Former Fishmongers Dispensary

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey, three bay, house with attic rooms. Single storey one room extension with hipped roof to each side of the main facade. Porch with pitched roof and door with fanlight in centre of facade, which faces North West across The Fore Glen. A disused track passes along the front of the building. Two ironstrap gates with tall square section gateposts give access and these are placed at opposite ends of the elevation curling out to meet the road from a long low garden wall parallel to the building and road. The whole is a simple Palladian composition. The building has been recently renovated and has lost much of its former detail. Green clay tiles to the roofs on top of existing timbers, walls dry dashed, timber fixed windows replacing the original sashes, chimneys to each gable rebuilt.

On the north east elevation to the left of the entrance, two narrow windows lighting the attic can be seen, the single storey side extension with one window has been extended to the rear by a flat roofed extension of 1960s vintage. The rear of the building (south east) shows three windows at ground and first floor on the main block, a door and window to the single storey extension to the left and the blank wall of the 1960s kitchen extension, which has a door and large window on its south west facade. The rest of the south west facade would once have been exactly symmetrical with the North East. Two narrow windows high up in the gable of the main house light the attic, one window is placed in the middle of the single storey extension. The building is presently a farm house with a number of whitewashed stone barns to the rear.

Historical information

The building was erected in 1829 at an expense of £1,200 (OS) £1,039 (Curl) by the Fishmongers Company as a dispensary and physician’s apartments for the use of Fishmongers tenantry alone. A dispensary had been established in 1822 by the company, but it took seven years to erect purpose built accommodation. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland record the rules of the dispensary, a sample certificate, and a number of admissions between the 1st March 1831 and 14 May 1834. A requirement of the appointment was that the surgeon be ex-army or navy.

References:
Primary Sources:
OS Map 1st Edition 1831 Co Londonderry 23
'Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.28. Parishes of County Londonderry IX', ed Angelique Day & Patrick McWilliams (QUB, 1995) p.26

Secondary Sources:
JS Curl ' The Londonderry Plantation 1609-1914' Phillimore & Co, Chichester 1986 p270
Guildhall Library, City of London, Fishmongers Company Papers MS 5571/14 p6

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A well proportioned small Georgian house with grander pretensions. The Palladian influences show that it was designed by an architect, this was Richard Suitor, London based architect of the Fishmongers company. Sympathetically restored, it would have been a fine example of how a common country type - the three bay two storey house could be raised above the norm by a few subtle touches of the architect. However the renovations have compromised its appearance, particularly the green tiles. Historically the building is interesting as a purpose built medical building. Of note is how the requirement for a dispensary room gave the architect the excuse to provide Palladian wings on the composition, but that this practical requirement was not allowed to unduly influence the formal nature of the design. This can been seen as a direct contrast to much modern medical practice, where the functional nature of the building is now so precise that the architecture is built around it. Also of note is the contrast between the country style of this building and Suter’s more urbane stone clad dispensary in Ballykelly.(SEE HB 02/02/003)