26 College Gardens, Belfast

26 College Gardens is an end-of-terrace, three-storey over basement red brick late Victorian townhouse, built in 1882 by an unknown architect. It forms the western end of a symmetrically arranged block of four single-fronted townhouses, the other three being Nos. 23, 24 and 25 College Gardens. Within the block, No. 24 mirrors No. 25, while Nos. 23 and 26 are the wider, gable-ended properties at each end. The building sits towards the western end of College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled townhouses running between Malone Road and Lisburn Road, within the Queens Conservation Area. The houses face south and overlook the grounds of Methodist College. The street developed from east to west and illustrates the evolving architectural styles of the period, though the terrace reads as a unified whole in terms of height and scale. The building is currently used as a support centre and home-from-home facility for families of children receiving cancer treatment at nearby Belfast City Hospital, operated by a charitable organisation.

EXTERIOR

The front (south) elevation is Italianate in style with classical proportions. The entire ground floor is finished in painted stucco, with red brick walling above and moulded stucco dressings throughout, including continuous projecting cills at first and second floor levels. The composition is asymmetrical: to the right is an aedicule framing the entrance, and to the left a single-storey bowed bay with five windows and an openwork parapet. This bowed bay has a projecting base plinth with moulded top, cill, head and cornice with a plain frieze. There are three windows at each of the upper floors, diminishing in height, all with segmental arches. At first floor level these have plain stucco surrounds and projecting hoods — pedimented to the middle window and shallow-pitched to the side windows. At second floor level the surrounds are moulded stucco with corresponding brackets below the cill course. The entrance doorcase is flanked by Corinthian-style pilasters and topped by a deep moulded pediment with a foliated tympanum bearing the date '1882'. The door itself is a timber-framed four-panelled design with bolection moulding to fielded and pitched panels, and a plain overlight. Toothed quoins mark the south-west corner, abutted at ground floor level by a simple metal gate and modern brick walling added in conjunction with the 2013 extension.

The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. There are three conservation rooflights to the front pitch and one to the rear. Two large red brick chimneys are present: one, shared with No. 25, is centred on the ridge with a simple corbelled brick cap and has been partially replaced; the other, centred on the gable end, has a moulded cap, possibly in reconstituted stone. Both have rendered bases with several clay pots. Projecting moulded stucco eaves with fluted corbel brackets on a plain frieze band run across the front elevation. Rainwater goods to the south elevation are replacement metal with ogee-profiled guttering and square-section downpipes; the north elevation and return have half-round guttering and circular-section downpipes.

The walls are red brick in Flemish bond with painted moulded stucco dressings to the south and west elevations, English Garden Wall bond to the rear north elevation, and stretcher bond red brick to the extension. Windows throughout are replacement timber double-glazed slim double-hung sliding sashes with 1/1 panes; north-facing windows have a central bead applied to give the appearance of 2/2 panes.

The west gable is largely blank, with projecting moulded bargeboards on corbelled brackets to the far north and south sides, each with a small round-arched attic window near the eaves. Toothed quoins, painted, are returned from the front façade. The chimney is centred on the apex as described above.

The north elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews — a shared service alley running the full length of College Gardens and connected to Elmwood Avenue — and is almost entirely obscured by the 2013 extension. Where the original north elevation is partially exposed, it is plainly detailed in comparison to the front: red brick with soldier courses above flat-arched windows, a single row of brick headers at the projecting eaves, and simple stone cills. There is one window at each of ground, first and second floor levels, diminishing in height. The return face of the corbelled eaves at the far right (west) side is painted.

No. 25 abuts the east elevation, which is therefore unexposed.

THE 2013 EXTENSION

A substantial flat-roofed extension was added to the rear (north) of the building in approximately 2013, to designs by McGonigle McGrath Architects. It spans the full width of the site along the north boundary and is two storeys over basement in height. Adjacent to the original building, the extension steps back in plan to match the footprint of the rear return it replaced, at which point a full-height shadow gap marks the junction between old and new. The extension is fenestrated to the west with large square-headed openings, informally arranged; the east face is blank and steps in height from north to south. A lift shaft extends beyond the parapet on both the north and east elevations, clad in dark polyester powder-coated profiled metal chosen to relate in tone to the original slate roof. The west face of the extension is blank at the north end; the stepped-back portion has large square openings at ground, first and second floor levels overlooking a private terrace. The extension uses red brick in stretcher bond. Though undeniably large in scale, the juxtaposition between original building and extension is considered well handled, with the quality of detailing on the modern addition echoing that of the historic fabric.

SETTING

The building is set back from the street behind small square-set pavers defining off-street parking spaces on the south side of College Gardens. A polished concrete step leads to a lawn enclosed by low box hedging. Mature hedging aligns the boundary with the adjacent front garden of No. 25. The rear extension overlooks Elmwood Mews.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

College Gardens, originally known as College Gardens Avenue, occupies land that before the early 19th century formed part of a series of strip farms running from what is now the Malone and University Roads to the Bog Meadows, probably laid out in the early 17th century. The integrity of these farms was disrupted by the cutting of the Lisburn Road in 1816–19 and the construction of the Ulster Railway in 1837–39. Around the same time, greater security of tenure from the Donegall estate led to the gentrification of what remained, with the creation of small country villas and the laying out of small demesnes within the formerly farmed plots. The land immediately to the 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 — on this latter occasion by John Riddell, a Belfast ironmonger. The construction of Queen's College a short distance to the north-east in 1845 triggered the suburbanisation of the area, and in 1865 Vermont was sold for the development of Methodist College, completed in 1868. A new private avenue was laid out on the lower ground to its immediate north, with building plots on the northern side. Development of the street proceeded from east to west: Nos. 1–6 were built in 1871, Nos. 7–18 in 1877, Nos. 33 and 34 in 1879, Nos. 19–22 in 1881, Nos. 23–26 in 1882, and Nos. 27–32 in 1883. The developer of everything from No. 11 to No. 32 appears to have been the Reverend George Cron, then minister of the Evangelical Union Church in Wellington Place.

The first street directory entry for No. 26, in 1887, records the occupant as John Elliott, a linen manufacturer. He was followed by Captain W. H. Dick-Cunyngham of the Gordon Highlanders around 1889, W. H. Arbuthnot, a solicitor, around 1891, John Bennett around 1899, and Thomas F. Mackie, described as a 'machine manufacturer', in 1901. The 1901 census records Mackie living there with a domestic servant in a house with 14 rooms in use. Mrs C. L. Mackie is recorded as occupant until 1910, after which the house appears to have stood vacant for a time, being absent from the 1911 census. J. E. McIlwaine, a medical doctor, is noted as resident in 1918, and another doctor, Sir Thomas Houston, around 1928. In 1947 the architects' practice Thomas T. Houston & Co. — possibly connected to the former occupant — moved into the property. Later known as Houston & Bell, and then Houston, Bell & Kennedy, the firm began sharing the building with two other businesses in the late 1970s: initially John Howard & Co., described as packaging representatives, and The Design Group, chartered architects. Houston, Bell & Kennedy continued to occupy the building into the 2000s. In 2015 the building was converted to its current use as a support centre with accommodation for families of children being treated for cancer at nearby Belfast City Hospital, as part of a major refurbishment that included the addition of the large rear extension.