Woolworths And Burton Buildings, 1-15 High St. And, 2-10 Cornmarket, Belfast

Woolworths and Burton Buildings, 1–15 High Street and 2–10 Cornmarket, Belfast

This is a large, largely symmetrical four-storey Art Deco department store built around 1929–30 to designs by W. R. Priddle, a London-based architect employed by the construction department of F. W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd of Liverpool. The building was purpose-built to house two separate commercial tenants — F. W. Woolworth's variety store and Montague Burton Ltd, the men's clothes retailer — on a prominent corner site in the heart of Belfast's commercial district. It is one of a small number of buildings in Belfast executed in the Art Deco style, and stands as an important example of that movement applied at grand commercial scale. Much of the original historic fabric and detailing survives.

Architectural Description

The building is roughly rectangular on plan, steel-framed and clad in artificial stone, with a flat roof concealed behind a heavy corniced parapet enriched with stylised leaves. There is a substantial mid-to-late 20th century red-brick extension to the rear. Rainwater goods are largely hidden from view, with the exception of cast-iron downpipes to the east elevation.

The two principal façades address High Street to the north and Cornmarket to the west. Both are designed as curtain glazing to the steel frame, with a strong vertical emphasis. Symmetrically arranged metal-frame tripartite windows are separated by giant pilasters embellished with Egyptian-style capitals. These pilasters rise from the first-floor cill course through three storeys to carry the cornice at eaves level. The window bays are horizontally divided at each floor level by metal panels, enriched with rosettes and anthemions at third-floor level.

The principal north elevation facing High Street is eleven window openings wide, symmetrically arranged in three sections, each framed by a zig-zag motif. The central section has wider windows divided by mullions, and the centre of the eaves cornice is surmounted by a simple ornamental feature containing scrolled brackets and an anthemion peak. The sections to either side of the centre are each five openings wide and topped by an Art Deco panel carrying the corresponding commercial trademark: the left reads 'WOOLWORTH'S' and the right 'BURTON BUILDINGS'.

The west elevation facing Cornmarket is similarly detailed to the north: the left section is five openings wide with 'BURTON BUILDINGS' above the centre; the middle section is three openings wide with bipartite windows; and the far-right portion matches this arrangement but is angled slightly toward the south-east.

At ground floor level, both the north and west elevations comprise almost entirely glazed modern shop fronts with a deep, plain fascia over, featuring large illuminated lettering for signage (of no further architectural interest). The north-west corner is chamfered at ground floor level, with a flat-roofed intersecting porch added in recent years, also of no architectural interest.

The east elevation comprises three principal blocks. The smooth-rendered far-right block is abutted by an adjoining terrace, with a narrow passage running parallel to the elevation. The middle block is set back, with red-brick walling and bifurcated windows in projecting painted surrounds, symmetrically arranged. The left block is ruled and lined, rendered and painted at ground floor, and contains a doorway and four blocked wide openings over a continuous plinth, which were formerly windows; the upper three floors of this block have similar bifurcated windows. The south elevation is largely obscured by neighbouring buildings and comprises red-brick walls laid to English bond. A multi-storey red-brick extension abuts the right side, comprising linear flat-roofed blocks extending to a secondary façade on Ann Street. This concrete-faced elevation is five-and-a-half storeys high with symmetrically arranged metal-frame windows over a modern glazed shop front, of no further architectural interest.

Historical Context

The building occupies a site of considerable historical significance in Belfast. According to Patton, the plot was the location of the original 17th century Market House, constructed in 1639 of small red bricks. Before the erection of the Assembly Rooms on Waring Street, this was Belfast's first public hall, used as a market, a courthouse and a jail. The Methodist evangelist John Wesley preached from it on his first tour of Ireland in 1747. In 1798, leaders of the United Irish Rebellion, including Henry Joy McCracken, were executed on gallows in front of the building and their heads placed on spikes above its walls. On 1 January 1801, the first Union Flag in Ireland was hoisted on the building's flagpole following the passing of the Act of Union. The Market House was leased by Adam McClean in 1802; according to Brett, McClean was a local landowner who accumulated holdings from the Donegall family in the 1820s, acquiring good long leases at low rents which he then built up, benefiting from the second marquess's financial difficulties. McClean demolished the Market House in 1812 and replaced it with two houses.

In the 1860s, the site was acquired by Forster Green, a local tea merchant, who established a commercial warehouse there between 1865 and 1868. As recorded in the Irish Builder, the warehouse was constructed by Thomas Jackson in a classical style, incorporating plinths, pilasters and columns of Newry granite and elements of Dungannon stone. By 1918, the Belfast Street Directory records the site at nos 1–9 High Street (1918 numbering) as comprising Forster Green & Co. Ltd (nos 1–3), Simpson Bros., shirtmakers (no. 3), the King's Dining Rooms (no. 5), F. W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd (nos 5–9), and the Crown Dining Rooms at no. 11. Woolworths had first occupied premises on High Street around 1915.

In 1929, the F. W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd Construction Department of Liverpool began construction of the present building. The Annual Revisions indicate it was built in two stages between 1929 and 1930. Forster Green's former warehouse was demolished, and the western elevation was erected first; Woolworths continued to trade from their original premises — a three-storey Victorian building with a Gothic-style façade — during this initial phase of construction. Prior to its completion, the building was valued at approximately £2,419 and was noted to include a restaurant and a hairdressing saloon in addition to commercial stores. The Annual Revisions were cancelled in 1930 shortly before completion; in 1935 the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland valued the completed building at £7,482.

The building survived the 1941 Belfast Blitz unscathed. Under the Second General Revaluation, which commenced in 1956 and concluded in 1972, Burton's occupied the western five bays and Woolworths the eastern five, with the building valued at £7,480 at the close of that period.

The architect, W. R. Priddle, also carried out alterations to Woolworth's store on Grafton Street, Dublin, in 1930.

In terms of architectural character, Larmour has noted that while the building is genuinely Art Deco, it is less geometrically stark than neighbouring Belfast examples such as Sinclair House and the Bank of Ireland on Royal Avenue, observing that "the application of a kind of classical order and a stepped up parapet does not disguise the fact that this is a modern steel framed building underneath." The Art Deco movement, popular in the interwar period, was characterised by ornamentation, eclecticism and geometric forms, and unlike its predecessor Art Nouveau — which drew on the natural aesthetic — was an expression of the modern mechanical world. The Graeco-Egyptian decorative vocabulary applied here is typical of Art Deco's eclectic classicism.

The building was listed in 1994. In more recent years it has been occupied in its entirety by Dunnes Stores and converted into a single commercial property, though the Art Deco trademark panels in the cornice continue to read 'Woolworths' and 'Burtons.'

Setting

The building occupies a prominent corner site within the commercial core of Belfast, directly fronting the southern side of High Street and the eastern side of Cornmarket. Its scale ensures it dominates this corner, particularly when viewed from Castle Place. The rear extension provides secondary access from Ann Street to the south, and the left side of the rear elevation is abutted by a lower terrace of late 20th century commercial buildings. The narrow alleyway of Crown Entry, which links High Street to Ann Street, runs along the east elevation, which forms the western boundary of that passage.