Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/50/088

Address :
Friends Institute 47 Frederick Street Belfast Co Antrim BT1 2LW

Townland:
Town Parks

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
26/06/1979 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Office

Former Use
Hall

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
130-13 NE

IG Ref:
J3377 7504

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Owner Category

Charity

Exterior Description And Setting

Detached symmetrical multi-bay two-storey redbrick former Friends Institute, built c.1870, with pedimented redbrick entrance screen to the east. Rectangular on plan, facing south on the north side of Frederick Street. Extensively renovated and extended to the east c.1990, currently in office use. Hipped natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and replacement profiled redbrick chimneystacks. Replacement moulded metal guttering supported on angled brick eaves course and metal downpipes. Redbrick walling laid in Flemish bond with continuous sandstone impost and sill mouldings and a splayed sandstone plinth trim to redbrick projecting plinth course. Cast-iron wall-ties to the ground floor with geometric brick course below first floor sill course and eaves course. Segmental and round-headed window openings formed in gauged brick with single-pane timber sash windows. Symmetrical front elevation is five windows wide with the first floor windows being segmental-headed having stepped brick surrounds, corbelled brick reveals, outer windows paired and divided by stop-chamfered sandstone piers having cushion capitals. Round-headed door and window openings to the ground floor with replacement sandstone hood mouldings arranged as a continuous pointed-arched moulding rising from sandstone impost mouldings. Full-height openings to the left have timber framed glazing. Arched single-pane timber sash windows with decorative wrought-iron sill guards to the openings to the right. Central round-headed door opening with original timber door having two arched flat panels and circular panel over. Door opens onto two granite steps to the front pavement. West side elevation is cement rendered with a replacement redbrick chimneystack. North rear elevation is smooth rendered to the ground floor with redbrick walling to the first floor. Segmental-headed window openings to the first floor with single-pane timber sash windows and a steel door. East side elevation abutted by flat-roofed extension. Walling detailing as per front elevation and abutted by a replacement redbrick chimneystack with two segmental-headed window openings to the first floor. Pedimented redbrick and red sandstone arched entrance screen to the east of the principal building, now connected via modern extension and serving as the principal entrance. Replacement timber glazed screen set within round-headed opening having sandstone archivolt with scrolled keystone and pair of steel gates to three stone steps. Arch flanked by pair of brick pilasters meeting a stepped sandstone frieze with inscribed gilt lettering; ‘Friends Meeting House’ and triangular pediment over. Sloping walls to either side with scrolled sandstone coping and terminating in a further pair of square brick piers. Setting: Located on the north side of Frederick Street with a replacement Meeting House to the rear, built c.1975. Bitmac parking to entire site with tall redbrick wall enclosing the site to the east and replacement steel railings and gates enclosing the site to the road. Roof: Natural slate RWG : Replacement steel Walling: Red brick Windows : Single-pane timber sash

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

The Friends Institute dates from 1869-70 and is first shown on the second edition Belfast town plan of 1871-3. The ‘Literary and Scientific Institute’ is valued in 1900 at £44 and was said to have cost £610 excluding the architect’s fee. (Valuation records) Unfortunately, the architect is unknown. The idea of establishing rooms within a Friends’ meeting house or in separate accommodation for social occasions, lectures and educational or mission work originated in the mid-nineteenth century. A ‘Friends library and reading rooms’ operating as a kind of social club for Quakers, especially those who had newly arrived in the city, was established in Gracechurch Street meeting house, London in 1852 and urban centres in Britain and Ireland established their own institutes in the ensuing years. (Butler) The Friends’ Institute in Belfast was established for ‘the promotion of the intellectual, moral and religious welfare of the young men in our Society’. (Butler) The Institute originally occupied premises in North Street but in August 1869 the plans for a purpose-built structure in Frederick Street, in front of the meeting house of 1811 which had been extended in 1840, were approved by the town council (the first plans submitted were ‘disapproved’ the previous month), and the caretakers, Mr and Mrs Daniel were living in the building by January 1870 when they received minor injuries in a gas explosion. The ground floor accommodation comprised a committee room and a caretaker’s dwelling while on the upper floor there was a lecture room with windows looking out onto the street and to the rear a library of 600 non-fiction volumes, magazines and newspapers with a reading room opposite. The caretaker was responsible for both institute and meeting house and supplied refreshments to visitors. (Butler) The Friends Institute hosted a number of public meetings discussing topics as various as the land question and women’s suffrage, as well as providing social facilities for Quakers. (Belfast Newsletter) The Quakers made use of the building for a First-day (Sunday) school, weekly mission meetings, Bible meetings and mothers’ meetings. (Butler) Additions and alterations were made to the meeting house in 1894/5 to plans by Joseph Bell and these appear to have included the addition of a single-storey extension to the Institute. Part of the boundary wall, two gateways and an entrance passageway still survive from this period. (Butler; Belfast Newsletter) In 1959 a decision was taken to sell the building but this was not realised and the Institute survived the rebuilding of the meeting house which took place in 1972. Since 1987 the Institute has been let for charitable purposes and is currently occupied by Concern Worldwide. The pedimented former entrance and passageway to the meeting house have now been incorporated into the present building. (Butler) References Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition OS Map 1832-3 2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1858 3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2 4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931 5. PRONI VAL/1/B/710A Townland Valuation (1828-40) 6. PRONI VAL/2/B/7/3A Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) 7. PRONI VAL/7/B/9/2 – Belfast Revaluation 1900 8. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/C/1-45 Annual Revisions (1863-1930) 9. Belfast Newsletter 2nd July 1869 10. Belfast Newsletter 3rd August 1869 11. Belfast Newsletter 5th January 1870 12. Belfast Newsletter 24th November 1883 13. Belfast Newsletter 24th March 1881 14. Belfast Newsletter 2nd August 1894 15. Belfast Newsletter 14th February 1895 Secondary Sources 1. Butler, D.M. “The Quaker Meeting Houses of Ireland” Dublin: Irish Friends Historical Committee, 2004

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation H-. Alterations detracting from building I. Quality and survival of Interior

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical multi-bay two-storey redbrick former Friends Institute built c.1870 and associated with the Meeting House on the same site, with pedimented redbrick entrance screen to the east. A small late nineteenth-century brick building with a fine arched entrance screen. Extensively renovated for office use, much interior detail and fabric have been lost. However, its simple character survives and it is of historic significance as the rooms of the Friends Meeting of Frederick Street.

General Comments

Date of Survey

16 October 2012