Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB26/50/068

Address :
103-107 Royal Avenue & 77-79 North Street Belfast Co Antrim BT1 1FF

Townland:
Town Parks

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Survey 2:
B1

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

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Shop

Former Use
Shop

Conservation Area:
Yes

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
130-13 NE

IG Ref:
J3375 7462

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Owner Category

Exterior Description And Setting

Corner-sited terraced multi-bay three-storey with attic stucco commercial building, dated 1883, to the designs of Thomas Jackson. Irregular on plan facing west onto Royal Avenue with a curved elevation turning onto North Street. Extensively refurbished c.1989. Mansard slate roof, lead-lined to the steep front pitch and curved to the corner with several tall profiled rendered chimneystacks and gable walls rising above the roofline with sandstone coping. Roof set behind balustraded parapet wall punctuated by a series of pedimented dormer windows. Cast-iron downpipes positioned between paired pilasters. Painted rendered walling with fluted pilasters framing each window to each floor. The central curved section of the elevation is framed by paired pilasters surmounted by console brackets and segmental pediments, corresponding to the raised gables. Full-span frieze and corbelled crown cornice over the second floor with egg-and-dart embellishments. Full-span dentilled cornice above frieze over the ground floor. Square-headed window openings throughout, largely tripartite with single-pane timber sash windows. First floor windows have alternating segmental and triangular pediments (to the central lights) supported on engaged Corinthian columns. Curved front elevation is eleven windows wide with a square-headed door opening to the north end, a glazed shopfront and a further pedimented door opening with replacement timber door. The remainder of the ground floor consists of a series of fixed-pane glazed shopfronts flanked by replacement engaged Ionic columns and frieze. North side elevation abutted by adjoining building No.112 (HB26/50/066A). Two rear elevations set at right angles to each other having cement rendered walling with square-headed window openings and timber sash windows. Largely abutted by later extensions. East side elevation abutted by adjoining building having a redbrick gable rising above the neighbouring building. Setting: Located on the junction of Royal Avenue and North Street with a curved elevation in the former commercial heart of Belfast. Roof: Natural slate / lead RWG : Cast-iron Walling: Painted stucco Windows: Single-pane timber sash

Architects

Jackson, Thomas

Historical Information

The current shop and office building dates from 1883-4 and was built for Forster Green & Co tea merchants to designs by Thomas Jackson & Son. (Belfast Newsletter) The contractor was T D Dixon & Co, Clifton Street and the building is first shown on the fourth edition OS map of 1901-2. The Belfast Newsletter reported that the ‘striking pile of buildings’ was nearing completion in November 1883 and would add another to ‘the fine structures of which Royal Avenue is intended to be composed’. (Belfast Newsletter) The ground floor columns and pilasters were of polished County Down granite supplied by Messrs Robinson & Co. Internally the premises was divided into two shops, 103-105 Royal Avenue which was the premises of Forster Green & Co and 107 Royal Avenue which was initially let to D Abernethy, haberdasher & draper. A public staircase divided the two premises on the ground floor and the upper floors were to be let as offices. The first floor was built of iron joists and concrete with the intention that it should be fireproof while the ground floor windows were recessed slightly behind the columns in order to accommodate a stand for showing goods outside, as Forster & Green were accustomed to do at their High Street premises. (Belfast Newsletter) Photographs in the Lawrence Collection and taken about 1900 by Robert French, show this arrangement. (http://catalogue.nli.ie) The Newsletter noted that in sinking the piles for the foundations of this building a portion of the seventeenth-century ramparts of Belfast had been discovered, consisting of an outer brick wall, three feet in width and an inner wall eighteen inches wide, the gap between being filled with puddle clay. Outside the wall had been found, in various locations along Royal Avenue, a considerable number of human skeletons. (Belfast Newsletter) The ground floor shop was valued in the 1900 Belfast Revaluation at £215 for the premises facing onto Royal Avenue and £325 for those facing onto North Street. Number 107 was valued at £128. The shops were fitted with gas and the upper floors were let as offices, known as Eagle Chambers, to a range of tenants including Alexander and Reid who ran an auction room on the first floor. The offices were valued together at £149 and the attic floor was occupied by the caretaker. The 1901 census records the caretaker as Robert Haslett from County Monaghan who was also a Master Carpenter. He lived in the four rooms rent-free with his wife and three children, his fifteen-year-old son working as his apprentice. (1901 census; Valuation records) Forster Green & Co, founded by the Quaker tea merchant Forster Green, began business in a small shop on the corner of High Street and Corn Market which was rebuilt as a large tea emporium in 1865. This building, also designed by Thomas Jackson, was gutted by a disastrous fire in 1890, although subsequently reconstructed. (Belfast Newsletter) Forster Green also traded from a premises in North Street known as the ‘Golden Eagle’ and when the new premises was built in Royal Avenue, it was connected by an archway to the earlier shop. (Belfast Newsletter) However, by the mid 1890s two additional bays (77-79 North Street) had been added to the new premises, replacing the ‘Golden Eagle’. The statue which had spread its wings over the former shop was moved to the new premises and is shown in Robert French’s photographs with flanking birds, all now gone. (http://catalogue.nli.ie; Patton) Forster Green remained in occupation of 103-5 Royal Avenue and 77-79 North Street for some years. However, by 1915, number 103-5 had passed to Sinclair & Co drapers and by the end of the Second World War, another tea and coffee merchant, Herron & Craig had taken over the North Street side of the shop, ending Forster Green’s association with the building. Number 103-105 retained an association with tailoring until recent years with Burton Montague tailors taking over the Royal Avenue premises and ultimately those in North Street, until 1990 when both premises passed to ‘House of Hammon’ glass, china and household goods and then Hoggs ‘the Gift House of Ulster’. Number 107 was for many years, from at least 1900, the shop of R J Dick, leather and gutta percha boot and shoe manufacturers, passing to Easifit, another footwear company by 1940 and then ‘Charles’ fashion specialist by 1945. In the 1980s, number 107 became an employment agency, Rand Services, but today the ground floor is occupied by a coffee shop. The building was refurbished in 1989 by Mairs & Wray and the ground floor shop premises and some offices on upper floors are still in use. (Patton) The building is currently undergoing a further internal refurbishment (2012). References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2 2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931 3. PRONI VAL/7/B/9/18 – Belfast Revaluation 1900 4. PRONI VAL/7/B/9/23 – Belfast Revaluation 1900 5. Street Directories 6. 1901 census online 7. Belfast Newsletter, 17th November 1883 8. Belfast Newsletter 5th December 1890 9. Photographic collections - http://catalogue.nli.ie Secondary Sources 1. Brett, C.E.B. “Buildings of Belfast 1700-1914” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, revised edition 1985 2. Patton, M “Central Belfast: An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1993 3. www.dia.ie – Dictionary of Irish Architects online

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest V. Authorship

Evaluation

Corner-sited multi-bay three-storey with attic stucco commercial building, dated 1883, to the designs of Thomas Jackson. Much historic fabric and detailing survive, despite the loss of the original ground floor detailing The heavily embellished curved façade joining Royal Avenue with North Street is well-executed and a good example of the work of a prominent local architect. The building also represents the expansion of the city centre as commerce, particularly relating to the tea and coffee trade, grew in the late Victorian era. Its more recent history is also of interest, illustrating changing trade in the city.

General Comments

Date of Survey

24 October 2012