The Scottish Temperance Building, Donegall Square South, Belfast

The Scottish Temperance Building

Henry Seaver

1904

Donegall Square South

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Photograph by Philip V. Allingham 2006.

This image may be used without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose.

Fred Heatley speculates that the 1849 visit of Victoria and Albert stimulated an interest in the Scottish Baronial style, so popular in England, not merely as a reaction to severe eighteenth-century classicism but as a testament to Romantic movement in general and Sir Walter Scott's Waverley Novels in particular. Moreover, a Scots' and Presbyterian influence is evident throughout the city, in, for example, The Scottish Providence Block immediately opposite City Hall. Several blocks away the walker comes upon the magnificent red brick edifice of the Scottish Temperance Building, designed by Henry Seaver and completed in 1904 as an example of what Belfast architectural authority C. E. B. Brett terms "a free treatment of the Scottish Baronial style" (cited in Heatley 8): "it remains a symbol of Belfast at its commercial zenith, when the city could brag of having within its precincts some of the largest industries in the world" (Heatley, 8), and some of Europe's leading technological and scientific thinkers, including physicist Lord Kelvin.

Bibliography

Heatley, Fred. Belfast: Paintings and Stories from the City. Belfast: 1998, rpt. 2004.

Last modified 31 August 2006