Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/43/025

Address :
Former synagogue [now Mater Hospital Physiotherapy Gym] 4 Annesley Street Belfast Co Antrim BT14 6AU

Townland:
Belfast Town Parks

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
13/03/2002 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Hospital Building

Former Use
Church

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
130/9

IG Ref:
J3333 7526

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Owner Category

Exterior Description And Setting

Relatively plain, brick and stucco single storey gabled synagogue of 1904, at that time only the second such building to be built within Belfast, but vacated by the city’s Hebrew congregation in 1966 and now used to a physiotherapy gym for the Mater Hospital. The building is set on the S side of Annesley Street, W of Antrim Road and just N of Carlisle Circus. To the W gable of the main section of the building there is a two storey gabled entrance section. To the ground floor of the N gable of this section is the entrance itself, which consists of a large timber sheeted double door set within a semicircular headed recess. The door is encased with unusual three-quarter columns on high plinths, with raised ‘bands’ to the column shafts and floral capitals. Above capital level there is a moulded archivolt with bands same as those to the columns. With the semicircular head to the door there is a ‘blank fanlight’ with raised Star of David symbol. To the first floor, directly above the doorway, there are three semicircular headed windows with that to the centre taller. These windows have lattice paned frames, simple [?painted stone] surrounds and rest on a sill course. The façade is finished in painted lined render as far as springing level of the entrance’s arch head, with unpainted rough cast above this. To the W elevation of the entrance section there is a large, modern, single and two storey brick lean-to extension (part of which is a boiler house). The short S elevation of this section is largely obscured by neighbouring buildings, but its first floor level (at least) is in brick and to this level there are two flat arch windows. The roof of the entrance section is part gabled, part hipped. The roof appears to be wholly slated apart from a relatively large portion to the W side, where there is a large roof light. The exposed upper section of the W gable of the main section of the building is rendered with a small square louvered opening near the apex. The long (street facing) N elevation of the main section has six tall semicircular headed windows with painted stone surrounds and lattice paned frames (with coloured glass and hopper openers). Each window sits within a tall ‘panel’ each of which is separated by plain brick ‘pilasters’. Below and above the ‘panels’ the façade is also in brick (blue brick to base). The E gable is largely finished in unpainted rough cast with brick edge ‘pilasters. To the gable there are four tall windows, as N, arranged in two pairs. Between these pairs, and set at a high level, is a small roundel window (with coloured glass and Star of David symbol). Near the apex there is a small square opening as W gable. The S elevation of the main section is largely obscured by neighbouring buildings, however it appears to have an arrangement much as that to N, but with the ‘panels’ in brick rather than rough cast. To the right of centre there is a small single storey brick projection (now roofless) which is said to have contained a ceremonial bath. There is a partly glazed doorway to the left of this and directly above there is another (fire escape) doorway set within a small timber projection. To the left of the main single storey projection there is another single storey projection, whose W face (at least) is rendered (and has a boarded up window opening). This projection appears to have a flat roof. The gabled roof of the main section is slated with rendered parapets

Architects

Young & Mackenzie

Historical Information

Though there are scattered
references to Jews in Belfast in the 17th and 18th centuries (there was a Jewish tailor named Manuel Lightfoot in the town in 1652 and a ‘Jew butcher’ is recorded in 1771), and some ‘anonymous’ Jews in residence 1805, there was no Jewish population of any significance in Belfast, or indeed the whole of Ulster, prior to the mid 19th century. After this date, the rapid rise of the town as a major industrial centre and changing circumstances for many Jews within central Europe, lead to the arrival of a number of (mainly) German and Austrian families, among them the Jaffés, Mautners, Weinbergs and Lippmans. Of these, the Jaffé family was probably the most significant in the history of Belfast’s Hebrew congregation. Daniel Jaffé, a merchant from Hamburg, first came to Belfast in or around 1845 and by the mid 1850s had set up the linen house of Jaffé Brothers. Daniel’s son, Martin, held the first Hebrew service in Ulster at his Holywood home in late 1864, and mainly through the financial help of Daniel himself, a purpose built synagogue, (with minister’s dwelling house and school), was erected in Great Victoria Street in 1871. An influx of families, fleeing oppression in Russia and other eastern European states, during the last two decades of the 19th century, meant that the Belfast Congregation rose from 55 members in 1871 to over 1,000 in c.1900. Many of these new arrivals settled in the Antrim Road area of in the north of the city, which lead to the establishment of a prayer house in Jackson Street and a school in Regent Street, and, in February 1904, the building of a new synagogue in Annesley Street, off Carlisle Circus. Like that of Great Victoria Street, this new building owed it existence largely to the Jaffé family, namely Sir Otto Jaffé, another son of Daniel, who served two terms as Belfast’s Lord Mayor (1899-1900, 1904-5), High Sheriff of the City (1901) and was a generous benefactor to many charities and institutions, most notably Queen’s College / University. The new synagogue cost around £4,000- most of it paid by Sir Otto, and the building was officially opened by him, in full mayoral regalia, in August 1904. In the wake the opening of Annesley Street, the Great Victoria Street synagogue, (a two and half storey Ruskinian Gothic polychrome brick structure by Richard Stirrat), was later vacated. It subsequently served as an Orange Hall and then an Apostolic Church, being finally demolished in 1993. The Annesley Street synagogue, which could claim among its attendants, Dr Hertzog- who went on to become the first Chief Rabbi of the Irish Free State, and his son, Chaim Hertzog- later President of Israel, remained in use by the Belfast Congregation until 1966. In 1968 the building was sold to the near by Mater Infirmorum Hospital. The Belfast Hebrew Congregation itself, now somewhat diminished from its early 20th century peak of roughly 1,400 continues to meet in a synagogue within The Wolfson Centre on Somerton Road. References- Primary sources 1 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster directory’ [1871-], (Belfast, 1852-) Secondary sources 1 Louis Hyman, ‘The Jews of Ireland from earliest times to the year 1910’ (Irish University Press 1972), pp.203-209 2 Marcus Patton, ‘Central Belfast- a historical gazetteer’ (Belfast 1993), pp.168, 172 3 Information supplied by ‘Jewish Ireland- The official [web]site of the Irish Jewish Community’ (www.irishjewishcommunity.com)

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion D. Plan Form H-. Alterations detracting from building I. Quality and survival of Interior

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance Z. Rarity V. Authorship

Evaluation

This relatively plain, brick and stucco single storey gabled synagogue of 1904, is of importance as the oldest surviving synsgogue in N Ireland.

General Comments

Date of Survey

26 March 2001