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

Detached red brick office building of around 1885, with an associated red sandstone ashlar gabled arch, located on the north side of Crumlin Road in Belfast. The extent of the listing covers the building, wall, arch and setts.

HISTORY AND CONTEXT

The building was constructed as offices around 1885 at the entrance to the building yard of James Henry & Sons, a highly successful contracting firm responsible for some of Belfast's most well-known structures, including Bank Buildings, both the Presbyterian and Methodist churches at Carlisle Circus, the Albert Bridge and the Reform Club. The firm had been founded by Hugh Henry around 1830, and the Crumlin Road site was first established after 1857. By the time the current offices were built, the founder's son James Henry — who had resided at 'Albertville' — had recently died (his will is dated 17th February 1882), and the firm had passed to his sons Robert Boyd Henry and Hugh Henry. Robert Boyd Henry was a Justice of the Peace and an active member of the Belfast Master Builders' Association and the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, as well as a keen sportsman who belonged to the Royal Ulster Yacht Club, the North of Ireland Cricket Club and the County Down Stag Hunt.

The plot, shown as vacant on the large-scale town plan of 1883–4, was adjacent to the premises of John Henry & Co to the west and was fully developed by 1901–3, with the present building shown beside the entrance to the builder's yard and terraced housing on either side. The site was leased from John Blakiston-Houston. The building appears in the valuation fieldbook dating from 1882–96, listed as part of a holding comprising land, a coachman's house, offices, workshops, shed and builder's yard, with an initial valuation of £102 that rose continually from 1884 onwards, reaching £450 in 1899, reflecting ongoing development of the site.

The Belfast revaluation of 1900 provides a detailed plan showing that in addition to the current office building, the yard contained a paint shop, stables, a stone sawing shed housing a powerful Robey steam engine of 20 horsepower, a machine room, mortar mill, joiner's shop, sawmill, smithy, engine house, boiler house and plant store. Several cranes in the yard allowed heavy materials — particularly stone obtained from the firm's own quarries at Scrabo — to be handled on site. Sheds for the seasoning of timber held a large stock of wood that could be sawed, planed and moulded on site. The firm employed around 400 hands on and off the Crumlin Road site. The firm was well placed to profit from Belfast's rapid late 19th-century expansion, particularly the construction of large numbers of red brick terraces on the outskirts of the city.

The premises was taken over by W M Wilton in 1934, a business operating as a funeral furnisher, florist, monumental sculptor and carrier, which remained in the building until 1990. Since 1991 the site has been occupied by Stewarts Carpet Warehouse, with the current building in use as the offices and warehouse of Brian Barrett Signs.

EXTERIOR

The building is rectangular on plan, facing south, with a front walled area and a large tarmac-paved rear yard. The flat roof is not visible from street level. A rendered chimney stack rises from the east elevation and a further red brick chimney stack 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 walls are red brick 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, square-headed, with bull-nosed reveals and original timber casement windows.

The front elevation is three bays wide with a central door opening. Windows are grouped in threes to the west bay and in pairs to the east bay. Ground floor window openings are shoulder-headed and surmounted by round-headed panels formed in bull-nosed voussoired sandstone and red brick, with plain sandstone label mouldings with carved stops. The door opening is three-centred arched, with a compound moulded sandstone and red brick surround housing a square-headed door opening with a bowtel surround, a sandstone lintel, a hardwood door with 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 at ground floor level, with bipartite timber casement windows, some retaining original leaded stained glazing with swivel panels. Three first-floor windows are aligned above, with the exception of the north end, where the wall shows signs of having been rebuilt.

The rear elevation has a paired window to the first floor right and a window to the left, all with stop-chamfered concrete lintels and sills and replacement timber windows. There is a central square-headed door opening with an original timber panelled door and rectangular overlight, and a large carriage arch to the workshop at the left side with a flat arch head.

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

THE ARCH AND BOUNDARY WALL

Abutting the southwest corner of the front elevation is a short red brick screen wall with stone coping and three blind panels, connecting to the gabled arch. The arch is double-height, three-centred, and built in coursed squared red sandstone ashlar, surmounted by a moulded coping and a ball finial. A square panel to the gable contains two pieces of carved timber. The arch has a hood moulding with a bull-nosed surround and moulded plinths with cast-iron wheel-guards. To either side of the arch is a large scrolled sandstone bracket with volute carving, resting on red brick walls. The wall to the west is terminated by a tall red brick pier with a sandstone capstone. Replacement steel gates open into a short stretch of lane retaining original setts and an iron weighbridge.

To the rear, the arch is abutted by a pair of stepped buttresses, and a flat-roofed single-storey red brick structure encloses the lane to the west, built around 1950.

INTERIOR

Much historic fabric survives, though interior detail has been lost.

SETTING

The building sits on the north side of Crumlin Road with a small front area enclosed by a replacement red brick wall and a tarmac drive running along the east side elevation, opening into a large tarmac yard lined with late 20th-century industrial structures. The arch opens into a further paved yard in separate ownership.