"Mountcollyer Avenue / Road / Street occupy the site and grounds of 'Mount Collyer', the residence of the Collyer family. Thomas Collyer got his ticket as a burgess of Belfast in 1727, and 'Mount Collyer' was probably occupied by him. He died in 1782". (John J. Marshall, Origin of Some of Belfast's Street-Names, p.20).
Mount Collyer is a house marked on Taylor and Skinner’s 'Maps of the Roads of Ireland' (1777), just north of the town boundary. It had several notable owners/occupants, including clergyman Dr William Drummond, textile manufacturer Andrew Mulholland, and Rev Dr James Saurin, vicar of Belfast.
Rev. Dr. William Hamilton Drummond, a Presbyterian clergyman, was running a boys’ boarding school at Mount Collyer in 1806 (Benn 1880, 58). It became known as “Drummond’s Academy” (IHTA xii, 33). Dr. Drummond (1778-1865) was originally from Larne. He was minister of the second Presbyterian congregation in Rosemary Street. He also gave public lectures on scientific subjects and wrote books about the Battle of Trafalgar (1806) and the Giant’s Causeway (1807) (Hewitt 2008, 71-2). Andrew Mulholland owned Mulholland’s Mill in York Street with his brother Thomas. Andrew was elected Mayor of Belfast in 1845. A Mrs. Mulholland was recorded as a “Country Resident” dwelling at Mount Collyer in the Belfast and province of Ulster directory of 1852.
The photograph reproduced in Peggy Weir’s illustrated history North Belfast shows Mount Collyer as a large but plain two-storey house (Weir 1999, 81). The house was sometimes spelt 'Mount Collier' on maps, for example on the 1st edition six-inch-to-the-mile Ordnance Survey map made in the 1830s, but the spelling with Y seems to have been favoured by the owners of the house.
"Mr John Thompson attended and asked that a new street on his property at Castleton be named 'Alexandra Avenue' and the Committee suggested the name Mountcollyer Avenue instead which Mr Thompson agreed to." Town Improvement Committee, 12th December 1888.