Foyle Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A fine example of a late Georgian-style detached house sited perpendicular to the street. A symmetrical plan two storey, five bay facade overlooking the garden, containing a large copper beech tree, enclosed by a boundary wall. Built c.1815. The principal elevation faces east, consisting of a central block flanked by gabled single-bay projections at either end. The irregularly fenestrated rear facade faces Princes Street and is of two storeys, with the lower windows at pavement level.

Slated hipped roof with clay ridge. Symmetrical chimney stacks on mid-ridge to each wing at front, and two to rear of central block. Stucco painted walls with decorative timber eaves and cast iron rain water goods.

Front entrance door has Adam-style rectangular fanlight with carved pilasters and console brackets flanking the double panelled painted timber door with brass fittings and threshold. Three steps up with boot scraper either side.

Ground floor canted bays on central block consisting of original timber sliding sash windows. Replacement tri-partite timber casement windows to remainder of principal elevation. Irregular fenestration to rear elevation, with two elaborate tri-partite sliding sash windows to first floor level with glazing bars at 45° angles.

Setting:
On the south side of Clarendon Street, on the west most side of the middle portion, Foyle Cottage is sited perpendicular to Clarendon Street with its rear elevation directly on Princes Street. To the front, its gardens are enclosed by walling, with gables of adjacent buildings to the east and south.

Materials:
Roof Natural Slate
RWG Cast Iron
Walling Render
Windows Timber Sliding Sash
Door Original timber

Historical information

Foyle Cottage, a Regency-style house located on Clarendon Street in the townland of Edenballymore, was constructed in c. 1815. The gentleman’s cottage predates the laying out of the surrounding early-Victorian streets of Clarendon Street, Great James Street and Queen Street making the dwelling the oldest building incorporated within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

The first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1830) for the townland of Edenballymore records that the Clarendon Street area was originally rural hinterland with few significant structures; in 1830 the laying out of the city’s streets had extended no further northward than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street and William Street. In The Annals of Derry, a survey of the city compiled by Robert Simpson and published in 1847, Simpson recorded that ‘all the district now covered by Great James’s Street, William Street, Little James Street … and the numerous lanes in that vicinity [originally comprised] meadow ground without a house’ (Simpson, p. 213).

Despite the report’s claim that there were no houses in the area, Foyle Cottage can be viewed from the 1830 Ordnance Survey map in which it is depicted as a rectangular-shaped building located between William Street and Asylum Road. The map indicates that the cottage originally possessed a small gate lodge on the Strand Road (demolished prior to 1853) and a large garden that stretched down the hill towards the quayside. When first constructed in c. 1815, Foyle Cottage would have stood in an unspoiled country setting on the edges of the city’s reaches, however by 1830 the cottage had already become surrounded by a number of public buildings that signified the beginning of Derry’s northern expansion; the map records that Foyle Cottage was bounded by the Lunatic Asylum (constructed in 1825-29) and Foyle College (1814) to it’s north and the Infirmary (1810) and Christ Church (1830) to it’s west.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs records that Foyle Cottage was the residence of William Scott Esq. in the 1830s, whilst the contemporary Townland Valuations (1831) set the rateable value of Foyle Cottage (and it’s lodge) at £20. Scott was the founder of Londonderry’s celebrated shirt industry; having set up a small local weaving business in the early-nineteenth century, Scott was forced to expand his enterprise due to the remarkable success of his product. Increasing his workforce, Scott established new factories and warehouses to accommodate orders from Glasgow, London and as far away as Australia (OSM, p. 206; Lacey, pp 175-176). Scott had vacated Foyle Cottage by 1856 when the dwelling was included in Griffith’s Valuation; by that year the development of Clarendon Street had commenced but Foyle Cottage and its garden remained undisturbed by the change (the street only extended as far up the hill as Queen Street by the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853). The remainder of the houses on Clarendon Street were built in the decade between 1856 and 1866, the development necessitated the sale of the cottage’s garden as Clarendon Street was to extend past the dwelling’s north gable, cutting off access to the former gate lodge on the Strand Road.

