Bandstand Woodvale Park, Belfast, Co.Antrim, BT13 3BN

Woodvale Park Bandstand, Belfast

This square-plan bandstand, dating from 1925, is a good surviving example of a permanent outdoor performance structure. It is built from iron and timber with a brick base, and sits within Woodvale Park — a Victorian public park laid out in 1887 to designs by the English architect Josiah Corbett Bretland (1846–1921), Belfast's city surveyor, who was also responsible for the Gothic Revival sandstone gate piers and railings at the park's main entrance.

Architectural Description

The bandstand is square in plan. Its painted brick plinth has an overhang and is approached by three steps leading to a raised floor. Ten square columns support a hipped roof with a small central gable to each side. Each gable has vertical timber boarding to the apex, with timber bargeboards and soffit beneath. The roof is covered in artificial slates, and rainwater goods are uPVC. The painted timber ceiling inside is sheeted and features a central square design.

The main elevation faces west and provides the principal access point. Two square columns, one at each end, have chamfered corners and a rendered, painted white finish that conceals structural steel RSJs, which are exposed at the soffit. Between the columns are slim steel railings of approximately one metre in height. The central opening has a matching pair of double-leafed gates with steel box posts. A decorative timber fascia runs below a painted downstand, featuring an upright-and-cross design. The north, east, and south elevations are identical to the west elevation except that each has four columns to the face with railings between, and none has gates or entrance steps. The structure is open on all sides.

Setting

The bandstand stands in a grassed area to the south of the main entrance gates to Woodvale Park, off the Woodvale Road. It is approached by a tarmacadam path that circulates around it. When originally installed, the bandstand would have been surrounded by seating arranged in a horseshoe shape for the audience.

Historical Context

The Woodvale Road area was predominantly rural in character in the early 19th century, but the growth of the linen industry — which brought bleachworks, beetling mills, bleach greens, and at least ten bleaching complexes to the West Belfast area — led to the rapid urbanisation of the district. By the 1850s, rows of workers' houses had been constructed in the area, and by the mid-Victorian period the Woodvale Road had become a thriving residential suburb.

Woodvale Park was Belfast's fourth public park. Following the success of Ormeau Park — Belfast's first public park, established in 1871 under the Public Parks Act of 1869, which required towns of a certain size to provide public parks for the recreational use of the working classes — Belfast Corporation acquired the grounds of Woodville Park after advertising for land in the north-west of the town in 1886. The second edition of the Ordnance Survey map of 1858 shows that the park occupies all of the land that had formed the grounds of Woodville House. In 1887, twenty-four acres were purchased in fee from the Reverend Octavius Glover, the last occupant of Woodville, at a yearly cost of £217 13s 2d. The park was designed by Bretland, who had immediately prior to this work designed the Albert Bridge following the collapse of the previous structure, and had also been responsible for laying out Alexandra Park at around the same time.

Woodvale Park — originally to have been named Shankill Park — was scheduled to open on 18 August 1888, with the Mayor of Belfast and the Chairman of the Public Parks Committee presiding. A large crowd gathered at the gates for the ceremony, but the Mayor and Chairman failed to appear. The park was opened instead by a local councillor, who cautioned those assembled. The opening was overshadowed by recent events at Alexandra Park, which had been closed shortly after its own opening in 1887 owing to excessive vandalism of the grounds.

When first opened, Woodvale Park was considered too small and insufficiently equipped for the number of people who used it. In 1900 it was enlarged by a quarter of an acre, and over subsequent years a number of features were added to what had initially been a fairly featureless park, including a pond on the east side (now filled in and replaced with a children's playground), a greenhouse in 1899, and the bandstand in 1925.

The Public Parks Committee had permitted musical performances in Belfast's public parks from the 1870s. By the 1880s, local and military bands were playing regularly in Ormeau Park and Botanic Gardens, and following the Belfast Corporation Act of 1899, annual funds not exceeding £250 were allocated for the maintenance of a band for the parks. The first bandstands erected in the parks were temporary wooden structures, but during the 1920s these were replaced with permanent stands. The Woodvale Park bandstand was erected in 1925 to a standard design; an identical bandstand was erected the same year in the Botanic Gardens. By the 1960s, outdoor band performances across Belfast's parks were organised by the Northern Ireland Bands Association. All band performances in Falls Park were suspended in 1967 owing to hostility towards bands that played the national anthem, and the general popularity of outdoor band performances declined from the 1970s onward.

Woodvale Park was listed in 1987 and underwent a £2 million restoration and reorganisation of its grounds in 2013. The bandstand has continued to be used intermittently for public performances and was found to be in a good state of repair at the time of the Second Survey field inspection. Despite some alterations, it retains group value with the other listed structures within the park. It is an increasingly rare type of structure and forms an important part of the area's social and cultural history.