6 McMaster Street, Belfast, County Antrim, BT5 4HP

No. 6 McMaster Street is a two-storey-with-attic, single-bay terraced house built around 1896–1898, forming part of a complete late Victorian street in the Ballymacarrett area of East Belfast. It was built by John McMaster to designs by J. Frazer and Son, architects active in Belfast from the 1890s through to the early 20th century, who also designed comparable terraced streets including Chadwick Street and Meadowbank Place.

The roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles, a central rooflight window on the west slope, and a modern red brick chimney stack to the south side. Painted ogee-profile cast-iron rainwater goods are supported on a projecting polychromatic brick eaves course set on an ovolo-moulded corbel course. The walls are English garden-wall bonded red brick, laid with alternating courses of headers and stretchers, and feature three polychromatic brick string courses, including a continuous brick and sill course at first floor level, with decorative detailing above the first floor windows. All polychromatic brickwork is now painted, with the exception of the brickwork above the first floor windows. The windows are replacement uPVC casements and the door is also a replacement uPVC unit; both windows and door are set within camber-headed reveals with polychromatic brick chamfered reveals and voussoirs, and projecting masonry sills.

The principal (west) elevation faces onto McMaster Street. The entrance door is positioned to the left and comprises a replacement uPVC glazed door with a square-headed transom light, accessed via a terracotta-tiled threshold. A window sits to the right of the entrance, and two further windows are set at first floor level, offset slightly to the right. The north gable abuts No. 4 McMaster Street. The south gable abuts No. 8 McMaster Street. The rear (east) elevation is abutted to the right by a single-storey flat-roof extension; the remainder of the rear elevation was not accessible or visible at the time of survey.

Because John McMaster's land was wedge-shaped, the terraces were built progressively narrower towards the south end of the street. No. 6, situated at the north end of the eastern terrace, is consequently one of the larger houses on the street and has one of the larger rear yards.

The house is set directly onto a wide pavement with granite kerbs. The street, formerly cobbled, is now largely concrete surfaced, with small areas of original cobbling remaining at each end. Original lamp posts and electric light fittings survive along the street, these having originally been gas lights. Original tiled street signage is present at both the north and south ends. To the rear, the yards are enclosed by high-level stretcher-bonded modern red brick walling with a painted, vertically-sheeted timber entrance door at the centre, accessed via a narrow entry running north–south between the back yards of Lendrick Street and McMaster Street.

The houses on McMaster Street were among the first late Victorian industrial terraces in Belfast to be built to new housing and planning regulations specifically intended to improve living standards for working-class people. As a result they were amongst the earliest such terraces to be supplied with running water, flushable toilets — made possible by the construction of a new city drainage system — and piped gas lighting. Electricity was not introduced to the street until the 1930s.

No. 6 first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map for Belfast in 1902, which at that time showed only nos. 6 to 14 on the eastern terrace. Belfast Street Directories indicate that the western terrace (nos. 1–37) was constructed in 1898, while nos. 16–52 on the eastern terrace were not added until 1908.

The first recorded occupant was Mr. William John Galloway, a 48-year-old Methodist engine-works machine man, confirmed by the Annual Revisions and the 1901 Census. In 1899 the house was valued at £10 10s. and was let by John McMaster to Galloway at a monthly rent of £1 8s. 4d. (£17 annually). The 1900 Belfast revaluation recorded the house as two storeys with attic, measuring 13.6 feet wide by 25 feet deep and 24 feet in height, fitted with gas lighting, and estimated to have cost £131 to construct. The 1901 census classified it as a first-class dwelling with eight rooms; by 1911 it was recorded as a second-class dwelling with seven rooms, a reclassification repeated across nos. 6–14.

The subsequent occupants of No. 6 were predominantly employed in the nearby shipyards or ropeworks industries. In 1907, Henry McNeill, a shipyard plater, came into possession of the house and remained until 1910. The 1911 census records a widowed Mrs. Wallace living there with four sons, each employed in the shipyards as an iron turner, patternmaker, boilermaker, and engine smith respectively. The next occupant, Mr. John Brownlie, was also employed in the yards. By 1930 the valuation remained at £10 10s., rising to £14 10s. in the First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland in 1935, when a Mr. D. McKee was in possession. McKee remained through the 1930s, and in 1940 a Mr. James McKee, a labourer, was recorded as occupant.

McMaster Street escaped damage during the 1941 Belfast Blitz, when the Luftwaffe targeted the Belfast shipyards and caused widespread destruction to buildings and residential terraces along the Newtownards Road. Following the war, the second revaluation of Northern Ireland property recorded that ownership of the street had passed from John McMaster to an L. McMaster (an unknown relative), and that No. 6 had increased in value to £15. Later occupants included Mr. William Grierson, a civil servant, living there in the 1960s, and William J. Dawson, recorded as resident between at least 1970 and 1990, who was employed as a plater during the declining years of the shipbuilding industry.

During the 1970s the Ballymacarrett area was extensively redeveloped, with many red brick terraces similar to McMaster Street demolished. McMaster Street survived intact, and in 1987 No. 6 was listed along with the rest of the terrace. The neighbourhood was designated a conservation area by the Department of the Environment in 1994. No. 6 has group value with the other listed buildings in McMaster Street and is of local interest.