56-70 Castle Street Belfast BT1 1HD

Substantial red-brick corner block of three storeys, built around 1927–28, possibly to designs by David Wright Boyd. The building occupies the corner of Castle Street and Queen Street in Belfast city centre, with its long north elevation facing Castle Street and other buildings adjoining to the south and west.

The building is basically rectangular in plan with a slight splay to the southeast. It is topped with a flat roof concealed behind a parapet.

The ground floor, originally divided into several retail units, is now occupied by one large shop. Modern painted timber and laminate cladding covers much of this level, including the pilasters that separate the bays and the deep signboard and frieze area above. The upper floors are constructed in brick with cement render or stone stringcourses. Rows of uniform, deeply set window openings with replacement timber frames run across both levels. First-floor windows have segmental heads, while those to the second floor are flat-headed and separated by pilasters. Every second pilaster projects further and rises through the parapet to a pyramidal stone or cement final topped with a ball. The parapet features a diaper pattern in blue-grey brick above each window.

The building is rendered in the vaguely Renaissance-inspired manner typical of early 20th-century urban commercial structures, with a full-height bowed bay to the southeast corner facing Queen Street. This bay is finished largely in cut sandstone and displays a somewhat incongruous late Art Nouveau character. The ground level features a tall recessed central doorway with a deep segmental-arched fanlight, flanked by porthole-like windows with moulded swags, with larger conventionally shaped windows either side of the entrance. The doorway is fitted with a timber door of several panels, possibly a replacement. The first floor contains three two-light windows with segmental heads to the upper lights. The second floor has three single-light windows with segmental heads and replacement timber frames, the pilaster jambs featuring moulded colonette details. The bay is topped with a rusticated parapet with the colonettes continuing through a stringcourse. An iron corner guard at the left edge of the bay is stamped "The Millfield Foundry 1928".

The south elevation is largely obscured by a neighbouring two-storey building (no. 3 Queen Street), built around 1955–60 as a store for the shop then occupying the ground floor of nos. 56–70, a function it still serves. The visible portion of the south elevation shows rows of windows to the upper floors—five windows to the first floor and six to the second floor—with frames matching those of the street elevations.