City of Industry Dan Cruickshank's Written in Stone

The story of the buildings of Ulster is the story of the people who

have lived on this land and left their mark on its history.

And here, history has left us with a remarkable legacy of buildings.

From ancient forts and mighty castles to prestigious public buildings

and grand country houses.

These historic buildings are windows into our past.

But Ulster's architectural heritage is not just about extraordinary

buildings, it tells the story of how these structures

and the people who created them were shaped by history.

A story written in stone.

In the early 19th century, Belfast was a provincial town owned

entirely by just one family - the Donegalls.

Their ancestor, an English soldier named Sir Arthur Chichester,

had been granted Belfast in the early 17th century,

after it had been taken from the local O'Neill clan.

The Donegall family was responsible for the growth

and development of Belfast as a Georgian town.

But their influence was not to last.

By the time the Donegalls completed Belfast Castle in the late 1870s,

the city it looked down upon was no longer theirs.

Earlier in the 19th century, the second Marquess,

a compulsive gambler who had taken refuge in Belfast to

escape his creditors, had lost it all.

The press nicknamed him, the Marquess of Done 'Em All.

MUSIC: "An Der Schonen Blauen Donau" by Johann Strauss.

The provincial Georgian town was about to become a major

Victorian city, an industrial powerhouse.

All, in part, thanks to one man's love of gambling.

To try and clear his debts, in 1822, Donegall

and his son were forced to sell long term leases on their land.

Now others could put that property to use and the way was

clear for industrialists and architects to reimagine Belfast.

The transformation of Belfast into a great industrial city

in the 19th century was driven by linen.

Distinctive red brick chimneys,

like these on the magnificent Jennymount Mill,

characterised the silhouette of the city as Belfast became

the leading linen producing centre in the world.

Indeed, it became known as Linenopolis.

The cloth produced at mills like Jennymount created the truly

phenomenal wealth that built the Victorian city.

Rows and rows of terraced houses were hastily built under

the shadow of the mills.

Thousands flocked from the countryside

seeking work in this new industrial city.

MUSIC: "Variations On An Original Theme: Enigma" by Edward Elgar.

To thrive as an industrial city, Belfast needed a major harbour.

From the 1850s, the development of this vital resource was

overseen from this building - the offices of the Harbour Commissioners.

Facing the main entrance is this splendid stained-glass window.

In the centre, an image of Neptune sitting on a packing case

and, to one side, a cornucopia, a haul of plenty, spilling fruits

and flowers onto the ground and below Neptune, an open ledger.

This represents, as it says here, commerce.

And to each side of Neptune are representations of the activities

that led to Belfast becoming so wealthy in the 19th century.

The top left is a shell, representing navigation.

Below that, Canadian beavers, engineering.

In the top right, a very charming rendering of a couple of spiders making their webs,

so, spinning, and below that a bird making its nest, weaving.

The Harbour Commissioner's Office looks much the same as it

would have done in the 19th century.

These portraits that line the walls represent

a generation of successful entrepreneurs.

And even the site on which this building stands was associated

with another industry.

One for which Belfast was to become world-famous

by the end of the 19th century.

Because it stood within the shipyard that was owned by this man -

William Ritchie, the Scots born shipbuilder.

This portrait shows Ritchie in later life,

but in the late 18th century, with his brother Hugh,

he pioneered shipbuilding in Belfast,

launching it is one of the city's major industries.

The scene was set for success.

Ships made in Belfast would set sail or steam all over the world

and goods would make their way back.

But as the port grew busier, a problem emerged.

The shallow water at the mouth of the quays could not accommodate

larger ships.

Of course, Belfast had a problem as a port, didn't it?

By nature, the water wasn't deep enough

and the water approach was too meandering.

Yes, it used to be very muddy

and the large place then was Carrickfergus

and Belfast really was quite small.

And then, they really got their act together,

about the 1830s they got some money

and they began to dig two cuts through the bends of the channel.

OK, they wanted to get the greater depth for larger ships?

That's right.

And the people who developed the harbour, financially,

were all the merchants and local traders.

