10 Upper Crescent, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT7 1NT

10 Upper Crescent is a relatively large, three-storey rendered town house, built in 1846 as part of Upper Crescent, an elegantly curving row of ten similar — though not identical — late Regency-style dwellings. It has since been converted to offices and flats.

Upper Crescent sits to the east of University Road and faces, across a small public park, Lower Crescent — a similarly styled development of 1852, though arranged as a straight terrace rather than a crescent. The building is one of the plainer properties within the group.

The front elevation is asymmetrical and faces roughly south. On the ground floor to the right is the entrance, comprising a four-panel timber door with a rectangular fanlight, framed by panelled pilaster jambs. To the left of the doorway are two tall, plain sash windows. The ground floor level is finished in rusticated render. At first-floor level, two larger windows sit on a continuous cill course; these have Regency-style sash frames with horizontally orientated panes in a 4/8 configuration. Above, at second-floor level, are two much smaller windows with Georgian-paned sash frames (3/6), resting on a more pronounced, cornice-like cill course. The upper floors are finished in plain render. There is a broad plain course above first-floor window height and below the second-floor cill course, on which sits a thin moulded string course. Above second-floor window height is a further plain course, above which rises a parapet with plain — possibly stone — coping.

To the rear, the full elevation could not be seen in its entirety. To the right-hand (west) side is a two-storey gabled return, which has a plain sash window at first-floor level. This merges to the right with a further two-storey projection with a mono-pitched roof, which has a large modern garage-type door at ground-floor level and a plain sash window at first-floor level. Both the gable and the south face of this projection are largely in brick, though much of the lower half of the gable is rendered. From internal evidence it is known that the main rear façade has a Georgian-paned sash window (6/6) to the right at ground-floor level, with a panelled and glazed fire escape door to the right at both first and second-floor levels. Between first and second-floor level to the left is a sash stairwell window with Georgian panes (6/6). The fire escape is shared with the neighbouring property to the east, number 11. The main roof is gabled and slated. To the rear, there is a recent-looking pitched-roof dormer to the left, with a felted roof and a squat modern window, and immediately to its left a broader flat-roofed dormer set close to the ridge. There is a tall rendered chimneystack with coping and uniform pots to the east. Rainwater goods are cast iron.

Historical context: Upper Crescent and Lower Crescent

The selling off of much of Lord Donegall's Belfast estate in the early to mid 19th century opened up large areas of land around the town for development. The lands to the south, along the Malone Ridge, were particularly attractive to developers and led to the construction of many fine late Georgian-style terraces from the mid-1830s onwards, a trend accelerated by the establishment of the prestigious Queen's College in the area in the later 1840s. These grand new terraces were occupied by Belfast's professional and business classes, who left their older residences in the town centre, which gradually converted to shops and offices.

Upper Crescent was perhaps the grandest terrace development undertaken to the south of the town: an elegantly curving row of three-storey late Regency-style dwellings, built in 1846 by timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry. The authorship is uncertain, though Dr Paul Larmour has suggested that Charles Lanyon may have been involved. Corry himself undertook the building work and took up residence in the house at the east end; for the first few years of its existence the row was known as Corry's Crescent. Immediately to the south of the Crescent, where a church and small park now stand, was a large lawn that Corry held as a garden. Shortly after it was laid out, however, Corry had this garden ploughed up and used for the cultivation of vegetables to relieve local workers suffering as a result of the Great Famine. To the north ran an old watercourse flowing northwards into the Basin, a reservoir east of the Dublin Road; to the east lay smaller gardens belonging to other occupants of the Crescent; and further to the east and north-east ran Albion Lane, a narrow semi-rural laneway stretching from the north end of Bradbury Place to the east end of the present University Terrace.

In 1852 Corry built another terrace to the north of his garden, just south of the old watercourse. This new development — the erroneously named Lower Crescent — was much in the same style as that to the south and was occupied by a similar mix of professionals and businessmen, though by as early as 1860 the ground floors of some properties were in use as offices. In the later 1860s a railway line was cut immediately to the north of Lower Crescent, along the line of the old watercourse. In 1873 a large sandstone building, originally Victoria College for girls, was added to the west end of the terrace. By the close of that decade two further houses had been added to the east end, the most easterly of which, Rivoli House — designed by William Hastings — originally contained a dance academy run by a Frederick Brouneau. The new railway line cut across Albion Lane and presaged the laying out of a new, broader thoroughfare, Botanic Avenue.

Upper Crescent also saw further building in the 1860s and 1870s. Two large properties designed by William Hastings were erected at the west end in 1869, one of which — Crescent House, now the Bank of Ireland — also fronted onto University Road. In 1878–79, two further houses were added between these, on the ground between those of 1869. Between 1885 and 1887 the large Presbyterian church, now the Crescent Church, was erected to plans by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson on the west side of Robert Corry's former garden. In 1898 a two-storey terrace, the present Crescent Gardens, was built on the site of the smaller garden plots to the east end.

During the first half of the 20th century most properties in Upper and Lower Crescent, as well as Crescent Gardens, remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many had been given over to business use or divided into flats, with the former Rivoli House — later renamed Dreenagh House — becoming the Regency Hotel. This trend continued, and by the beginning of the 21st century none were occupied as private dwellings. In the mid-1990s three of the 1860s to 1870s houses at the west end of Upper Crescent were demolished and replaced with a modern office block; in 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent was built over in preparation for a new development.

History of number 10

In 1849 this property was occupied by a Mrs Murdock. She was followed in the 1850s by James Green and then James P. Corry, a relative of the builder Robert Corry. Corry was succeeded by Jane Vance, who remained until the later 1870s. The next resident was Alexander O'D Taylor, after whom solicitor J. S. Mahon is listed in the 1899 and 1910 directories. Around 1918 the property was acquired by a family named Matthews, who remained until the 1950s, when the building was converted to an office — occupied first by a firm of financiers and subsequently by a travel agent.