Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/08/001II

Address :
37 McMaster Street Belfast County Antrim BT5 4HP

Townland:
Ballymacarrett

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
19/03/1987 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
House - Terrace

Former Use
House - Terrace

Conservation Area:
Yes

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
130/14SE

IG Ref:
J3568 7422

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Owner Category

Housing Association

Exterior Description And Setting

Description at 26/02/2013 Description as 19/07/2011 except all windows replaced to front elevation with appropriate timber sliding sash including new timber panelled door with camber headed transom light. Paint removed from all brickwork including plinth, brick chamfered reveals and camber headed window reveals. Description at 19/07/2011 A two-storey single-bay (wider end-terrace at south) late Victorian Artisan terrace built c.1898 by John McMaster to designs by J. Frazer and Son, located on the west side of McMaster Street, East Belfast. Roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles, red brick chimney stack at north and south; painted ogee profile cast-iron rainwater goods, supported on projecting polychrome brick eaves course on ovolo moulded corbel course and string course. Walls are English garden-wall bonded red brick laid with alternating courses of headers and stretchers with two polychrome brick string courses (including a continuous brick and sill course at first floor); windows are boarded at ground floor, timber sliding sashes (no glazing remaining) at first floor, door is boarded. Windows and door contained within camber headed reveals with polychrome brick chamfered reveals and voussoirs, projecting masonry sills. Principal (east) symmetrical elevation contains entrance door at centre accessed via tiled threshold; entrance flanked by single window at each side, each surmounted by window at first floor (offset slightly to centre). South gable is rendered and blank. Rear elevation is rednered and contains two windows (blocked) at left at first floor. North gable is abutted by enclosed yard, enclosed by single-storey height red brick boundary wall. Exposed section is blank. Setting: Located at the south end of the west terrace two-storey block the house faces onto McMaster Street. The wide street formerly cobbled is now largely concrete with small cobbled area at each end. The house opens directly onto a wide pavement with granite kerbs and original lamp posts and electric lighting (former gas lights). Original tiled street signage at north and south. Rear elevation is enclosed by high level stretcher bonded modern red brick walling with painted vertically sheeted timber entrance door at centre, assessed via narrow entry which runs north south between back yards of Parker Street and McMaster Street. The street narrows towards Major Street at south. Roof: Natural Slate Walling: English garden-wall bonded red brick Windows: Timber sliding sashes RWG: Ogee profile cast-iron