They were very well off.

Tell me about the importance of the Victoria Channel.

It wasn't just important, it was vital, it was crucial to

the development of the harbour, to the development of the city.

Because without the Victoria Channel,

after all that that dredging, they just couldn't have got into

this place, so they would have gone elsewhere.

So it is probably one of the most important

channels in the history of the north of Ireland, or of Ireland.

And they were very wise to make the cut.

And they were very determined, I mean they were determined,

but those were the people who really wouldn't take

no for an answer, because the government of the day wasn't

very helpful, nor the landlord, so they had to help themselves.

And it paid off hugely, not only for them but also for posterity.

OK, so the water's made navigable for large ships,

but also part of the process is to reclaim land

and that land is used for industrial shipbuilding.

I mean, Harland and Wolff, I can see it from here.

This is the consequence, isn't it? A huge area the city's created for industry.

It really was quite simple.

The mud from Victoria Channel then became Queen's Island.

So their work really made Belfast what it is today.

So, I mean, this port, this building breathes history.

Belfast's growing industrial success had further consequences

for its development. As their businesses grew and prospered,

local entrepreneurs found themselves in need of professional help

to manage their burgeoning profits.

In Belfast, this was in short supply

and Dublin was a 12 hour coach journey away.

This splendid building looks like a mansion, a gentleman's club,

a museum or even a church. In fact, it was designed as a bank.

In the 1830s, a group of Belfast merchants

launched the Ulster Banking Company.

Today a five-star hotel, it reflects the pride, pomp

and circumstance of the financial professions in the Victorian era.

This decoration is loaded with meaning.

Up there in that semicircular panel is a youth, a putti,

clutching a big bundle of corn, so raw prosperity.

Next door, another panel shows urban, industrial prosperity.

A putti clutches a great hammer. Behind him, a cogwheel.

And on here, above the capitals of the columns, one can see,

again, putti, little children representing, in that case,

painting. Then there is the one with the harp so that's music and poetry.

Industry, science, I suppose, and sculpture all the civilised virtues

and these images within a wonderful and fashionable for the time,

Classical Renaissance interior,

giving banking the pedigree of history

so this speaks of prosperity, of solidity, of trustworthiness

and I suppose it makes it clear that making money, profits,

are not just civilised but also good for you.

Tell me about the architectural inspiration for this building?

Grimshaw and Heron, the two directors went across and did a trip

to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

They brought back what they felt were the best elements

of the Scottish banks who had been at it for a few decades.

-I see, so they wrote a brief for the building they wanted?

-Yes.

Then there was the competition of course.

That was quite common in those days and they got a very good response.

They got over 100 applications,

they offered £100 as a premium to the winner.

The result was that the commission went to

quite a young Scottish architect called James Hamilton.

It's important to remember that this building, completed in 1860,

in terms of scale, it is very fashionable, Italianate architecture,

the stone, quite an outstanding building.

Yes, people were very proud of it, they really were.

They wanted the place to look as magnificent as it could

and it had to give confidence to the people coming in.

A London periodical described it as being "massive, earnest,

"rich and suitable."

Do you reckon opening the bank in the 1830s was a statement in the sense of

Belfast coming of age, reaching independence, going it alone?

Yes, the men who started the banks in Ulster were actually a fine body of men.

They were on the liberal side of Belfast society.

The men who were involved with this were on the committees

that were improving the Port of Belfast.

They were driving that forward, too.

On a lot of levels,

this was the seat of the Belfast of the mid-19th century.

Bankers, shipbuilders and linen lords

wanted to leave their mark on the city.

So they enlisted the services of a talented architect

who himself became another Belfast success story.

Charles Lanyon did much to define the appearance of early Victorian Belfast.

He specialised in public and institutional buildings,

often designed in a baffling array of styles.

One of the most important buildings designed in the early 16th century

Tudor Gothic manner is this, Queen's University.

The university was opened in 1849 by Queen Victoria

and Prince Albert and on their visit to the city,

a visit cut short by five hours because of an outbreak of cholera.

