63 University Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NF

No. 63 University Road is a relatively low-proportioned, three-storey late Georgian style terraced house built in 1840–41, with a stucco façade and decorative doorcase. It is one of a matching group of four such houses, all now divided into flats with stairwell returns to the rear.

The terrace to which the property belongs — originally named Botanic View — stands on the west side of University Road, with Camden Street to the north and Fitzwilliam Street to the south. The terrace as a whole consists of No. 63 and its two identical neighbours, four similar but taller three-storey houses of around 1840–43 (also converted to flats), and a short two-storey brick grouping of 1852 to the south end (now flats and offices). No. 63 sits roughly to the south of centre within this terrace. (Note: No. 59 was rebuilt in the 1980s following bomb damage.)

The front, east-facing façade is asymmetrical. To the left on the ground floor is the original entrance doorway, though this is no longer used for access as the flats are now reached from the rear stairwell return. The doorway consists of a traditional-style panelled and glazed door, which in fact functions as a window. Above it is a plain rectangular fanlight, and the whole ensemble is framed by plain pilasters with decorative console brackets supporting a cornice hood with a tympanum-like blocking course over. To the right of the doorway are two flat-arch windows with Georgian-paned sash frames, both six-over-six. At first-floor level — and set slightly further apart than the ground-floor windows — are two more windows of the same type but marginally larger in appearance. To the second floor are two similar but shorter six-over-three sash windows, aligned with those on the first floor. The front façade is finished in plain render with simple moulded surrounds to the windows. The render is painted, with the window surrounds and doorcase picked out in a darker shade than the rest of the façade.

To the rear, the ground floor and first floor each have two Georgian-paned sash windows; on each floor the left-hand window is narrower. The second-floor windows are also shorter than those below. Ground-floor and first-floor windows are four-over-four and six-over-six respectively, while those to the second floor are two-over-four and three-over-six. The entire rear elevation is rendered and painted to match the front.

The main roof is gabled and slated. There is a tall rendered chimney stack to the south with a string course and decorative matching pots. Both front and rear have a verge course with what appears to be recent moulded guttering, and modern square downspouts. To the front, a small garden is enclosed by low rendered walls and filled with shrubbery; the former path to the front entrance has been removed.

Historical background

Prior to the early 19th century, the present University Road was the main route south from the then small but growing town of Belfast towards Dublin, climbing along the Malone Ridge and running south-west towards Lisburn. Long, narrow strip farms stretched westward from this road, sloping down towards the lower ground of the Bog Meadows. By the mid-18th century many of these farms had been leased by the Donegall estate to Belfast merchants and worked by undertenants, whose largely humble farmhouses were scattered along the road itself. In 1819 the present Lisburn Road was laid out, cutting through the farms, and by 1839 the Ulster Railway had been driven through their lower fields. From 1823 onwards the Donegall estate began granting perpetual leases on land to the south of Belfast, and with the coherence of the Malone farms thus broken up, the area became open to developers.

John Alexander was one such developer. His family had held a lease on 31 acres in the townland of Lower Malone since the early 18th century, and in 1823 acquired it outright from Lord Donegall for £480. It was on this land that Alexander built the three-storey portions of the Botanic View terrace — the present Nos. 53–65 University Road — between 1840 and 1843, while parcelling out adjacent portions of his holding to other developers. This in turn led to the construction of Fitzwilliam Place (Nos. 71–75) in 1846–48, and dwellings along the newly laid-out Fitzwilliam Street (Nos. 2–8) in around 1849–50. Camden Terrace appeared along the newly laid-out Camden Street in 1849–52, and the two-storey southern portion of Botanic View was in place by the latter date as well.

All of these new dwellings, together with others just to the north — including Fountainville Terrace, Upper and Lower Crescent, Prospect and Claremont Terraces, and University Square to the east — marked the beginning of the suburbanisation of south Belfast and the movement of the town's professional and commercial classes away from its centre. The earliest inhabitants of Botanic View reflect this social character: late 1840s and early 1850s directories record a surgeon, an engineer, a drawing master and various businessmen among the residents.

The whole of Botanic View remained in the ownership of the Alexander family until 1881, when the present Nos. 53–65 were sold to Robert Kelso Mathewson. In 1950 the properties came into the possession of Queen's University, with No. 67 acquired by Queen's in 1963. In 1982 the University sold the entire grouping to the Malone Housing Association. Up to that point the properties had largely continued in use as private dwellings — some latterly occupied by University staff and students — though Nos. 55 and 57–59 served respectively as a temporary post office and a branch of the Ulster Bank in 1971–72. No. 59 sustained damage in a bomb blast and was demolished in 1979.

In the mid-1980s the Malone Housing Association converted the whole group into flats. As part of this work, No. 59 was rebuilt; Nos. 53, 55, 57 and 59 each provide three flats, while six flats are shared between Nos. 61, 63, 65 and 67. All of the original rear returns were demolished to make way for new stairwell projections, with a single stairwell shared between each former house. In March 2000 the whole group was re-conveyed to Queen's University.