278 Tennent Street, Edenderry Gardens, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT13 3GG

Three-storey, single-bay terraced house of brick construction, constructed between 1907-09 at 278 Tennent Street (formerly 9 Edenderry Gardens) in the Shankill area of Belfast. Designed by the Belfast architectural partnership Hill and Kennedy, the building forms part of Edenderry Terrace, built by the Edenderry Spinning Company on land formerly occupied by its flax-spinning mill complex.

The house is asymmetrical, with a two-bay, two-storey-with-attic form facing east. It has a gabled dormer and canted-bay windows. The building is rectilinear on plan with a two-storey gabled return to the west and a single-storey lean-to structure, with an internal yard to the rear.

The roof is pitched with red clay tiles and roll-moulded ridge tiles. A single brick chimney with heavy bands supports tall clay pots decorated with rosette motifs. The wall-head dormer on the right side (formed jointly with the adjoining terrace) contains an attic window with a half-hipped roof and decorative timber bargeboard. A central skylight has been inserted to the rear roof slope. Rainwater goods are uPVC, comprising a decorative box hopper and cast-iron downpipe to the main elevation.

The external walls are Flemish bonded brick with English Garden Wall bonding to the rear. Roughcast render covers the first-floor levels. Decorative terracotta vents appear on both the main façade and rear elevation. Windows throughout have been replaced with uPVC, with offset brick sills and flat arch heads. The principal elevation is two openings wide at ground-floor level. The entrance comprises a uPVC front door with a moulded brick surround featuring a camber arch with egg-and-dart motif, surmounted by a deeply projecting flat-roofed timber canopy. The right side features a fully glazed canted bay window above a brick plinth, topped with a red-tile roof, decorative lead flashing, and stepped brick moulding. A central window to the first floor is canopied over with roughcast.

The south elevation is abutted by the adjoining terrace. The rear (west) elevation is abutted by a two-storey pitched-roof return on the right, with a blank south cheek. The west gable contains a central first-floor window. A single-storey rear boundary wall extends along the west gable of the return, then runs west and north in a downward slope before continuing horizontally and abutting the neighbouring terrace to the north. A doorway to the yard features a sheeted and braced door. The original slated roof of the lean-to is retained between the gable of the return and the yard wall. The principal rear elevation has a central first-floor window with roughcast to that level, and an attic window on the left side above the return. The north elevation is abutted by the adjoining terrace.

The property sits on the western side of Tennent Street, between Crumlin and Shankill Roads. The setting includes a small front garden with concrete flags and tiles, a replacement half-height brick wall, and a cast-iron gate along Tennent Street. A long, narrow garden plot extends to the rear, running west to a boundary wall. A paved walkway runs along the rear of all properties in the terrace, between the garden plots and buildings, but has been sealed with locked gates to the south. The former Edenderry Spinning Mill site, now a mixed-use business park and apartment complex, lies immediately to the west. Crumlin Road Presbyterian Church is located to the north-east on the corner of Crumlin Road and Tennent Street.

The house first appears on Ordnance Survey maps in the fourth edition (1920-31) and was added to the valuation records in 1909 at £14. The 1910 Street Directory lists it as No. 9 Edenderry Gardens, first occupied by James Blair. By the 1935 General Revaluation, its value had increased to £20. The property remained under the ownership of Edenderry Spinning Company until at least 1972, with the company continuing operations on the adjacent site until 1988.

The house demonstrates design elements associated with the Arts and Crafts movement prevalent in early 20th-century terrace housing, including dormers, bay windows, roughcast rendering, and irregular rooflines. Its construction represented improvements in domestic design and amenities of the period, with rear yard access via a passage, sizable windows on the main elevation, and modern facilities for single-family occupation—a marked advance over earlier shared housing with no formal drainage or water supply.

The building has undergone late 20th-century repairs and alterations, including the replacement of windows and rainwater goods with uPVC materials and the insertion of the rear skylight. Despite these changes, the house retains elements of architectural interest as part of the broader terrace grouping, though its significance has been compromised by the loss of historic fabric and original detailing across the scheme as a whole.