"Church Lane was formerly called School-House Lane, from a school-house erected by the first Earl of Donegall, about the year 1666. This building stood in the church-yard; in the map of 1685 a building stood in the church-yard, at Ann Street corner, which is supposed to have been the schoolhouse. It was this edifice which the officers of King James requested permission to use as a temporary chapel in 1688" (Rev James O'Laverty, An Historical Account of the Diocese of Down and Connor, vol. ii, 1880, p.392).
By 1757 this street was called Church Street after the Corporation Church, then on the site of St George’s. By 1788 it was called Church Lane (Marcus Patton, Central Belfast: A HIstorical Gazetteer, 1993, p. 67). It is included in the list of streets in the Belfast Directory 1835-1836.