MA Block

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical multi-bay two-storey with attic red brick former professor's house, built c.1881, with two full-height canted bay windows to either end. U-shaped on plan facing south on an elevated site to the west of University of Ulster's Magee Campus adjacent to MB block (HB01/22/009D) at the Northland Road entrance to the campus.

Hipped natural slate roofs with terracotta ridge tiles, lead valleys and five profiled red brick chimney stacks with terracotta pots and corbelled out capstones. Four timber sheeted gabled dormers with paired 2/1 timber sash windows and timber bargeboards. Moulded cast-iron guttering to projecting sandstone eaves supported on angled (cogging) brick courses with cast-iron downpipes. Red brick walling laid in Flemish bond with red sandstone trim to projecting plinth course and sandstone and angled (cogging) brick string course between floors. Square-headed windows with flush red sandstone basket-arched lintels, sandstone sills and 4/1 timber sash windows with slender ogee horns and some historic glass.

Symmetrical south front elevation is four bays wide with two full-height three-sided canted bay windows to either end, each surmounted by a gabled wall-head Dutch style dormer window with sandstone coping and ball finial.

Asymmetrical west side elevation has a projecting large brick chimney stack to the right with an angled vertical course, rising above the eaves. Left of chimney-stack is a red sandstone blank cartouche set in a red sandstone panel. To the centre is a four-centred arched red sandstone doorcase with a replacement timber six-panelled and glazed door and original leaded coloured glazed fanlight flanked by Tuscan pilasters with foliate carving to capitals on raised plinths. Pilasters are surmounted by scrolled and fluted console brackets, also having foliate carving with swags in turn supporting a hood cornice; diamond fielded spandrel panels. Door opens onto concrete universal access ramp with steel handrails.

The two end bays of the rear (N) elevation return as a pair of gabled elevations abutted by two lower two-storey lean-to accretions and further single-storey flat-roofed sections; a yard enclosed by red brick abuts each of the end bays at ground level; curved to the west and to the east topped with a moulded terracotta coping. Windows on this elevation are 6/2 timber sashes with smaller 2/2 timber sash windows to the hipped roof lean-to sections. Both the east and west projections have an elliptical-headed window opening with 2/2 timber sash window with margin lights and leaded coloured glazing that faces towards the yard between the two. A single square-headed door opening to the NE re-entrant corner has a Tudor-panelled timber door and plain overlight; it opens on to a flight of concrete steps, diagonally set, with curved retaining walls, rendered smooth with concrete copings and terminating in round planters to both sides. To the opposite side, a straight set of concrete steps descend from a later flat-roofed extension.

Asymmetrical east side elevation with central door opening, all detailed as per west side elevation. Door opens onto concrete steps, with the uppermost flight of three flanked by sandstone dwarf walls, with steel handrails to lower flight through steep garden.

Materials:
Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Red brick with sandstone dressings
Windows Original timber sliding sash

Setting
Set on an elevated site to the west of Magee University Campus adjacent to the MB block (HB01/22/009D), of similar appearance and the Northland Road entrance and set to the north of a bitmac driveway. Florence Terrace (HB01/22/008A-F inclusive) sits directly opposite and the western-most boundary to Northland Road is defined by local schist stone rubble walling which terminates in a square red-brick pillar having pyramidal dressed sandstone cap and incorporating recessed post-box, inscribed 'GR' (post-box put up between 1910 - 1936). Based on the 1st survey image, this pillar has been moved and the corresponding pillar on the reverse side of the driveway, together with the gates and flanking curved red-brick screen walling to both sides, has been removed.

Historical information

The two-storey red brick university building located at the south-west side of Magee’s College building (HB01/22/009A), close to the entrance opening onto the Northland Road, was originally built as a professor’s house in 1881 along with the adjoining residence (HB01/22/009D).

Magee College, a college for the education of men seeking a career in the Presbyterian ministry, was established due to the bequest of over £20,000 by Martha Maria Magee upon her death in 1846. The bequest was to be used by the Presbyterian General Assembly to build a suitable college in Ulster but, due to political interference, debates over where to site the institution and construction delays, it would be almost two decades before the college was opened. In 1853 Londonderry was selected as the only viable site for the new college and an architectural competition was organised to settle upon a design for the college building. The trustees invited plans that would provide eight classrooms, a common hall and library capable of holding 500 people, a laboratory, a small room to be used as a museum and also plans for eight houses that would be utilised as dwellings for the college’s professors.

