26 College Gardens, Belfast

26 College Gardens, Belfast is a Grade B1 listed building. It is an end-terrace, three-storey townhouse over basement with attic, constructed in 1882 from red brick in the late Victorian period. The architect is unknown. The building forms part of a symmetrical block of four properties (Nos. 23, 24, 25 and 26 College Gardens), with Nos. 24 and 25 mirroring each other and the wider properties Nos. 23 and 26 terminating in gabled ends. It is located towards the west end of College Gardens, a tree-lined street of similarly scaled townhouses that runs from Malone Road to Lisburn Road, and sits within the Queens Conservation Area. The building faces south and overlooks the grounds of Methodist College.

The front elevation presents an Italianate style with Classical proportions, asymmetrically composed. It features an aedicule at the entrance to the right and a single-storey bowed bay with five windows and an openwork parapet to the left. The entire ground floor is rendered in painted stucco; red brick walling rises above with moulded stucco dressings, including continuous projecting cills at first and second floors. Three windows occupy each of the upper floors, diminishing in height, all with segmental arches. Plain stucco surrounds with projecting hoods (pedimented to the middle window; shallow pitched to the side windows) adorn the first floor. The second floor windows have moulded stucco surrounds with corresponding brackets below the cill course. A projecting base plinth with moulded top, cill, head and cornice and plain frieze embellishes the bowed bay. The entrance doorway features a timber-framed four-panelled door with plain overlight, bolection moulding to fielded and pitched panels, flanked by Corinthian-style pilasters, and topped by a deep moulded pediment with foliated tympanum bearing the date '1882'. Toothed quoins mark the southwest corner.

The wall construction uses red brick in Flemish bond with painted moulded stucco dressings on the south and west elevations. The rear employs English Garden Wall bond. The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. Two large red brick chimneys, both with rendered bases and clay pots, rise from the building: one is shared with No. 25 (partly replaced), centred on the ridge with a simple corbelled brick cap; the other is centred on the gable end with a moulded cap, possibly in reconstituted stone. Three conservation roof lights sit on the front pitch and one on the rear pitch. The eaves are projecting moulded stucco with fluted corbel brackets on a plain frieze band to the front (painted).

Windows are replacement timber double-glazed slim double-hung sliding sashes with 1/1 panes; those on the north-facing elevation have a central bead applied to resemble 2/2 panes. The rainwater goods comprise replacement metal in ogee-profiled gutter and square-section downpipe to the south; half-round gutter and circular-section downpipes to the north and return.

The north elevation overlooks Elmwood Mews and is plainly detailed by comparison to the front. It features red brick with soldier courses above flat-arched windows, a single row of brick headers at the projecting eaves and simple stone cills. The return face of the corbelled eaves is painted. One window each at ground, first and second floors diminishes in height. Toothed quoins (painted) return from the front façade to the west elevation, which is the gable end. This largely blank face displays a projecting moulded bargeboard on corbelled brackets to the north and south sides, each with a small round-arched attic window near the eaves.

A substantial flat-roofed extension was added to the rear (north) around 2013. This structure spans the full width of the site along the north boundary and rises to two storeys over basement. Adjacent to the original building, the extension steps back in plan to match the footprint of the rear return it replaced. A full-height shadow gap forms at the junction between the original building and extension. The extension is fenestrated to the west with large square-headed openings informally arranged and overlooks a private terrace. A lift shaft extends beyond the parapet, clad in polyester powder-coated profiled metal in a dark colour to tie in with the original slate roof. The east face of the extension is blank and stepped in height from north to south, with the lift shaft extending beyond the parapet as described.

A metal gate and modern brick walling were added to the southwest corner ground floor in conjunction with the 2013 extension.

The building is set back from the tree-lined street by a small square of 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, a shared alley running the full length of College Gardens and connected to Elmwood Avenue.

The building is currently used as a home-from-home facility, set up by a charitable organisation.