Belfast Castle, Antrim Road, Belfast, BT15 5GR

Belfast Castle is a detached, multi-bay, three-storey with attic over basement sandstone mansion in the Scottish Baronial style, constructed between 1868 and 1870 to designs by John Lanyon of the firm Lanyon, Lynn & Lanyon, for the 3rd Marquis of Donegall. It stands on an elevated plateau on the south-facing slopes of Cave Hill, overlooking Belfast to the south. The building is listed at Grade A and the extent of listing covers the castle itself, including its steps, walling, and pillars.

Historical Background

This is not the first Belfast Castle. The original was erected by the Anglo-Normans in the late 12th century, believed to have stood near High Street in the city centre. By the early 17th century it had fallen into ruin, and in 1611 Arthur Chichester (1563–1625), Lord Deputy of Ireland, built a new castle on the banks of the Farset River following a large grant of land in Antrim that included Belfast. Chichester was central to the Plantation-era development of the town. A map by Phillip from 1685 depicts this castle as a two- or three-storey square Jacobean manor house with extensive gardens stretching south as far as the present sites of Donegall Place and Donegall Square. The castle served as the Chichester family's official Irish residence for almost a century until it was accidentally burned to the ground on 25 April 1708 and was never rebuilt. The only surviving traces of it are in the surrounding street names: Castle Street, Castle Place and Castle Lane.

Chichester's nephew, also named Arthur, became the First Earl of Donegall. From 1608 until the mid-19th century, the Earls and, after 1791, Marquises of Donegall were the principal landowners in Belfast, effectively owning the entire town, though they were absent landlords for much of the 18th century. In 1802 the 2nd Marquis returned to Belfast to escape mounting debts and took a townhouse at the corner of Donegall Place and Donegall Square. He later moved to Ormeau Cottage and between 1823 and 1830 expanded it into a Tudor Revival mansion of some thirty rooms known as Ormeau House, reportedly 300 feet in length. Crippling debts, however, forced him to sell perpetuity leases on much of central Belfast to raise £330,000, and his successor, the 3rd Marquis, inherited a family still heavily encumbered following his father's death in 1844. The 3rd Marquis regarded Ormeau House as an ill-constructed residence and stated that his estate suffered for want of a more suitable family seat. Despite continued financial difficulty, he resolved to build a new mansion on lands he still held in the deer park to the north of Belfast.

W. H. Lynn, a partner in the firm Lanyon, Lynn & Lanyon alongside Sir Charles Lanyon and his son John, had previously designed a mansion for the Marquis's sister-in-law in Tipperary and secured the commission for the new house. However, the actual design was the responsibility of John Lanyon. The proposal to build was announced in 1865, though construction was delayed by a legal dispute between the Marquis and a neighbouring landowner. The Scottish Baronial style chosen had become fashionable across the United Kingdom following the reconstruction of Balmoral Castle in that idiom between 1852 and 1856. Construction was contracted to the local building firm W. B. McMaster and was carried out between 1868 and 1870. The masonry employed locally quarried Scrabo Sandstone and Scottish Giffnock Sandstone, with basalt used to a lesser extent. The original construction cost was estimated at £11,000, a figure that proved a severe underestimate; the Marquis fell further into debt and the project was saved only when his son-in-law, Lord Ashley, acted as guarantor and paid the outstanding sums. The completed castle was originally valued at £350 and included a gate lodge at its Antrim Road entrance and a private chapel built between 1865 and 1869, both also designed by Lanyon, Lynn & Lanyon. The mansion comprised approximately 30 bedrooms, a salon, drawing room, morning room, dining room and billiards room, together with an extensive servants' wing. On the completion of Belfast Castle in 1870, Ormeau House was demolished and its grounds were granted to Belfast Corporation to create Ormeau Park, Belfast's first public park.

