34 College Gardens, Belfast

34 College Gardens is a single-storey with attic gate lodge in the high Victorian style, built in 1879 to designs by John Lanyon of Lanyon, Lynn & Lanyon. It was constructed as a porter's lodge serving the western drive off Lisburn Road to Methodist College, Belfast, and is an asymmetrical red brick building of considerable architectural character.

The building is rectangular on plan, with an approximately 1960s single-storey flat-roofed extension to the northeast. The main roof is formed by intersecting gables covered in Bangor Blue natural slates with bands of Westmoreland Green slate laid in a fish-scale pattern. A stair tower at the north corner is surmounted by a conical roof in the same fish-scale slate, capped by a simple iron finial. The single-storey canted bay to the College Gardens elevation has a hipped roof in the same treatment, with decorative lead flashing at the abutment. Ridge tiles are red terracotta crested, with sandstone copings to the raised verges and trefoil-carved gablets at the kneelers; the apex stones are plain. Twin octagonal dressed sandstone chimneys are set at 90 degrees to the main gable. A continuous dressed sandstone corbelled eaves course runs around the building, with replacement metal profiled gutters discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond with sandstone dressings. The northwest and southeast elevations each carry a quatrefoil dressed sandstone plaque bearing the monogram 'WCB' for Wesleyan Methodist College. Ground floor openings are shouldered; attic windows are trefoil-arched and centred on the gables, paired on the northwest and southeast elevations and divided by dwarf sandstone columns. The columns and surrounds to all openings have been largely repaired with cement render, replacing what are presumed to have been sandstone surrounds matching those that survive to the stair turret. Relieving arches in red brick soldier or header courses sit above all openings. A continuous plat band runs at impost level to the ground floor windows, and a chamfered base plinth, now entirely covered in cement render, runs at the base of the walls.

The windows are a mixture of coloured and lattice leaded single-glazed fixed lights over replacement side-hung timber-framed double-glazed casements, except where noted otherwise. The original attic window to the southwest elevation retains a metal-framed hopper below a fixed light. The stair tower has three slot windows: one retains its original leaded glass but is boarded up on the inside; another remains open but is fitted with translucent glass; and the third is blocked up entirely.

The principal entrance is on the northwest elevation facing Lisburn Road. The entrance door is diagonally sheeted timber with decorative cast iron brackets and a lion-head knocker, possibly original. It opens onto a sandstone step, with a path of concrete paving slabs leading to the gate onto College Gardens. A stepped buttress stands to the right of the entrance door, with an original leaded light set into the recess beside it. A window sits to the left of the door, with an attic window aligned directly above. The southwest elevation is gabled, with a symmetrically placed single-storey canted bay whose sandstone cornice to the eaves survives, though the elevation is otherwise fully rendered in cement. The bay has three windows without overlights, and one attic window above. The southeast elevation mirrors the principal elevation but has no door. The northeast elevation is largely obscured by the flat-roofed extension, which spans the full width of the gable in matching red brick Flemish bond; the original segmental-headed door on this face has been completely blocked up and cement rendered, and a uPVC side-hung double-glazed casement window occupies the chamfered corner.

The interior has been modernised, though some historic detailing remains. The original plan is largely intact, with interesting changes of level. A major refurbishment carried out in 1986–87 included reslating the roof and turret on new timber battens, replacing lead flashings, replacing rainwater goods in cast aluminium, replastering the plinth in sand and cement, and removing all ground floor timber — including floor joists and boards, skirting boards, architraves and doors — replacing them with a solid floor construction with an injected damp-proof course. Chimney pots were replaced to match the existing in 2005 and windows were replaced in 2006.

The building is set back from the road with lawns to its northwest and southwest. Mature hedging lines the perimeter along these frontages and also forms the southeast boundary with the neighbouring property. A mix of metal and timber fencing separates the property from a tarmacked car park to the northeast. The gate lodge sits within the Queens Conservation Area and has significant group value with Methodist College itself, McArthur Hall, and the sandstone gate screen to the western entrance, together forming a striking architectural set piece embracing the length of College Gardens.

The lodge occupies land that, before the early 19th century, formed part of a series of strip farms running from what are now Malone and University Roads towards the Bog Meadows. These were probably laid out in the early 17th century, but the cutting of the Lisburn Road between 1816 and 1819 and the construction of the Ulster Railway between 1837 and 1839 broke up their integrity. Around the same period, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of what remained, with small country villas and demesnes created within the old farm plots. The land immediately north and south of College Gardens belonged to one such villa, 'Vermont', a pre-1770 house possibly rebuilt or enlarged around 1815 and enlarged again in the 1840s by Belfast ironmonger John Riddell. The construction of Queen's College to the northeast in 1845 set off the suburbanisation of the area, and in 1865 Vermont was sold for the building of Methodist College, completed in 1868. A new private avenue was laid out on the lower ground to the immediate north, with building plots on the northern side. Development proceeded from the eastern end: present numbers 1–6 were built in 1871, numbers 7–18 in 1877, numbers 33 and 34 in 1879, numbers 19–22 in 1881, numbers 23–26 in 1882, and numbers 27–32 in 1883.

The tender notice for the gate lodge was advertised in September 1878 and the building was occupied the following year by a Henry Crawford, listed in the 1880 street directory as a gardener, suggesting his role encompassed care of the college grounds. He remained until around 1893, when J. Baillie is recorded as occupant, listed as sexton of University Road Methodist Church — an establishment with obvious links to the College and to the neighbouring building at number 33 College Gardens, which originally served as that church's manse. William J. Wallace took over the position in 1900; the 1901 census records him living in the lodge with his wife Jane, their young daughter and his father, the lodge being described as a second-class dwelling containing five rooms. David Ringland followed as resident, describing himself as a general labourer in the 1911 census; by that date the house was recorded as having four rooms, and his wife Mary Jane and two grown-up sons are also listed as living there. John Fisher (described as caretaker) had become householder by around 1915, followed by William Whyte by around 1922, and J. H. Lunney (land steward) by around 1930. Lunney was still in residence in 1943, succeeded by J. J. Philips (janitor) by 1951, who was in turn followed by J. McLaughlin later in that decade. McLaughlin was still there in 1974, but by 1980 the building is recorded in the directory as a student residence. By 1996 it was still noted as such in the directory, though it was actually occupied by the college cook at that point. Since around 2000 the property has been rented out as a private residence.

The building has lost some of its finer external details and embellishments, including finials, and cement render has been applied over most of the sandstone dressings. Photographic evidence indicates this was carried out before 1974, possibly in the 1960s, at the same time as the flat-roofed rear extension was added. The poor replacement windows and areas of cement render repair detract from the building's character.