They would have walked through this gate here, beneath this tower,

a tower inspired by the Gothic towers of Oxford and Cambridge

a connection that would have linked this new university

to the old university, have given this new university a lustre of ancient learning.

This was a good time to be an architect.

Belfast businessmen wanted to build a new Jerusalem,

a city that would reflect the elevated image they had of themselves.

The buildings that Charles Lanyon helped them to create

would tell a new story of prosperity and confidence,

a tale of a city of industry which deserved its place

at the heart of Victoria's Empire.

Can you tell me about Charles Lanyon?

He intrigues me because he is not just an architect,

he is very involved in all aspects of social life here?

Yes, he is from England and he comes first to Dublin

and then he becomes the county surveyor for Antrim

which is that early part of his career, the engineering part.

He develops the railway up the north coast and he develops bridges

and he is influential in road structure so that infrastructure period of time.

Then, as he develops more in the 1840s, as the town starts to engage more with its civic pride,

he becomes the architect to go to for all the public buildings.

They're by competition but he is very well placed

and he is a Freemason and he is embedded within the local culture

and he settles in Whiteabbey and he is entirely entrenched here

so this is Lanyon's Belfast between the late 1840s...

-The key public buildings are his.

-Yes.

What is intriguing, he was working at a very crucial moment

in the history of British architecture, the dilemma of styles.

Many people said you should build Gothic

because Gothic was a better architecture. It was Christian, somehow indigenous.

But Lanyon was seen to be quite happy to build in the Gothic

or Classical styles, depending on the circumstances.

Lanyon was great at following the brief of his client,

that the building shouldn't be a mystery to the person looking at it,

that you should be able to look at the building

and then be able to tell what it's meant to be.

You have a space like Queens College which is in the Tudor style

and that reminds you of Oxford and Cambridge and the seats of learning.

If it's banking, you want to remind yourself of the Italian city states

and how noble and serious they were and how well founded.

So the Victorians are like that and Lanyon was very happy to please.

This is the character that made these great Victorian cities

in the British Isles, be it Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool or Belfast.

In the time of Lanyon, Belfast was establishing a reputation

as an import and export town, a town of commerce

and then developing industry but it wants to be so much more

and Lanyon's career marks the transition from that more humble space

to the town and when he dies, Belfast has just become a city.

His entire career is a trajectory of the city developing.

Lanyon had ambition for Belfast.

He wanted to create buildings worthy of a great city

so he gave his designs the pedigree of history in an attempt to raise them above the commonplace.

Even the grim functional design of the Crumlin Road jail

was state-of-the-art.

In its day, this was Ireland's most modern building.

The population explosion that happened in Belfast

in the 19th century meant massive social change.

Lanyon's hand was seen everywhere,

from houses of correction to the palaces of leisure.

The Palm House, designed by Lanyon and William Turner,

is one of the earliest curved cast iron glasshouses anywhere in the world.

It was opened in 1840 but the Botanic Gardens remained closed to the public except on Sundays.

Recreation in this industrial city was still sharply defined by class.

This is one of the very best Victorian pubs to survive

anywhere in the British Isles.

It's a gin palace created in about 1885, a place of escape

from the perhaps grim realities of daily life in the great industrial city.

It's a sparkling fairyland of colour and rich detail.

Look at the wonderful stained glass windows over there

and the stained glass here in the booths.

Tremendous carving here, heraldic beasts above the booths

and tremendous gilded cast iron here on wonderful columns.

A lovely floor of tiles.

Gas lights are absolutely wonderful and an altar-like bar,

a place of veneration, marble topped and a lovely tiled base.

Terrific, absolutely wonderful.

The interior also reflects a social hierarchy

of late 19th century Belfast.

Working men or people just wanting a quick pint would gather

here by the bar.

People wanting more privacy or more comfort would go to one of the booths

or snugs, each one has its own letter and this is Booth F.

The people using the booths would be members of the professional class

and no doubt include mill managers, not wanting to mix with their workforce, drinking outside.

Also there could be groups of women.

Clearly, privacy was all-important.