Following the death of the 3rd Marquis in 1883, the castle and its estate passed to his son-in-law Antony Ashley-Cooper, the 8th Earl of Shaftesbury, who had married Lady Harriet Chichester in 1857. In 1894, as a present to his mother the Dowager Countess, the Earl commissioned the addition of an Italian Baroque external stairway to the east side of the mansion, connecting the main reception rooms to the garden terraces and adorned with the crest of the Earl of Shaftesbury. This stairway was also designed by John Lanyon. Following this alteration the rateable value of the castle was reduced to £332. The Donegall coat of arms was installed on the north wall of the castle and above the main entrance in 1868–70.

The Shaftesbury family retained the castle until 1934, when the 9th Earl of Shaftesbury granted the building and its 200-acre estate to Belfast Corporation on the condition that the corporation purchase the site for £10,750 and that the mansion should not be used as a hospital or institution. Belfast Castle formally passed to Belfast Corporation on 1 February 1935. The corporation subsequently made a number of alterations to the interior to adapt it for public use. The most significant of these was the combining of the former dining and drawing rooms into a single long ballroom, with a new maple wood floor laid over the original. Kitchens and cloakrooms were fitted out, some second-floor rooms were enlarged, and tea rooms were installed in the cellars at terrace level. The castle was officially opened to the public by the Lord Mayor on 9 July 1937. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the castle was valued at £300, rising to £708 by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72).

From 1937 into the 1970s the castle served as one of Belfast's most popular venues for wedding receptions, public dances and afternoon teas. By the early 1970s the building had fallen into a poor state of repair and in 1971 Belfast City Council proposed selling the property to a private party; public opposition reversed the decision. Following listing in 1978, a restoration scheme was initiated and the castle was closed between 1978 and 1988 for a £2 million renovation overseen by Hewitt & Haslam Partnership. Work included roof repairs, the removal of defective roof timbers, and the cleaning and repointing of the exterior stonework. The interior renovation, carried out by William Dowling's, included the replacement of all 100 doors and the installation of new sashes for all 365 windows — originally one for each day of the year. The castle reopened on 11 November 1988 and work continued until 1990, when the basement was converted into a Victorian streetscape incorporating a restaurant, antique shop, bar and a small exhibition on the natural history of Cave Hill and the history of the castle. Today it is used as a wedding and events venue and a major tourist attraction.

Exterior Architecture

The castle is rectilinear in plan with its principal entrance front facing west. There is a four-storey over basement tower to the southwest corner and a single-storey over basement wing to the northwest. The complex roofline — one of the building's defining characteristics — consists of multiple pitched natural slate roofs with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and lead valleys, set behind crow-stepped gables with ball finials and Irish crenellated parapets. Shouldered, profiled sandstone ashlar chimneystacks with clay pots appear throughout. Tourelles to most corners carry conical slate roofs surmounted by lead caps and iron finials. Moulded cast-iron guttering is fixed to a moulded sandstone eaves course, with cast-iron downpipes throughout.

The walling is random rubble coursed sandstone with fine lime-pointed joints, a projecting plinth course with chamfered sandstone trim, a continuous string course over the ground floor, and ashlar sandstone dressings throughout. Window openings are generally square-headed with stop-chamfered smooth sandstone ashlar surrounds, flush splayed sills and single-pane sliding timber sash windows with slender ogee horns.

West Entrance Elevation

The west entrance front is dominated by a three-bay tower to the right with two-storey recessed sections to the remainder of the elevation. A central entrance portico has a flat roof and arcaded parapet wall supported on Doric columns, paired to the front, with fluting and strapwork set on plinth walls, with responding Doric pilasters flanking the entrance opening. The double-leaf hardwood entrance doors are deeply panelled and set within a shouldered door surround featuring a decoratively carved tympanum depicting shield-bearing animals and a banner bearing the motto INVITU SEQUITUR HONOR. The surround is framed by engaged pilasters and arch moulding with a crowned ancon over. The arcaded parapet continues along the north face of the entrance bay, returning to enclose a glazed roof to the Deerpark Room. A full-height clasping round tower occupies the southwest corner, and a tourelle sits at the northwest corner of the four-storey tower, which is attached to an advanced crow-stepped gable on corbels. The gabled north elevation of the tower rises to a chimney stack with a semi-circular tower to the left, surmounted by a corbelled-out crow-stepped gabled section. To the northwest corner is a clasping corner oriel set at 45 degrees with an ashlar sandstone hipped roof.

