Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/27/010 E

Address :
5-6 Lower Crescent Belfast Co Antrim BT7 1NR

Townland:
Malone Lower

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
23/03/1984 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Public 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:
147/1

IG Ref:
J3359 7304

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Owner Category

Commercial

Exterior Description And Setting

Relatively large pair of three storey rendered town houses, one of regency style terrace of eleven similar, (but not identical) properties built in 1852 and now converted to offices, flats and (in the case of this particular property), a public house. The terrace, ‘Lower Crescent’, is set to the E of University Road and faces, over a small public park, Upper Crescent- a similar styled development of 1846 which unlike its counterpart is actually arranged in true crescent form. To the rear of the building there is a large recently added three storey return. The front elevation is symmetrical, (as it composed of two identical formerly separate properties), and faces roughly S. To the right on the ground floor is the entrance, which consists of a panelled timber double door and acid etched rectangular fanlight. To the left of the doorway are two tall sash windows with Georgian panes (6 over 6). There is a recently added cheval de frise to these windows. To the first floor are two larger windows set on a cill course. These have moulded surrounds and sash frames with regency (i.e. horizontally orientated) panes (4/8). To the second floor are two much smaller windows, similar to those on ground floor. These windows reset on a more pronounced (cornice-like) cill course with dentillations. The ground floor level is finished in rusticated render, the upper floors in plain render. There is a broad plain course above first floor window height (and below the second floor cill course). On this broad course is a thin moulded string course. Above second floor window height there is a plain course above which is a parapet with plain [?stone] coping. There are a series of recently added ‘up lights’ above ground and first floor window levels. The right hand side of the elevation repeats this arrangement, but with a single panelled timber door, with semicircular heads to the upper panels. This door is more deeply recessed than that to left. The rear elevation consists wholly of a very large, recently added, four storey extension, partly gabled and partly flat roofed. The façade of the extension is in brick and render. The gabled roof of the original section is slated. There are three tall rendered chimneystacks (two shared) with projecting coping and uniform pots. Metal rw goods.

