St Malachy's Presbytery, 24 Alfred Street, Belfast, BT2 8EN

St Malachy's Presbytery, 24 Alfred Street, Belfast

St Malachy's Presbytery is a symmetrical three-storey, three-bay Ruskinian Gothic polychrome brick building, constructed between 1867 and 1869 to designs by the Belfast-based architect John O'Neill (1828–1883). It stands immediately south of Belfast city centre, adjacent to St Malachy's Roman Catholic Church, which had opened in 1844 — some 25 years before the presbytery was added to the site. The building is rectangular on plan with a rear extension, and forms a fitting architectural companion to the Tudor Gothic revival church alongside it.

The roof is hipped natural slate with a U-shaped ridge and M-profile to the east, carried on corbelled ashlar sandstone eaves with cast iron rainwater goods. Brick chimneystacks rise to the ridge, finished with dentilled caps and terracotta pots.

The walls are laid in Flemish-bonded red brick with a chamfered sandstone basal course, sandstone cill courses running across all three floors and at impost level to the ground floor openings, and black brick banding to the ground and first floors. Particularly notable is the decorative band of ornamental tiles running around the upper part of the ground floor. Windows are lancet-headed at ground floor level and segmental-headed to the upper floors throughout, all glazed with one-over-one timber sash windows.

The principal elevation faces west and is strictly symmetrical, with three openings to each floor arranged around a central entrance. At ground floor level, and at the central first floor position, the windows are paired lancets, each pair divided by a slender sandstone colonnette supporting a decorative ashlar sandstone Gothic-styled lintel with a roundel, surmounted by ornamented sandstone voussoirs alternating with black and red brick. The remaining first floor windows have polychrome brick and sandstone voussoirs, while the second floor windows have plain brick heads. Where the sill course meets either side of the entrance, it terminates in carved stone gargoyles; small dragon carvings are also located at the bases of the colonnettes.

The entrance door itself is deeply recessed and made of oak, with six raised panels, a beaded muntin, and a cast iron knob, set within a bead-moulded shouldered reveal. Surrounding this is a deep ashlar sandstone doorcase inset with colonnettes bearing carved foliated heads, surmounted by a tall segmental-headed transom light in a bead-moulded opening with alternating red and buff ashlar sandstone voussoirs.

The north elevation is three windows wide to each floor and detailed in the same manner as the principal west elevation. The rear east elevation is abutted at its centre by a shallow full-height stairwell return, which is in turn abutted by later two-storey lean-to and gabled extensions, both plainly detailed and of no architectural interest. The exposed right bay has a window to each floor; the stairwell and left bay are only exposed at second floor level, with one window per bay. The south elevation is asymmetrically arranged, with three windows to the ground and second floors and four windows to the first floor, all offset to the right side.

The building is set close to Alfred Street, accessed by a short path flanked by gravel enclosures with simple planting, bounded by cast iron railings on a low sandstone plinth. Tarmacadamed parking areas lie to either side. The railings and gates contribute positively to the setting and are integral to the overall appearance of the building. The presbytery was formerly surrounded by terraced houses and Victorian and Edwardian warehouses, the majority of which have since been demolished, considerably opening up the setting of the building. A surviving example of the neighbouring warehouse terrace stands at Nos 19–21 Alfred Street.

Although the interior layout and detailing have been altered, some elements of a typical late Victorian interior survive. The 1911 Census building return described the house as a first-class private dwelling containing fourteen rooms. In 1901, the parish priest Father Daniel McCashin (aged 54) resided here with three younger curates, and two servants were employed in both the 1901 and 1911 censuses.

The building was designed by John O'Neill in partnership with William Henry Byrne, who joined O'Neill as an assistant between September 1868 and March 1869 while the presbytery was nearing completion; the practice operated as O'Neill & Byrne with offices in both Belfast and Dublin. The contracted builder was Alexander Murdock of Cullingtree Road, Belfast. The presbytery was first recorded in valuation sources in 1869, when the 'Parochial House' was valued at £55 and noted as let by Adam and Andrew Thomas McClean, who had originally let the plot for church use around 1840; the original occupant was recorded as the Reverend D. Doran. By 1895, a rear extension had been added and the valuation was increased to £60. By 1906 the value had risen to £100, though it was reduced to £80 between 1906 and 1915 for reasons that are unclear.

Alterations were carried out in 1934 by architect Padraig Bernard Gregory (1886–1967) during the occupation of Monsignor Clenaghan. Further works followed: a new lighting system was installed in 1938 and a modern heating system was added in 1940. By 1993, the original glazing had been replaced with uPVC windows, and the stonework had been repointed in a manner noted at the time as rather crude.