One of Belfast’s oldest and most historically important buildings, the Assembly Rooms dating from 1769, has been in a derelict state for more than 25 years. Since the Northern Bank moved out of the neoclassical building in 2000, it has been vacant and has become an eyesore.
Standing at the intersection of Waring Street and North Street in the Cathedral Quarter, the building is in an area known as the “four corners”. This marked the spot from where all the milestones out of Belfast were once measured, and played a leading role in civic life. The building was originally a single-storey market house erected with a donation of £4,000 from the Earl of Donegall to celebrate the birth of his son George Augustus. Traders and their stalls made it a popular market place and in 1776 it was converted to the Exchange and Assembly Rooms when an upper storey was added.
During the 1780s and 1790s social and business activities held in its spacious and lavishly decorated rooms included civic balls, banquets and concerts. It witnessed the rejection of plans to establish a slave trading company in 1786, later welcoming the African-American abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman Frederick Douglass during his tour of Ireland.
The most celebrated event hosted by the venue was in July 1792 when musicians came from throughout Ireland to take part in the Belfast Harp Festival. Harpers were itinerant performers often playing at Big Houses owned by the gentry. The rationale behind the festival was to revive and preserve some of the ancient slow airs of Irish harping which had fallen into disuse with their composers unknown.
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The folk music collector Edward Bunting, later organist at St George’s Church in Belfast, was commissioned to notate tunes performed by 10 Irish harpers and one Welsh harper. Six of them were blind, mostly from smallpox or accidents in their youth. One of those present was 96-year-old Denis Hempson (Donnchadh Ó Hámsaigh or O’Hampsey) from Co Derry who played with long crooked fingernails.
Charles Fanning from Co Cavan won what was referred to as the “top premium” – the first prize – for his rendition of the popular tune The Coolin which echoed around the walls of the elegant building. Bunting’s transcriptions of the harpers’ assembly were subsequently published in three volumes entitled The Ancient Music of Ireland.
Six years after the harp festival, during the 1798 rebellion by the United Irishmen, the Assembly Rooms witnessed the trial of one of the leaders, the Presbyterian radical Henry Joy McCracken. He was sentenced to death and later hanged in nearby Cornmarket. In the mid-1840s Charles Lanyon recast the exterior in the Italianate Renaissance palazzo style while the architect and landscape painter W H Lynn remodelled the interior in 1895.
Today the surrounding narrow cobbled alleyways and renovated entries are thronged with tourists but the deteriorating fabric of the building in such a prominent location detracts from the character of the area. Weeds sprout from the roof, rotting plywood covers windows, paint peels off exterior walls, the graffitists have left their signature and overall it exudes a crumbling aura of decay. Remedial action is urgently needed to remove the vegetation and safeguard the building which as far back as 2003 was added to the Heritage at Risk Register. The interior is also in a dangerous condition, in need of substantial conservation.
However, there is a glimmer of optimism. Last year the Assembly Rooms were included on a list produced by the World Monuments Fund (WMF), a prestigious organisation based in New York dedicated to preserving historic architectural and cultural heritage sites. This placed the building on a watch list of international “at risk” landmarks and the fund has now awarded the building a grant of £200,000 to support its urgent stabilisation. This figure is part of a total of £5.1 million to help in the conservation of 21 heritage projects worldwide.
Since 1965 the WMF’s biennial programme has highlighted 25 heritage locations of significance facing serious challenges. The aim is to increase awareness and preserve sites under threat, whether they have local or global resonance. The WMF sees its role as not only saving bricks and mortar, but harnessing the local community. Belfast City Council has also purchased the Assembly Rooms for a sum thought to be in the region of £2.85 million. Funding may also be available from the Shared Island Initiative and the National Lottery.
Many people have championed the building and future uses for it are being explored. Proposals have included transforming its bank hall into a multipurpose venue for concerts and conferences, or opening a museum about the Troubles and the peace process accompanied by an exhibition.
The joint symbolic developments of the council taking over ownership and the funding from the WMF are now seen as a game-changer. These are the first steps towards rescuing a city centre building which has been left to deteriorate for more than a quarter of a century and is now at a critical crossroads.