Architects

Frazer. J & Son

Historical Information

The current dwelling is one of a terrace of 37 parlour houses built in several phases between 1899 and 1908 to designs by John Fraser & Son. (DoE Conservation Plan; Street Directories) McMaster Street is the only late Victorian terrace in Belfast to have survived in reasonable original condition and these workers’ houses are an important link with the city’s past as a significant world centre of shipbuilding. (DoE Conservation Area Plan) In the closing decades of the nineteenth century Harland and Wolff developed a shipyard on Queen’s Island which was employing 9000 men by the year 1900. Ballymacarrett was also a centre for other businesses that traded around the world, including ropeworks, linen manufacture, engineering and fertiliser. Ballymacarret, which in the mid-nineteenth century had been an area of fields, cottages and mansions around an industrial core, became gradually given over to rows of terraces, housing the workers who were, to a large degree the generators of Belfast’s new-found prosperity. (OS maps; DoE Conservation Area Plan) McMaster Street was built in several phases, beginning with a row of 2½ storey houses, numbers 2 to 14 which were in place by 1899. The second phase of construction saw the building of numbers 1-11, also 2½ storey, which are noted in the street directory for 1900, together with ‘houses in course of erection’. By the time of the census in March 1901 numbers 1-35 were complete, (37 does not appear, but is listed in the 1901 street directory) and the remainder of the houses, numbers 16-52 were added by 1908. The designers were John Fraser & Son, active between the 1890s and 1910s and architects of a number of terraced streets in Belfast, such as Chadwick Street and Meadowbank Place which are similar to McMaster Street. (www.dia.ie) The houses on the western side of the street first enter valuation records in 1900. They are of the ‘parlour’ type and were built to a very high specification with running water and flush toilets, emerging technologies for worker’s housing at the time. The houses benefitted from building controls that required houses to have a rear entrance and a back yard with a toilet. Gas was piped in for lighting but electricity was not commonplace until the 1930s and lamp-lighters and window-tappers were daily visitors. (Haines) The male inhabitants were often employed in shipbuilding, females in the linen or rope industry. Larger families lived at the north end of the street in the houses with an attic storey. (DoE Conservation Area Plan) The present house was the residence of Robert Campbell engine driver, later occupier of number 27, who leased the house from the developer John McMaster. In 1900 it was said to be four years old, but this appears to be an exaggeration, as the house was not likely to have been more than a year old at this time. Numbers 13 to 37, all houses and yards of two storeys, are valued at £8. These houses towards the south end of the street are slightly smaller than numbers 1-11 which were given a higher valuation. The last four houses in the terrace, from 31 to 37 are on a different plan to the remainder, being shallow and wide, due to the tapering nature of the plot on which the terrace is built. The present house contained 3 bedrooms and was fitted with gas. The rent was 5s weekly and the cost of construction was estimated at £76. The 1901 census does not list the house, in all likelihood because it was vacant at the time. By 1903 the occupier was W J McCreevy, ironturner, followed by Sarah Orr (1906), Alfred Greer, engine driver (1908) and Robert Wishart, riveter (1909). At the time of the 1911 census the tenant was James Smyth, fitter who lived with his wife and five young children. By 1912 the occupier was Mrs A Young, then James Tuff, patrolman (1913), J Stannix, ironturner (1915) and W Colvan, plater (1918), the Colvan family remaining resident until the second world war. Madge Colvan, probably the wife of W Colvan was a casualty in the Belfast blitz. There were four air raids on Belfast during April and May 1941 during which over half the city’s housing stock was damaged. Although McMaster Street was not destroyed, the area was targeted by raids carried out on April 7/8th and May 4/5th and the 1942 street directory notes that most of the houses in the street had been vacated, including number 33, probably as a result of fire damage. Madge Colvan is named in casualty lists relating to the Belfast Blitz that were compiled in the aftermath of the 4/5th May attack. Her injuries were said to be serious and the family did not return to McMaster Street in 1943 along with the majority of the other residents. By 1944 the house had been taken over by Samuel Wells, labourer, followed by George Agnew, plater who lived in the house until at least 1980. (Street Directories; Report on Belfast air raids) In recent years East Belfast has experienced substantial change and many of the industries that led to its initial growth have contracted or disappeared. Redevelopment in the 1970s led to the demolition of many of the other terraces in the area but in 1987 McMaster Street was listed and in 1994 the area was designated a conservation area by the DoE. Two of the houses have been restored by Hearth. (DoE Conservation Area Plan) References Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/3/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey map 1834 2. PRONI OS/6/3/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey map 1858 3. PRONI OS/6/3/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey map 1902 4. PRONI OS/6/3/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey map 1920-21 5. PRONI OS/6/3/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey map 1931 6. PRONI VAL/7/B/8/4 – Belfast Revaluation Field Books 1900 7. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/A/28 – Annual Revisions 1897-1905 8. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/L/4 – Annual Revisions 1906-1914 9. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/L/8 – Annual Revisions 1915-1930 10. PRONI VAL/3/B/3/11 – First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1935 11. PRONI VAL/4/B/7/28 – Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1956-1972 12. Belfast Street Directories (1899-1980) 13. Census of Ireland (1901; 1911) 14. PRONI LA/43/18/H/1 – Personal Injuries of Civlians in Belfast Blitz (1941) 15. PRONI CAB/3/A/60 – Civil Defence – air raids on Belfast (1940-41) 16. PRONI CAB/3/A/68 – Report on air raids on Belfast and aftermath (1941) Secondary Sources 1. ‘McMaster Street Conservation Area’ Belfast: Department of the Environment, 1994. 2. Haines, K., ‘East Belfast: Paintings and stories from harbour to hills’ Donaghadee: Cottage Publications, 2001. 3. First Survey Record – HB26/08/001 (1984) 4. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation J. Setting K. Group value

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest R. Age

Evaluation

A two-storey single-bay late Victorian terrace built c.1896 by John McMaster to designs by J. Frazer and Son, located on the west side of McMaster Street, East Belfast. Having survived the German Blitz in 1941 and the widespread demolition during developments of the 1970s the terrace is part of a complete street of late Victorian terraced housing. The terrace retains much original character, including polychromatic brick string courses and camber headed window openings. Built close to Harland and Wolff ship yards, this terrace provides a link with Belfast’s industrial past and is of further significance as it was originally designed to new housing and planning regulations, intended to improve the standard of living for working class people in Belfast at the turn of the twentieth century. Number 37 has group value with the other listed buildings in McMaster Street.

General Comments

Date of Survey

19 July 2011