This was the first block of houses to be built in Camden Street,
being erected in 1849-52 shortly after Queen's University and
other early buildings in University Street. At that time, Belfast
was still quite a modest town of mainly Georgian brick houses
nearly half a mile away, and the University was established in
open countryside that was soon after to be developed as the Malone
ridge became a fashionable area above the smog of the industrial
city. The terrace of four large houses, each consisting of three
floors with an attic and, very unusually for Belfast, a basement,
was built of brick faced in stucco and designed in a free classical
style with paired round-headed windows on the ground floor. Internally
the house had a high standard of ornamental plasterwork, with
run cornices and elaborate ceiling roses in all the main rooms,
and large folding doors between the two ground floor rooms.
Over the years the houses had fallen on bad times, with one being
used as a theatrical store and another divided into bed-sitters
which were still gas-lit in the 1950s. The terrace had been acquired
by the University with a view to demolishing it to form a car
park, but fortunately it was listed and Hearth was able to acquire
it for restoration.
The building had suffered from extensive dry rot while it lay
derelict, and much of the building fabric had to be renewed. The
back returns were completely demolished and rebuilt to form fire
escapes for the present twelve flats, along with modern kitchens
and bathrooms. Most of the plasterwork was renewed, and new panel
doors were made up to meet fire regulations. The front porticos
were completely missing, and extensive research failed to produce
any record of the original design, but there was enough evidence
at the base and round the doors to establish the pattern with
reasonable confidence. The front area railings had been removed
during the war, but fragments remained at the front steps from
which the complete railings were reproduced.
Client: Hearth Housing
Association
Client: Hearth Housing Association
Architect: Hearth
Quantity Surveyor: McNeil Rainey & Best
Structural Engineer: Kirk McClure & Morton
Main contractor: F S Brown, Downpatrick
Restored: 1982-84
Funded by Housing Association Grant
Accommodation: Eight two-bedroom flats and four one-bedroom
flats
