259 Crumlin Road, Belfast, Co Antrim, BT14 7DY

Detached redbrick office building dating from circa 1885, located on the north side of Crumlin Road in Belfast. The building is accompanied by a distinctive red sandstone ashlar gabled arch with associated features.

The main building is rectangular in plan, facing south, with a front walled area and a large bitumac paved rear yard. It has a flat roof with rendered chimneystack rising from the east elevation and a further redbrick chimneystack from the west elevation. Guttering is hidden behind a decorative sandstone carved drip cornice on a moulded brick eaves course, which returns to the side elevations. Cast-iron hoppers and downpipes break through the brick parapet to the rear and side elevations.

The redbrick walls are laid in Flemish bond with a projecting brick plinth course, flush sandstone courses, and continuous sandstone sill courses to both floors. Window openings are gauged brick with square heads, bull-nosed reveals, and original timber casement windows. The front elevation is three windows wide with a central door opening. Windows are grouped in threes to the west bay and in pairs to the east bay. Ground floor windows have shoulder-headed openings surmounted by round-headed panels formed in bull-nosed voussoired sandstone and redbrick with plain sandstone label mouldings and carved stops.

The central door opening has a three-centred arch with a compound moulded sandstone and redbrick surround, containing a square-headed door opening with bowtel surround and sandstone lintel. The hardwood door has nine raised-and-fielded panels, a large plain-glazed overlight, and a hood moulding with label stops. The door opens onto two concrete steps.

The west side elevation is four pairs of camber-headed windows wide on the ground floor with bipartite timber casement windows, some retaining original leaded stained glazing with swivel panels. Three first floor windows are aligned above, except at the north end where the wall shows signs of having been rebuilt. The rear elevation has paired windows to the first floor right and a window to the left, all with stop-chamfered concrete lintels and sills and replacement timber windows. A central square-headed door opening with original timber panelled door and rectangular overlight leads to the rear. A large carriage arch to a workshop is positioned at the left side with a flat arch head.

The east side elevation is rendered in pebbledash cement with a pair of window openings to the first floor and a door opening to the ground floor.

Abutting the southwest corner of the front elevation is a short redbrick screen wall with stone coping and three blind panels, connecting to the gabled arch beyond. The gabled arch is a double-height three-centred structure built in coursed squared red sandstone ashlar, surmounted by moulded coping and a ball finial. A square panel in the gable contains two pieces of carved timber. The arch has a hood moulding with bull-nosed surround and moulded plinths with cast-iron wheel-guards. Either side of the arch are large scrolled sandstone brackets with volute carving resting on redbrick walls. The wall to the west terminates in a tall redbrick pier with sandstone capstone. Replacement steel gates open into a short stretch of lane with original setts and an iron weighbridge. To the rear, the arch is abutted by a pair of stepped buttresses with a flat-roofed single-storey redbrick structure enclosing the lane to the west, built circa 1950.

The building is set on the north side of Crumlin Road with a small front area enclosed by a replacement redbrick wall and a bitumac drive along the east side elevation, opening into a large bitumac yard lined with late twentieth-century industrial structures. The arch opens into a further paved yard in different ownership.