arrow Street — North Belfast
Approved: 1888
Location: Off Crumlin Road (Oldpark / Crumlin district)
Yarrow Street was formally approved by Belfast Corporation on 20 June 1888. The Town Improvement Committee recorded:
“That the application of Mr James Henry to name two new streets on his property off Crumlin Rd., ‘Rosewood Street’ and ‘Yarrow Street’ be granted.”
The minute shows that both Yarrow Street and Rosewood Street were laid out together on land owned by James Henry, forming part of a coordinated new housing layout off Crumlin Road. By the early 1890s both streets appear in Belfast directories, with Yarrow Street running between Crumlin Road and Rosewood Street, and houses already occupied.
James Henry was a substantial figure in Belfast’s late nineteenth-century building boom. Trading as James Henry & Sons, with premises on Crumlin Road, he was responsible for a wide range of residential and commercial work across the city. Like many builders of the period, Henry acquired land on the expanding edge of Belfast, laid out new streets of terraced housing, and proposed names for those streets for the Corporation’s approval.
No contemporary source records why Henry selected these particular names. Their character, however, fits closely with late-Victorian naming fashion. By the 1880s, builders increasingly favoured picturesque or decorative names—especially those drawn from nature—rather than commemorating individuals or places.
Yarrow is the name of a common wildflower (Achillea millefolium), long familiar in Ireland and Britain. The plant carried associations of healing and rustic beauty, and the name would have evoked a gentle, natural character for a newly built urban street.
Rosewood refers to a richly coloured hardwood prized in Victorian furniture and interior design, its name derived from the rose-like scent of the freshly cut timber. As a street name it combines floral imagery with an implication of refinement and quality.
Taken together, Yarrow Street and Rosewood Street form an intentional, nature-inspired pairing. They reflect a late nineteenth-century impulse—shared by builders such as Henry—to soften the impact of urban expansion with language drawn from gardens, fields, and domestic elegance. Rather than memorialising a person or event, these streets offered prospective residents something more subtle: names that sounded pleasant, cultivated, and inviting in a rapidly industrialising part of Belfast.
Sources
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Belfast Corporation, Town Improvement Committee, minute of 20 June 1888:
“That the application of Mr James Henry to name two new streets on his property off Crumlin Rd., ‘Rosewood Street’ and ‘Yarrow Street’ be granted.” -
Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory, 1890.
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Lennon Wylie, Belfast Street Directory, 1894.
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Department for Communities (NI), Historic Buildings Database – entries relating to James Henry & Sons and Crumlin Road developments.
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“Achillea millefolium (Yarrow)”, First Nature.
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Oxford English Dictionary / Dictionary.com, “Rosewood”.