The Deerpark wing has a square-headed door opening with timber panelled doors and a coloured glazed fanlight, with a matching window to the left opening onto concrete steps and a landing that bridge the basement area. At basement level there is a square-headed door opening with a timber panelled door and shouldered sidelights, all set in a smooth sandstone surround with a relieving arch over, opening into the northeast basement well. A shouldered fanlight over the door has a louvered panel and is painted. The single-storey northwest wing is set behind a decorative screen wall and has a steeply pitched roof with a louvered dormer and iron finial; its windows are 4/4-pane sliding timber sashes.

North Elevation

The four-storey gabled north elevation has a dominant full-height clasping tower to the left (east). The two-storey wing to the right has a full-span crow-stepped gable to both elevations, a squat tower to the right, a corbelled-out balconette to the left, and 2/2-pane sliding timber sash windows. The north elevation opens into an enclosed service yard.

East Garden Elevation

The east garden elevation is five bays wide and three storeys with attic. A clasping tower rises to the right, a tourelle to the left, and a central semi-circular bay window at the centre, all with conical roofs. Three crow-stepped gables rise above eaves level with a matching wall-head dormer. The central bow is corbelled out to the base with a single supporting pier, a lead-roofed dormer to either side of the conical roof, and 3/3-pane bowed sliding timber sash windows. At upper ground floor level there is a pair of door openings to either side of the bay window, fitted with double-leaf glazed timber French doors opening onto balustraded corbelled balconies. These lead onto two flights of curving stone steps with an elaborately carved string, supported on a diminutive stone arch, which join as a spiral stair in front of the bay window with a central column and are terminated by two circular stone newels. These steps were added around 1894 and were also designed by John Lanyon.

South Garden Elevation

The three-bay, three-storey with attic south garden elevation is dominated by an advanced five-storey crow-stepped gabled corner tower. A central crow-stepped gable rises above eaves level with matching wall-head dormers to either side. A corbelled-out oriel window to the right has a sandstone openwork parapet. The tower has a full-height clasping corner tower and an angled oriel to the right with a corbelled balcony spanning the tower.

Interior

The interior is no less exuberant than the exterior. Well-proportioned rooms are accessed off a grand stairwell and many fine historic details survive throughout.

Setting and Grounds

The castle sits on an elevated site on the south-facing slopes of Cave Hill with formally laid-out gardens to the south and east. The south garden features a circular fountain, geometrically laid-out paths and mosaic panels, enclosed to the west by a tall crenellated sandstone retaining wall and bifurcating stone steps that terminate to the south at a turret with a conical slate roof and iron finial, having a shouldered door opening with a sheeted timber door. The west entrance elevation is approached from the south via a bitmac avenue passing the south garden and opening onto the Cave Hill Park avenue through iron gates hung on octagonal corniced sandstone pillars with steel lanterns and a matching pedestrian gate to the west hung on iron posts. A further pair of gates to the north perimeter also hung on octagonal stone pillars provides access onto Cave Hill Park, and the entire site is enclosed by iron railings and security palisade fencing. Both sets of pillars are thought to have been installed around the 1970s when improvement works were carried out. The gate screen at the site entrance at the top of Innisfayle Park, which also has octagonal stone pillars each surmounted by ornate carvings of a hound bearing a plaque, is considered more likely to be original, although possibly relocated. Substantial crenellated walling surrounds the formal gardens and, together with the various steps and gate pillars at the Innisfayle Park entrance, enhances the setting considerably.

The original gate lodge and chapel both survive and have group value with the castle. The castle and all of its densely wooded grounds were gifted by the Earl of Shaftesbury to the city of Belfast in 1937.