Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/06/006

Address :
Bank House 133-135 Albertbridge Road Belfast County Antrim BT5 4PS

Townland:
Ballymacarret

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
16/09/2016 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Office

Former Use
Bank

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
130/14SW

IG Ref:
J3545 7388

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Owner Category

Commercial

Exterior Description And Setting

Attached corner-sited multi-bay two-storey with attic redbrick gabled former bank, built c.1886. Irregular on plan with a northeast elevation fronting onto Castlereagh Road, a further northwest elevation fronting onto The Mount and a gabled corner frontispiece entrance bay. Steeply pitched natural slate roofs with terracotta ridge tiles and two oversized profiled redbrick chimneystacks having cogged vertical brick courses and octagonal clay pots (further stack to rear has been reduced in size). Dormer windows with steeply hipped natural slate roofs, single-pane timber sash windows and timber brackets, one to the Mount Street elevation and two to the Castlereagh Street elevation. Ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering on redbrick eaves course with decorative terracotta billet course below and cast-iron downpipes. Redbrick walling laid in English garden wall bond with moulded terracotta string courses forming a frieze below eaves level and between ground and first floors and projecting redbrick plinth course. Camber-headed window openings with moulded redbrick surrounds and timber sash windows. Gabled frontispiece entrance bay set at forty-five degree angle to principal elevations with steeply pitched front gable having moulded redbrick barge details, foliate terracotta panel to the apex and a 2/2 timber sash window with flush red sandstone splayed sill above freize.n Applied modern lettering to frieze stating; 'BANK HOUSE'. The first floor contains three window openings with a further slender window opening to either cheek. Tripartite Tudor-arched principal entrance formed in red sandstone ashlar with square hood moulding and double-leaf timber doors with four decorative panels to each flanked by sidelights and tripartite overlight opening onto two granite steps. Northeast elevation is four windows wide with a gable and three-sided canted bay to the east end and an off-centre rectangular-plan entrance porch. The gable has moulded redbrick barge details and a pair of 2/1 timber sash windows on flush splayed red sandstone sills with a pair of moulded and corbelled brackets framing the frieze below. Two uPVc windows to first floor. Canted bay surmounted by parapet wall with terracotta rosette panels, flush splayed red sandstone sills and uPVC windows. Entrance porch (now blocked up) is surmounted by a terracotta balustrade with trefoil openings set on a corbelled cornice having stepped and moulded reveals to former door opening with uPVC windows to front and to cheeks. Half-height angle buttresses have gableted red sandstone capstones and brick offsets. To the easternmost bay is a square-headed stepped and moulded redbrick door opening with original flat-panelled timber door with bolection mouldings, brass door furniture and rectangular overlight opening onto two modern tiled steps. East side elevation is abutted by adjacent Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church. South elevation abutted by single-bay two-storey lower wing, detailed as per above, with a paired sindow opening to the first floor having single-pane timber sash windows. Abutting this wing is a further two-storey redbrick extension added c.1985. Northwest elevation is two windows wide and detailed as above with timber sash windows to the first floor and uPVC windows to the ground floor. The north end is dominated by the slightly projecting full-height chimneystack with a squat red sandstone lateral buttress and decorative square rosette to the first floor level. Setting; Corner sited at the junction of Castlereagh Road and The Mount at the west end of Ballymacarret, a small front area to both principal elevations is enclosed by a low redbrick wall with moulded redbrick coping and largely replacement metal railings, except to the north entrance having original wrought-iron railing intact. Roof Natural slate RWG Cast-iron Walling Redbrick Windows Timber sash

