Overview
Almost everything worth seeing in Queen’s Quarter is free: the Ulster Museum, the Botanic Gardens and their Victorian Palm House, and the campus of Queen’s University itself. The quarter sits on the south side of Belfast, a ten-minute walk from the centre, and it’s small - museum, gardens and university all sit within a few hundred metres. If you have one hour, spend it in the Ulster Museum. If you have an afternoon, add the gardens and a film at the Queen’s Film Theatre.
History and architecture
Queen’s College was founded in 1845 to teach students across the religious divide, and the campus grew around Sir Charles Lanyon’s red-brick Lanyon Building, finished in 1849 and still the university’s front face. Next door, Belfast Botanic Gardens opened in 1828; the curvilinear cast-iron Palm House went up in the 1840s, early enough to predate the more famous glasshouses at Kew. The Ulster Museum, tucked inside the gardens, grew from a small collection into the North’s main store of Irish art, archaeology and natural history, and admission is free.
Beyond the university, Union Theological College on Botanic Avenue housed the Parliament of Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1932, before Stormont opened. Methodist College and Stranmillis College fill out the Victorian streetscape, and Elmwood Hall - once a Presbyterian church - is now a university concert hall.
What to see and do
- Ulster Museum - the rainy-day banker: free, and big enough to fill a couple of hours, from an Egyptian mummy and dinosaur bones to Irish art and the Troubles galleries. Start here.
- Botanic Gardens - the Palm House and the sunken Tropical Ravine are the draws; the rose garden and lawns fill with students the moment the sun comes out.
- Queen’s University campus - free to wander, and the quadrangle behind the Lanyon Building is the shot everyone comes for. Guided tours run for a fee.
- Queen’s Film Theatre - at 20 University Square, across from the Graduate School, the QFT has screened independent and world cinema since 1968 and hosts the Belfast Film Festival.
- Friar’s Bush Graveyard - one of Belfast’s oldest Christian sites, on Stranmillis Road, with graves said to reach back to Saint Patrick’s day. Opening is very limited and you usually have to book, so ring ahead rather than turning up.
- The Lyric Theatre and Lisburn Road - the Lyric stages new Irish writing down on the Lagan, while Lisburn Road is the quarter’s café-and-boutique strip.
Festivals
- Belfast Festival at Queen’s - the international arts festival held each November, now in its 46th year: theatre, dance, music and visual art across the university’s halls.
- Belfast Film Festival - based at the QFT, mixing Irish and world premieres with industry talks.
- Belfast Mela - the big multicultural summer day in the Botanic Gardens, with music, dance and food stalls.
Getting there and around
- On foot and by bus - the quarter is a ten-minute walk from the city centre, and Metro routes 6A, 7, 8 and 8B run through it.
- Parking - this is the weak point. On-site parking is very limited, and the ibis hotel has none, so don’t count on it. Queen’s keeps a few visitor spaces alongside staff-and-student permit parking, and there’s paid street parking and private lots (JustPark and the like) nearby, but the easy answer is to come by bus or leave the car in a city-centre car park and walk.
- Accessibility - the campus, gardens, Ulster Museum and QFT all have wheelchair access and accessible facilities.
Book the ‘Belfast by the Glass’ tasting walk ahead if you want a guided drink-and-history circuit through the quarter; otherwise the Ulster Museum and a wander through the Palm House cost nothing and fill a wet afternoon nicely.