St Patrick's Parochial House, 199 Donegall Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 2FL

St Patrick's Parochial House, 199 Donegall Street, Belfast

This is a three-storey red brick Georgian terraced parochial house dating from around 1820, constructed as a stand-alone dwelling rather than as part of a terrace — an unusual distinction among the surviving Georgian buildings in Belfast city centre. It is one of the earliest buildings still standing in the city and forms part of a rare surviving group of Georgian and early Victorian buildings on Donegall Street. It predates the adjoining St Patrick's Church, which was rebuilt in the mid-Victorian period, and its history as a Bishop's Palace gives it particular historical significance.

Architectural Description

The roof is covered in Bangor Blue slates with blue clay ridge tiles, corbelled red brick chimneys with red clay pots, and cast iron rainwater goods. The front elevation to Donegall Street is built in red brick laid in Flemish bond with corbelled eaves. The upper two floors are four bays wide; the ground floor is three bays wide. At second-floor level, the windows have simple moulded architraves and projecting cills. At first-floor level the windows are similar but sit above a continuous cill course. At ground floor the windows are tripartite and set within segmental-headed openings. All windows are plastic with mid-rails, a later replacement.

The central doorcase is slightly recessed, with plain Ionic columns on bases supporting an entablature and moulded surround, above which is a five-petal spiderweb fanlight. The front door itself is clad in polished brass with moulded panels at the top and bottom, matching ironmongery and a nameplate. The brass door is a well-known feature of the building and was installed in 1951 at a cost of £38, described at the time as the only one of its kind in Belfast.

The rear elevation comprises a complex of a three-storey return and a two-storey outshot, the latter with a chamfered corner at ground floor level. The return elements are built in a brighter brick than the original rear elevation, with cast iron rainwater goods and similar plastic windows.

The east elevation was built before the tightly adjacent church now stands alongside it, and as a result the view of this elevation is restricted. It is three storeys high and five bays long with a central doorcase. The windows are all plastic with mid-rails and plastered reveals. The doorcase has a deep panelled reveal, a slender moulded surround, sidelights, and a segmental spiderweb fanlight above a slender doorhead.

Evidence of Two Phases of Construction

A change in the brickwork on the front elevation indicates two separate dates of construction. This is echoed internally by a slight change in floor levels along the spine wall separating the east side of the house from the central staircase. Because the building predates the present church, it is likely that the east elevation was originally the principal front elevation, with its entrance opening onto the churchyard. When the much larger Gothic Revival church was built alongside it in 1874–77, this original entrance was effectively blocked off, and the current orientation facing Donegall Street was established at that time. Notably, the original east-facing Georgian doorcase was not removed and can still be found in the narrow alley between the church and the parochial house.

Interior

Much historic fabric and detailing survive internally. The 1901 Census building return described the building as a first-class dwelling containing sixteen inhabited rooms.

Historical Background

St Patrick's Parochial House was erected sometime before 1830, when the Townland Valuation recorded it as a three-storey dwelling valued at £44, occupied by the Right Reverend Dr Cornelius Denvir, the Roman Catholic Lord Bishop of Down and Connor. The building is believed to have been constructed in the 1820s, with the Right Reverend William Crolly (Bishop 1825–1835) recorded as having overseen its construction and as its first occupant.

The building predates the present church but is closely associated with the original St Patrick's Chapel, which stood on the same site. That chapel was only the second Roman Catholic church to be built in Belfast, constructed between 1810 and 1812 to a design by Patrick Davis — the first having been St Mary's Chapel on Chapel Lane, erected in 1783. Davis is also credited with designing the neighbouring national schoolhouse in 1828 and is considered the likely architect of the parochial house, though no documentary confirmation survives. The chapel was conceived not for the poorer Catholics of the parish — who were encouraged to continue attending St Mary's — but for the emerging middle classes, and the substantial three-storey Bishop's Palace was erected immediately adjacent to it in keeping with those ambitions. The original chapel was demolished in 1875 to make way for the current cruciform Gothic Revival church, but the Georgian parochial house was retained.

George Benn's 1822 map of Belfast shows a building on the current site of the parochial house on the north side of the original church, though an illustration of around 1823 published in Brett's Georgian Belfast, 1750–1850 suggests this was an earlier property and not the parochial house as it now stands. The parochial house as it exists today had certainly been built by around 1830.

By the 1843 Belfast Street Directory the building was recorded as the Bishop's Palace, occupied by Bishop Denvir and six other priests. It was also used as a residence for teachers of the neighbouring schoolhouse; in 1852 a Mr Edward Kelly, a professor of Classics and Mathematics, was recorded as residing there alongside the priests. By Griffith's Valuation of 1859 the property was valued at £54 and noted as being owned outright by the church. Following Bishop Denvir's death in 1865, occupation passed to successive Lord Bishops of Down and Connor: the Right Reverend Patrick Dorrian (1865–1885), the Right Reverend Patrick MacAlister (1886–1895), and the Right Reverend Henry Henry (1895–1908).

By 1900 the Belfast Revaluation increased the rateable value to £80. A valuer at that time noted that the dwelling was not of sufficiently high quality to merit a high valuation rating, remarking that he did not believe the presbytery worth more than £100 a year as a residence and that it was much less valuable than a parochial residence in a poor residential area. Despite this assessment, the 1901 Census described it as a first-class dwelling with sixteen inhabited rooms. By 1900 the former Bishop's Palace had ceased to function as the bishop's official residence and was used solely as a parochial house, a function it has continued to serve to the present day.

Under the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935 the value was increased to £105, with a Reverend Joseph Byrne recorded as the parish priest, though other priests certainly resided there. Following the disruption of the Second World War the value was reduced to £96, at which it remained by the conclusion of the second revaluation in 1972.

Setting

The building forms part of a rare surviving group of Georgian and early Victorian buildings on Donegall Street, ranging from Clifton House to St Patrick's School, and is contiguous with the early Victorian terrace at 201–205 Donegall Street. C. E. B. Brett described it as "a handsome box-like three storey brick house in the country rectory tradition, possessing a rather naïve doorcase of Ionic pillars, a fanlight, and a truly remarkable (modern) brass front door." He also observed that of the Georgian dwellings remaining in Belfast city centre, almost all form part of a terrace, making St Patrick's Parochial House one of the rare exceptions as a freestanding building of its type and period.

The building was listed in 1985. Known alterations include the installation of the brass front door in 1951, the replacement of windows with plastic units, and the ground-floor arches, which have been suggested as not original.