Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/08/001 S

Address :
21 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 7428

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Owner Category

Housing Association

Exterior Description And Setting

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. Roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles, central rooflight window on east slope, modern red brick chimney stack at south side; painted ogee profile cast-iron rainwater goods supported on projecting polychrome brick eaves course on ovolo moulded corbel course. Walls are English garden-wall bonded red brick laid with alternating courses of headers and stretchers with three polychrome brick string courses (including a continuous brick and sill course at first floor) and decorative detailing above first floor windows; windows are 1/1 timber sliding sashes and door is replacement timber panelled, windows and door contained within camber headed reveals with polychromactic brick chamfered reveals and voussoirs, projecting masonry sill. (All polychrome brickwork now painted except that above first floor windows). Principal (east) elevation contains entrance door at right comprising replacement timber panelled door with square headed transom light accessed by rendered threshold; entrance flanked by window at left; two windows at first floor offset slightly to left. North gable is abutted by No.19 McMaster Street (HB26/08/001Q). Access to house and yard not provided and remainder of rear elevation not visible from entry at west. South gable is abutted by No.23 McMaster Street (HB26/08/001U). Setting: Located at the centre 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 remaining 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: 1/1 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 James Thom, boilermaker, who leased it 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 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 records James Thom, as living in the house with his wife and three young children. The next tenant, John Dunne, engineer, lived in the house for 47 years. He was present at the time of the 1911 census and lived with his wife and five children. The oldest son, who was fourteen, was working as an apprentice hairdresser. In 1940 the family was struck by tragedy when the second oldest son, William John who was working as a fitter at the time, died at the age of 38 in the Royal Victoria Hospital. (Will of William John Dunne) Unlike most of the other houses in the street number 21 was unaffected by 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, probably as a result of fire damage. Number 21 escaped damage, and the Dunne family remained resident throughout the war period.The next tenant was J Nicholl, house repair/painter (1951) who was followed in 1979 by Ms Maudie Nicholl. (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 21 has group value with the other listed buildings in McMaster Street.

General Comments

Date of Survey

19 July 2011