6 Murray Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 5HD

6 Murray Street, Belfast is a five-storey asymmetrical end-of-terrace commercial warehouse in red brick and stone, designed by architect James A Hanna and completed in 1910. It forms part of a significant group of four similar warehouse buildings constructed between 1908 and 1911 for textile manufacturers, reflecting the growth of the handkerchief and linen weaving industries in early twentieth-century Belfast. The building is Grade B2 listed.

The building is rectangular in plan, facing east onto a cul-de-sac on the west side of College Square East. The roof sits behind a red brick parapet wall with sandstone coping. The walling is machine-made red brick laid in English garden wall bond.

The front elevation is asymmetrical and three windows wide. It features a three-tier canted oriel window to the right. The ground floor is finished in sandstone ashlar with a deep moulded cornice, raised plinth course, and two tripartite window openings. A shallow canted oriel window to the right bay is corbelled at its base with a foliate course. A voussoired round-headed door opening to the left contains three keystones and a carved panel above bearing raised lettering stating "G.McL & Co Ltd" surmounted by a scrolled pediment filled with shamrocks and the digits "1910". The doors are double-leaf timber panelled with raised-and-fielded panels, a scrolled timber head, vertical overlights, and flanking timber panels. A mosaic tiled panel on the front pavement reads "Glendinning McLeish & Co. Limited".

The upper floors have square-headed window openings with sandstone frames and moulded sandstone sills, now fitted with uPVC windows. First, second and third floor windows are bipartite to the left and quadripartite to the right. The fourth floor spans a quadripartite window comprising a series of columns with cushion capitals resting on a single bracketed sill course with frieze and cornice over. A raised section to the right is surmounted by a red brick chimneystack and features an oval window opening formed in voussoired sandstone with keystones, framed at the top by decorative brackets and a pair of decorative foliate corbels.

The south side elevation is abutted by the adjoining building (number 5 Murray Street). The north side elevation, which fronts onto the grounds of the Royal Academical Institution, is six windows wide with largely bipartite window openings with flush concrete lintel and sill courses. The west rear elevation is clad in steel sheeting.

The building was constructed for Glendinning McLeish & Co, handkerchief manufacturers, a firm established in Adelaide Street since 1886 but originating in New York in 1871, trading largely with the American market. The building entered valuation records in 1911 as a warehouse and laundry valued at £700, with warerooms on the upper floors sublet as separate holdings. The building shared space with various other organisations and businesses. As the linen industry declined from the 1950s onwards, Glendinning McLeish diversified into property and vacated the building by 1970. After a period of vacancy in the 1980s, the building has since 1990 been occupied by organisations such as the Community Relations Council and the Eastern Health and Social Services Board.

The building displays a loosely Jacobethan idiom with decorative stone detailing repeated across the adjoining buildings. However, the loss of original windows has compromised the external appearance, and a photograph from 1917 indicates considerable alteration at the roof line since construction. The building is considered among the most interesting warehouses of the Edwardian era and the years immediately following, designed by an architect of note. It forms part of a major complex reflecting the growth of the textile industry in early twentieth-century Belfast and the later changes in industrial use to office and public administration.