City Centre

The Ulster Hall is perhaps the best known building on Bedford Street. For almost 150 years, it has brought spectacle and delight to the people of Belfast. When the Ulster Hall opened in 1862, it was intended as a multi-purpose venue and space was allowed for an organ. A former Lord Mayor, Mr Andrew Mulholland, duly presented one to the people of Belfast and it remains one of the oldest and finest examples of classical English organ-building being played today.
Bedford Street was first developed in the 1850s for linen warehouses. One of these stands opposite Ulster Hall at No. 17, Ewart's Warehouse, formerly Bedford Street Weaving Factory. This fine but now derelict three storey warehouse of warm brown sandstone was built in a Venetian style by the Glasgow architect James Hamilton. The building has a corner entrance with a circular hall marked by a copper dome.
Take time to look down the long avenue of Clarence Street towards St. Malachy's Roman Catholic Church. This fine castellated Elizabeth-Gothic style church looks like a transplanted Tudor castle. Its studded doors open onto an incredible interior with an impressive gallery. The wonderful fan-vaulted ceiling, like an inside-out wedding cake, is an imitation of Henry VII's Westminster Abbey chapel.
The British Broadcasting Corporation began its Northern Ireland operations



in 1924 from a disused linen warehouse on Linenhall Street. BBC Broadcasting House on Ormeau Avenue was designed by James Millar of Glasgow in 1936 and opened in 1941. Its imposing Neo-Georgian overtones are typical of this era.
The Ormeau Avenue Public Baths building provides an interesting slice of social history. Dating from around 1888, it was built at a time when most working class homes in Belfast had neither hot water nor baths. The Baths provided two swimming ponds, as they were then called, and 36 private baths. In 1995, following a period of dereliction, the building re-opened as the Ormeau Baths Gallery (OBG), one of the most significant arenas for public art in Northern Ireland and a showcase for the best of Northern Irish contemporary art.
[Photo captions, from top to bottom, read]
· Ulster Hall
· St Malachy's Church
· Ormeau Baths

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