40 Florenceville Avenue, Belfast

No 40 Florenceville Avenue is a very fine High Victorian house built around 1872. It forms part of a carefully composed group with its neighbours at Nos 42 and 44 Florenceville Avenue, also listed buildings. The three houses are set back from the original Victorian building line and were designed to present a unified palace front, representing the earliest and most important historic houses in this part of South Belfast.

The building is a two-storey mid-Victorian semi-detached house constructed in sandstone and red brick. The ground floor features ashlar sandstone with a semi-rockface finish in random coursed work, while the first floor is built from red clay brick laid in Flemish Bond. A painted smooth string course separates the two storeys. A plinths sits below, featuring cast iron floor ventilation grilles. The roof is hipped at the sides and constructed with concrete tiles, supported on painted timber brackets at the eaves. Two red brick corbelled chimney stacks rise from the roof, one finished with octagonal clay pots.

The north-facing front elevation displays considerable ornamental quality. There is an original painted four-panel door positioned to the right, with a painted bracketed hood above. A single glazed 2/2 painted timber sliding sash window sits to the left of the door, with two similar windows on the first floor. The windows have decorative architraves featuring flower motifs, and the ground floor window sills are supported on ornate brackets. The building's original windows are painted timber sliding sash, generally 2/2 format, though extensions contain stained timber top-hung examples. Rainwater goods are uPVC.

The west elevation features two similar windows on each floor positioned close to the corners, which have alternating painted quoins. The detailing mirrors the front elevation.

The house has undergone significant alteration and extension. A late twentieth-century single-storey extension occupies what was formerly an open yard, with a mono-pitch roof. The string course curves down from the main elevation to form its external wall. A former door opening in this wall is now a stained timber window with two top-hung openers. A mid-twentieth-century garage with interesting folding doors and a stepped gable stands to the west of the rear yard. The rear elevation has been largely obscured by twentieth-century extensions: a dining room extension with modern top-hung stained timber windows and a flush door, and a mono-pitched kitchen extension with felt roof and stained timber picture window covering the remainder of the ground floor. Above these extensions, the first floor has a large staircase landing window originally featuring coloured glass margin panes but now a 1/1 sliding sash with plain glass. A replacement top-hung timber window and an original 2/2 window sit to the right. Various outbuildings of limited interest are arranged around the rear yard.

The house is situated on the south side of Florenceville Avenue, which connects to the Ormeau Road approximately 2.5 miles south of Belfast's centre. It sits within a front and side garden set out in grass with mature trees and shrubbery, bounded by a twentieth-century red brick wall with vertical boarding above. A tarmac path leads to the front door. The rear yard is separated from Rossmore Avenue by a 3-metre-high red brick boundary wall and is accessed through a palisade steel gate.

The three-house group was first recorded in the valuation book in 1872 and appears on the Ordnance Survey town plan of 1871–73. The site occupies land that previously formed part of the garden of Locust Lodge, one of several small semi-rural gentleman's residences that characterised the Ormeau and Ravenhill areas before late Victorian and Edwardian suburban expansion. The houses were developed by William Fitzpatrick, a Belfast builder who acquired Locust Lodge in 1865. As well as undertaking other building projects nearby, Fitzpatrick donated the plot for and contributed to the construction costs of the nearby St Jude's Church, completed in 1871–73. The architect responsible for the Florenceville houses remains unknown.

For two decades following construction, Florenceville Avenue served merely as a drive connecting the three houses to the Ormeau Road, then known as 'Old Ballynafeigh Road'. The entire south side of the avenue was developed from the mid-1890s onwards, with buildings on the north side largely dating from the 1920s.

The original occupant appears to have been James Templeton. He was followed by Alexander McKeag (or McKaig), recorded as a clerk before 1877. William H. Roberts, manager of Ulster Works, occupied the house by around 1889, followed by Robert O. Stanley, a buyer, around 1891. William H. Roberts, subsequently recorded as a carpet buyer, returned from around 1894. In the 1901 census, Mr and Mrs Roberts are recorded as occupying the house with their son and daughter; the building was classified as a second-class dwelling containing between seven and nine rooms, four of which were occupied by the family at that time. Mr and Mrs Roberts and their son remained in residence in 1911, with the family staying until around 1920. They were succeeded by estate agent R. G. McDowell. Mrs Gertrude E. Leech is listed as resident from 1932 until at least the early 1960s. D. G. Ryder, a draughtsman, is named as householder in the 1967 directory, with S. Kennedy recorded in that of 1980.