In 1856 Griffith’s Valuation noted that Foyle Cottage had been increased in value to £24; the occupant in that year was a Mr. Smyth Osbourne who leased the cottage from the Rev. Henry Wallace (Moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster in 1839). Smyth Osbourne was an agent with Imperial Fire Insurance and resided at Foyle Cottage until 1893; in that year the site was purchased outright from the estate of the Rev. Wallace by a Mr. John Chase, a draper who operated his business (J. Chase & Co.) from premises in The Diamond. The Annual Revisions records that the greenhouse, located to the east of the house, was constructed in this year by Chase at a cost of £20; the change in owner resulted in the value of the cottage being slightly raised to £25, a value at which the property remained until the cancellation of the Annual Revisions in 1931.

The First Revaluation of 1935 states that a Ms. Margaret Browne had possession of the dwelling and that in that same year the dwelling was increased in value to £43. The records state that both owner and value remained unchanged by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956-72).
However, information obtained from the current owner (received October 2015) states that Foyle Cottage was acquired by the Madden family in 1908 and that a ground rent of £9.5.6 was paid to Miss Margaret Browne who lived at No. 49 Clarendon Street. (Not documented in the 1898-1910 valuation book).

In 1970 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society noted that Foyle Cottage was most likely erected in c. 1815, making the cottage contemporary with the former Foyle College (HB01/22/016) on the Strand Road with which it shares a distinctive Georgian design. Foyle College was erected in 1814 and both buildings consist of a central block flanked by adjoining wings; the society described the cottage as ‘a part one- and part two-storey house sited at right angles to the street, with symmetrical façade overlooking the garden and slight projecting gabled wings’ (UAHS, pp 40; 51). Calley described Foyle Cottage as a ‘charming rendered Regency house. A good example of the Georgian use of simple forms and love of symmetry, in this case three rectangles; a central block under a hipped roof and attached symmetrically placed gabled ended side blocks. One of its most pleasant features is that it opens a gap in the long terraces and then fills it with an ancient copper beech whose foliage spills out past the building line … in all a plain but very pleasing composition which offers a gentle rebuke to some of the exuberance of later nearby buildings’ (Calley, p. 116).

Foyle Cottage was listed in 1979; in the previous year the Department of the Environment had included the building in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, ‘an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance’ (Londonderry Clarendon Street Conservation Area Booklet). The earliest building to survive along Clarendon Street, Foyle Cottage is also notable as being one of the few buildings on the street that continues to be utilised as a private domestic dwelling; in the late-20th century the majority of the three-storey houses were converted into offices for local dentist, accountancy and solicitors firms.

References

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/5/20/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1830)
2. PRONI OS/6/5/20/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1853)
3. PRONI VAL/1/B/547A-F – Townland Valuations (1831)
4. PRONI VAL/2/B/5/16G – Griffith’s Valuation (1856)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/32/11B-ZA – Annual Revisions (1862-1897)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/33/2C-2F – Annual Revisions (1898-1931)
7. PRONI VAL/3/B/6/4 – First Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1935)
8. PRONI VAL/4/B/5/13 – Second Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
9. Ordnance Survey Memoir of Parish of Templemore (1837)
10. Robert Simpson’s ‘Annals of Derry’ (1847)
11. Ulster Town Directories (1843-1918)
12. First Survey Record – HB01/21/006 (1970)
13. First Survey Image – HB01/21/006 (No Date)
14. NIEA HB Records – HB01/21/006

Secondary Sources
1. Calley, D., ‘City of Derry: An historical gazetteer to the buildings of Londonderry’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2013.
2. Ferguson, W. S; Rowan, A. J; Tracey, J. J., ‘List of historic buildings, groups of buildings, areas of architectural importance in and near the city of Derry’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1970.
3. Rowan, A. J., ‘The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster’ London: Yale University Press, 2003.
4. ‘Londonderry Clarendon Street Conservation Area Booklet’ Department of the Environment, 1978.
5. ‘Design Guide for Clarendon Street Conservation Area’ Department of the Environment, 2012.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
U. Historic Associations
T. Historic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Built in 1815, its styling in a modest Regency vein. Set in its own grounds, Foyle Cottage still has much of its original historic fabric and character, with minor alterations c.1938. It is a good example of the type with robust detailing and character and is of significance developmentally as it pre-dates the laying out of the surrounding early-Victorian streets of Clarendon Street, Great James Street and Queen Street, making the building the oldest incorporated within the Clarendon Conservation Area. Notable as the residence of William Scott Esq. In the early 1830's, the founder of Londonderry’s celebrated shirt industry.