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

The current building was constructed c1886 as a doctor’s residence or surgery, and was later taken over by the Belfast Banking Company. (Valuation records) The Albertbridge Road is an unnamed ‘New Road in progress’ on the first edition OS map of 1834. By the second edition it had been partially developed but was still lined with fields and mansions in spacious grounds. By 1900, however, the expansion of the city had spread deep into County Down and the road is lined with commercial premises and terraces. The current building is first shown on the third edition map of 1902. The building enters valuation records in 1886 as two houses valued at £40 and £27 (later lowered to £38 and £22). The larger house is named ‘The Lodge’ and is leased by Henry Bingham MD from Dr Ritchie, the likely developer of the building. Henry Bingham sublet the adjoined dwelling to the Rev William John McCaughan, minister of Mountpottinger Presbyterian Church. McCaughan was minister of the church from 1885 to 1897 when he moved to a church in Toronto. He returned in 1907 to become minister of May Street, Belfast and was a popular orator who tragically died in a fire in 1910. (History of Congregations) The building was named ‘The Lodge’ and replaced a much smaller gate lodge on the site which appears to have been the lodge to ‘Mount Pottinger’, a mansion house of considerable age which formerly lay to the south of Albertbridge Road. Thomas Pottinger of ‘Mount Pottinger’ was the first sovereign of Belfast, elected to that position in 1661. (Burke) In 1892 the building was taken over by the Belfast Banking Company who paid £2,550 and spent £400 on conversion of the building to a bank. The valuation of the larger house, now the bank premises, was therefore raised to £65 and Henry Bingham MD moved to the smaller of the two houses, now valued at £28, as a return had been added to the property. The 1901 census records no-one resident in either of the two properties, but that number 133 is bank office. By 1906 Robert Boyd, General Practitioner, was resident in number 135 and the valuation had been raised to £41. He is living in the house at the time of the 1911 census with his wife and two sons, together with a domestic servant from Sunderland. By 1915 the house had been taken over by J McShannon and the valuation had been reduced to £34, perhaps as the result of an appeal. In 1914, Belfast Bank extended the banking portion of the building to the rear and took over the house for use as a bank manager’s residence. The house comprised 9 rooms and a kitchen and bathroom and was fitted with gas. The valuer notes that the Bank had spent £2,000 on alterations to the building including the cost of a new strong room. These alterations brought the value up to £165. A further addition was made to the bank in 1928 to designs by John Johnston. The premises continued to be run as a bank until at least 1972 (www.dia.ie) At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Belfast’s rising success as a centre of trade was being hampered by a lack of ready money and the Belfast Bank was established as a private partnership at premises in Donegall Square. By 1827 the Belfast Bank had joined with another private company the Belfast Commercial Bank to form the Belfast Banking Company with offices at the corner of Donegall Street and Waring Street. By the mid-1830s branches had been opened across the north of Ireland, with banking premises tended to be established in private houses. In 1846 the bank moved into the former Assembly Buildings in Waring Street which was to serve as its head office for the remainder of its existence. (Simpson) As Belfast continued to grow, wealthier citizens began to move out of the central business district and into the suburbs and travel to the Belfast Bank’s premises, then near the docks area, became less convenient. The three local banks agreed to co-operate by opening branches in different areas of the city so as to increase their overall chances of gaining a sufficiently large catchment. In 1885, Belfast Bank opened its branch in the Markets area which was an immediate success and this branch remained in the same building for the rest of the Bank’s existence. Encouraged by the success of this undertaking the bank decided to open a second branch yet further east, in the area that was becoming Belfast’s industrial heartland, Ballymacarrett. In 1890, with the agreement of the Northern and Ulster Banks, the Belfast Bank was operating from temporary premises in the area and its permanent branch at number 133 Albertbridge Road opened soon after, shortly before the bank opened its first permanent branch in Dublin in 1895. (Simpson) In 1968, following changes in the structure of banking in Ireland, the Belfast Banking Company amalgamated with the Northern Bank, and under subsequent rationalisation strategies the branch at Ballymacarrett was eventually closed. (Simpson) The building is now in use as offices. References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/3/4/1 – First Edition OS Map 1834 2. PRONI OS/6/3/4/2 – Second Edition OS map 1858 3. PRONI OS/6/3/4/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1902 4. PRONI OS/6/3/4/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1920-1 5. PRONI OS/6/3/4/5 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1931 6. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/1-45 – Annual Revisions (1863-1930) 7. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/K – Annual Revisions (1897-1930) 8. PRONI VAL/12/A/7/J/26 – Valuer’s Notebook (1914) 9. PRONI VAL/3/C/3/15 – First General Revaluation (1936-57) 10. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/20 – Second General Revaluation (1956-72) 11. 1901 census online 12. 1911 census online Secondary Sources 1. “A History of Congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland 1610-1982” authorised by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Belfast: Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, 1982 (available at www.presbyterianhistoryireland.com) 2. Burke, Henry “A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, London: Henry Colburn 1838 3. Simpson, Noel “The Belfast Bank 1827-1970 - 150 Years of Banking in Ireland” Belfast: Blackstaff Press Ltd, 1975

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

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

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest R. Age S. Authenticity T. Historic Importance Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Following the expansion of the city between 1834 and 1900 this building built c.1886 formed a prominent entrance to East Belfast, it was constructed as a doctor’s residence or surgery, and was later taken over by the Belfast Banking Company. It is an attached corner-sited multi-bay two-storey with attic redbrick gabled former bank, built c.1886. Irregular on plan; with a northeast elevation fronting onto Castlereagh Road, a further northwest elevation fronting onto The Mount and a gabled corner frontispiece entrance bay. Exhibiting a wealth of external brick and sandstone detailing and retaining some original fenestration. This prominently positioned building is one of the most impressive of the late Victorian buildings that characterise Ballymacarret - it is of local interest and served the community originally as a doctor's surgery ad later as a bank.

General Comments

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Date of Survey

03 August 2011