More Belfast history.

The old Robinson and Cleaver building in Belfast, standing on the prominent corner of Donegall Place and Donegall Square North, was constructed between 1886 and 1888 as the Royal Irish Linen Warehouse for the successful department store founded by Edward Robinson and John Cleaver.

The two men had established their business around 1874 in smaller premises on Castle Place (later moving to High Street), specialising in high-quality Irish linens and tweeds, and rapidly built an international reputation with a thriving mail-order trade that accounted for a large share of parcels leaving Belfast. Designed by the leading local architects Young & Mackenzie and built by H. & J. Martin at a cost of nearly £50,000, the imposing six-storey structure features white Scrabo sandstone upper floors, polished Scottish granite at street level, distinctive copper-domed turrets, a corner clock tower, and elaborate carvings by the English sculptor Harry Hems, including some fifty stone heads of the firm’s distinguished patrons such as Queen Victoria.

The store operated from the building for nearly a century until its closure in 1984, after which the premises were subdivided into retail units and offices and became known as Cleaver House.

I photographed the building from the front gates of Belfast City Hall, dodging between the visitor tour groups, the chaotic city traffic and the street preachers. Photographed with the Fujifilm X-T50 fitted with a 7Artisans manual focus fish-eye lens, with the perspective corrected in post-capture processing..