Name for new coffee shop and exhibition area

Coffee cup As part of the Belfast City Hall refurbishment, a new coffee shop and exhibition area has been added. The theme of the new area is Belfast industries from the 17th century through to the present day.

Find out more about the coffee shop

Chosen name

The name of the new coffee shop and exhibition area is The Bobbin.

During July and August 2009, we asked the public to vote for their favourite name from the following options: There were 1432 votes in total. Thanks to everyone who voted.

You can read about the history behind the names below.

History behind the names

White Linen

The fact that Belfast City Hall was built on the site of the former White Linen Hall is one of Belfast’s forgotten memories.

The White Linen Hall, backed by the linen warehouses in the Linen Quarter, had been the centre of the booming linen industry that helped Belfast become a world beater throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Bobbin

The linen industry was the first in Belfast to become mechanised during our industrial revolution in the 1820s. The bobbin was a lowly but essential part of this industry, produced in their tens of thousands, and used in all looms.

A bobbin is a spindle or cylinder on which yarn or thread is wound. Bobbins were also used on a larger scale in other industries like the Ropeworks, another of Belfast's world beaters.

The Foundry

Foundries were one of the earliest small scale industries in and around Belfast, with a history going back to the 17th century.

Foundries became the backbone of the growing Belfast industries in the 19th and 20th centuries supplying all the larger industries with machinery and materials. They came in all shapes and sizes, from the small scale to the world leaders such as Mackies and Musgraves.

These foundries not only serviced local industry but also supplied clients across the world, with the likes of Musgraves supplying stable and house fittings to royal families around Europe.

The Blackstaff

Every city and most towns have been developed around a river. Belfast had three rivers; the well known Farset and Lagan, and the lesser known Blackstaff.

The Blackstaff was the lifeblood of the Corporation's (now Belfast City Council) Gasworks at the bottom of the Ormeau Road and it was the profits from the Gasworks that funded the building of City Hall in the early 1900s.

The Gasworks were critical for the development of Belfast, not only because it provided street lighting, but it also serviced the burgeoning population of the industrial giant by providing lighting and cooking facilities to all walks of life.