mews via a sheeted timber ledged-and-braced door.

Historical Background

College Gardens — originally known as College Gardens Avenue — is situated on land that, before the early 19th century, formed part of a series of strip farms running from what are now Malone Road and University Road to the Bog Meadows, probably laid out in the early 17th century. This pattern was disrupted by the cutting of Lisburn Road in 1816–19 and the construction of the Ulster Railway in 1837–39. Around the same period, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate encouraged the gentrification of the remaining farmland, with small country villas being built or upgraded and modest demesnes laid out.

The land immediately north and south of College Gardens had belonged to one such villa, Vermont, a house predating 1770 and possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815, then enlarged again in the 1840s by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The construction of Queen's College to the north-east in 1845 stimulated suburbanisation of the area. In 1865 Vermont was sold for the building of Methodist College, which was completed in 1868. A new private avenue was then laid out on the lower ground immediately to the north, with building plots on the northern side. Development proceeded from the eastern end: present Nos.1–6 were built in 1871; Nos.7–18, including No.8, in 1877; No.33 and 34 in 1879; Nos.19–22 in 1881; Nos.23–26 in 1882; and Nos.27–32 in 1883.

No.8 specifically was built in 1877 by William Batt for the merchant John H. Atkinson, on one of the building plots advertised early that year as suitable for high-class residences in a healthy and fashionable locality. Recorded occupants include Mrs. Margaret Henderson (from at least 1884 to around 1889), H. Martin Junior of the building firm H. & J. Martin (around 1889–98), and John Sinclair, described as a manufacturer and later as a flax merchant (1898 to around 1914). The 1901 census records Sinclair living there with his wife Alice, their two children, and two domestic servants — a nurse and a cook — in a first-class dwelling with thirteen rooms occupied by the family. William Muir McMullan appears to have taken up the lease around 1914, followed by H.L.H. Greer, a surgeon, around 1920. Dr. Greer remained there until around 1965, after which the building was acquired by Queen's University for use as the University estate office, and later around 1975 became the Students Centre. It was around this time that No.8 was internally integrated with No.9 to the west. The building continues in use as student accommodation.

No.8 College Gardens was listed in September 1979. Grant aid was awarded in 2011 for repair works to the front windows, stonework, brickwork, and rainwater goods.