The windows are obscured by the beautiful stained-glass

and the booths are very high and totally enclosed when the door is closed.

When you're ready for your drink, you press the bell.

The disc moves for Booth F, the waiter arrives,

you place your order and then, in comes your pint.

Your pint, Sir.

You would pay an extra penny on your pint

because this comfort and convenience came at a price.

A flurry of construction towards the end of the 19th century

obliterated much of the older town. Only fragments remain.

The Victorian city fathers set about clearing the slums around what would become the modern city centre.

Few towns anywhere in the British Isles had seen such rapid expansion.

As Belfast grew, the centre moved from High Street to Donegal Square.

This map shows Belfast in 1791.

Then only little larger than the plantation town of the early 17th century.

Here we see the remains of the river,

providing quays for ships to load and unload.

Only part of the river has been bridged across to form the High Street.

To the south of the built-up area is the White Linen Hall,

still outside the town proper.

That is where the City Hall was to be built

and is very near to where I am now, in the Linen Hall Library.

This map tells us that the population of the city in 1791

was 18,320 people.

Here, you see the population in 1891

was 255,950 people huge increase.

Belfast is very much a Victorian city.

The buildings of its centrepiece, Donegal Square,

testify to its success.

These are buildings, not just for a city of finance and industry,

but those of a city of culture.

A capital city.

Saturday, 13 October 1888 is a pivotal date for Belfast.

On that day, Lord Londonderry, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,

made the announcement Belfast had longed to hear.

Queen Victoria had granted them a Royal Charter.

Belfast was now officially a city. The local press were jubilant.

Belfast had long been tired of playing second fiddle to Dublin.

The city of industry needed just one more building

to declare its newfound status to the world.

A monumental City Hall.

This is one of the great public buildings from the twilight years of the British Empire.

It's a triumphalist affair, full of imperial pomp

that proclaims the pride, the wealth, the industrial might of Belfast.

Belfast already had a town hall built as recently as 1871,

but it was deemed not prestigious enough.

The corporation now sought a new and grander home.

In 1888, a young English architect, Alfred Brumwell Thomas,

won the contract to design a bold and dignified City Hall.

An exponent of the Baroque revival,

Brumwell Thomas used only the best materials

Portland stone from Dorset,

rare marbles transported at great expense from Greece and Rome,

would make this a very costly building.

The entrance hall and staircase are astonishing.

They express civic power and achievement through the language of imperial power.

This is the beginning of a stupendous journey through the building.

It's all to do with the ostentatious display of wealth with lavish beauty.

Just look at these sensational columns.

Each made of a single piece of green marble.

Beautiful and rare, lovely things.

No wonder the building cost twice its original estimate,

that's a total of nearly £360,000 in 1906.

In its mighty scale and ambition, this is the Titanic of City Halls

and that is hardly surprising since William Perry,

the curator of the Titanic, was Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1896

and 1897, when the design of this building was agreed.

This little room, the Lord Mayor's dressing room,

was created by men who were to work on the Titanic.

In a city which built ships with names like Leviathan,

Majestic, Olympic and of course Titanic, it now seems obvious

that its new City Hall would be the biggest and the best money could buy.

Some mocked it as the wedding cake at a pauper's funeral.

Others rejoiced that Kubla Khan's enchanted palace

faded into the commonplace beside it.

The mighty City Hall, seen here from Royal Avenue,

symbolised the culmination of the transformation of Belfast during the 19th-century

into the commercial and industrial capital of Ireland.

People everywhere define themselves

and are defined by their architecture.

From the streets of Belfast to sacred spaces,

from country houses to ancient strongholds.

From the earliest times of the modern era, the buildings of Ulster

offer a unique perspective on the life of its people.

This is their history, written in stone.

That history is still being written.

At Belfast's old shipyard, this new Titanic museum is both

a celebration of the past and a legacy for the generations to come.

This 21st-century building aims to have the same impact

as the City Hall completed just over 100 years earlier.

It intends to evoke a sense of civic pride and identity

and, in addition, to encourage all of us

to connect with the history of this great city of industry.

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