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

Upper and Lower Crescent The selling off of much of Lord Donegall’s Belfast estate in the early to mid 19th century opened up large areas of land around the town for development. The lands to the south, along the Malone Ridge, were particularly attractive to developers and lead to the building of many the many fine late Georgian style terraces from the mid 1830s onwards, a trend accelerated by the establishment of the prestigious Queen’s College in the area in the later 1840s. These new grand terraces were occupied by Belfast’s professional and business classes, leaving their older residences in the centre of the town, which in turn were gradually turned into shops and offices. Upper Crescent was perhaps the grandest terrace development undertaken to the south of the town, an elegantly curving row of three storey dwellings in a late regency style built in 1846 by timber and shipping merchant Robert Corry. The authorship is uncertain, but Dr Paul Larmour has suggested that the hand of Charles Lanyon may have been involved. Corry himself undertook the building work and took up residence in the house to the east end, and, for the first few years of its existence, the row was known as ‘Corry’s Crescent’. To the immediate south of the Crescent, where the church and small park now are, there was a large lawn which Corry held as a garden. Shortly after this garden was laid out, however, Corry had it ploughed up and used for the cultivation of vegetables for relief of local workers suffering as a result of the Great Famine. To the north of this ran an old water course (which flowed northwards into the ‘Basin’- a reservoir east of the Dublin Road), to the east some smaller gardens (belonging to other occupants of the Crescent) and further to the east and to the north-east, ran Albion Lane, a narrow semi-rural laneway stretching from the north end of Bradbury Place to the east end of the present University Terrace. In 1852 Corry built another terrace to the north of his garden and just south of the old water course. This new development (the erroneously named Lower ‘Crescent’) was much in the same style as that to the south and was occupied by the same mix of professionals and businessmen, though by as early as 1860 the ground floors of some of the properties were used as offices. In the later 1860s a railway line was cut to the immediate north of Lower Crescent (along the line of the old water course), in 1873 the large sandstone building, (originally Ladies Collegiate later Victoria College), was added to the west end of the terrace, with two houses added to the east end by the close of the decade, the most easterly of which, ‘Rivoli House’, (designed by William Hastings), originally contained a dance academy run by a Frederick Brouneau. The new railway line cut across Albion Lane and presaged the laying out of a new broader thoroughfare, ‘Botanic Avenue’. Upper Crescent also witnessed further building in the 1860s and 70s, with two large William Hastings designed properties erected to the west end in 1869, one of which, Crescent House’ (the present Bank of Ireland) also fronted on to University Road. In 1878-79 two further houses were added to this end, on the ground between those of 1869. In 1885-7 the large Presbyterian church (the present Crescent Church) was erected to plans by Glasgow architect John Bennie Wilson, on the west side of Robert Corry’s former garden, with a two storey terrace, the present ‘Crescent Gardens’, built on the site of smaller garden plots to the to east end in 1898. During the first half of the 20th century most of the properties of Upper and Lower Crescent, as well as Crescent Gardens, remained private dwellings, but by 1960 many were given over to business use others divided into flats, with the former Rivoli House (later named ‘Dreenagh House’) becoming the ‘Regency Hotel’. This trend continued and by the beginning of the 21st century none were occupied as private dwellings. In the mid 1990s three of the 1860s to 70s houses at the west end of Upper Crescent were demolished and a modern office block built in their place, whilst in 2000 the railway cutting to the south of Lower Crescent was built over, in preparation for a new development. No.5-6 Lower Crescent These formerly separate properties are two of the terrace of eleven houses which made up the original ‘Lower Crescent’ of 1852. In 1858 no.5 was occupied by a Mrs Andrews, with a ‘commission merchant’ named Henry Dickson at no.6. By 1860 no.5 was in the hands of an Aylward O’Connor, with its ground floor ‘used as offices [and]…open on inside’ O’Connor appears to have remained there until the later 1870s, when the property became home to a Colonel Audain. No.6 passed to a Mrs Charnock in 1870, with both she and the Audain family occupying both houses until 1910 at least. Both buildings appear to have remained private dwellings until the 1970s, but by 1980 no.6 was an office. In the late 1980s, no.5 was coverted to a public house and restaurant, ‘The Fly’. In the late 1990s The Fly was greatly expanded when its owners acquired no.6 and added a large extension to the rear of the newly created single property. References- Primary sources 1 ‘Henderson’s Belfast Directory’ [later ‘Belfast & Province of Ulster Directory’], 1849- 2 PRONI VAL/2B/7/1d Second valuation, Belfast, 1860 3 PRONI VAL/2D/7/43a Second valuation town plan of Belfast sh 43a, 1860 4 PRONI VAL/2D/7/43b Annual valuation revision town plan of Belfast, sh 43b, 1860-95 5 PRONI VAL/12B/43a/1-10 Annual valuation revision notebooks, Cromac Ward, Belfast, 1863-82 6 PRONI OS/8/30/2/43 OS town plan of Belfast, sh 43, 1871-73 7 PRONI OS/8/30/2/49 OS town plan of Belfast, sh 49, 1871-73 8 PRONI OS/8/30/3/43 OS town plan of Belfast, sh 43, 1883-84 9 PRONI OS/8/30/3/49 OS town plan of Belfast, sh 49, 1883-84 10 PRONI OS/8/30/3/49 OS town plan of Belfast, sh 49, 1894-95 Secondary sources 1 S.T. Carleton, ‘The growth of south Belfast’ (QUB MA thesis, 1967) 2 John Caughey, ‘Seize then the hour- A history of James P. Corry & Co. Ltd…’ (Belfast, 1974), pp.28-29 3 David Evans, ‘Historic buildings…Queen’s University’ (revised ed., 1980), p.11 4 Alison Jordan, ‘Margaret Byers, pioneer of women’s education…’ (QUB Inst. of Irish Studies, ?1988)

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation H-. Alterations detracting from building J. Setting K. Group value

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Relatively large pair of three storey rendered town houses, belonging to a regency style terrace of eleven similar, (but not identical) properties built in 1852 and now converted to offices, flats and, in the case of this pair, a public house. To the rear there is a large modern four storey extension, added c.1999. The buildings are much altered but still contribute to the group value of Lower and Upper Crescent.

General Comments

Date of Survey

29 January 2002