Dublin-based architect Edward P. Gribbon’s Gothic design was selected and the foundation of Magee College was laid on 18th August 1856 but, due to budgetary constraints, the construction of the eight professor’s houses was abandoned. Magee College was officially opened to students on 10th October 1865. As a result of its failure to acquire an association with any of Ireland’s universities, Magee College possessed few students in its first decade (in 1874 only eight students were enrolled). In 1879 Magee became one of the constituent colleges of the Royal University of Ireland resulting in an increase in enrolment numbers (this was furthered by the admittance of women students from 1883). The connection with the Royal University of Ireland and the ‘great generosity of the friends of the college’ resulted in a number of additions being made to the Magee College campus in the late-19th century.

In 1881 the first of the professor’s houses, originally intended to be built along with the college building in the mid-19th century, were constructed on what became known as College Avenue. The pair of two-storey red brick houses located to the south-west side of the Magee college building were designed by Young & Mackenzie, a Belfast-based architectural partnership that was formed in c. 1867 and was described by the Dictionary of Irish Architects as ‘the most successful architectural practice in Belfast [who] had become the leading architects for the Presbyterian church in the north-east.’ The firm were also active for the Presbyterian Church in the north-west having designed Londonderry’s Fourth Presbyterian Church in 1877-79 (HB01/19/059) and also a second church on Clooney Terrace in the Waterside (DIA). The Natural Stone Database noted that the red brick buildings possessed Corsehill sandstone dressings and described the buildings as ‘two-storey plus attic … canted two-storey plus attic bay at each end of face. Basket arched sash windows on ground and first floor. Two dormers on roof and two wall dormers to end bays with Dutch style gable’ (DIA; NSD).

The two red brick buildings to the south-west side of the Magee college building were depicted on the c. 1873-1910 Annual Revisions Town Plan. The map shows that the general layout of the house nearest the Northland Road has not been significantly altered since its construction in the late-19th century (aside from the addition of minor flat roof extensions to its rear). The Annual Revisions set the value of the new residences at £90 and recorded that the buildings were internally divided into two separate dwellings, each of which were occupied by a college professor. In 1901 the building nearest the Northland Road was occupied by the Rev. Hugh Graham (Professor of Metaphysics and Ethics) and the Rev. George Woodburn (Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy). The contemporary 1901 census building return described the building as a pair of 1st class dwellings that consisted of 28 rooms and possessed two coal houses as their sole out offices.

Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57) the professor’s residence was occupied by the Rev. Woodburn and a Mr. Robert Lyons Marshall and had been increased in value to £102. During the Second World War many of the buildings at Magee College were requisitioned for the war effort but a number of the professor’s houses were utilised as classrooms whilst the remainder of students were educated at the Model College on the Northland Road. Following the end of the war the professor’s houses returned to their original use as private residences but by the 1950s not all of them remained occupied.

In 1950, on the recommendation of the Acheson Report, some of the professor’s houses were converted into student residences. By the Second Revaluation (1956-72) the red brick buildings were also utilised as administration and teaching blocks as well as residential units. The building nearest the Northland Road was converted into student accommodation in 1953 and continued to be used for this purpose until at least the 1970s. The building was subsequently converted into classrooms during the expansion of the university following the opening of the University of Ulster in 1984. The red brick buildings along College Avenue were listed in 1976 and were included in the Magee Conservation Area in 2006. The buildings continued to be used as administration, teaching and residential blocks for Magee University during the Second Survey (NIEA HB Records; Conservation Area Design Guide).

References

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/5/20/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1853)
2. PRONI VAL/12/E/157/1/1 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (c. 1873-1910)
3. PRONI VAL/12/B/33/2A-2F – Annual Revisions (1898-1931)
4. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/10 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57)
5. PRONI VAL/4/B/5/14 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
6. Ulster Town Directories (1880-1918)
7. Census of Ireland (1901; 1911)
8. First Survey Record – HB01/22/009B (1970)
9. NIEA HB Records – HB01/22/009B

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. Holmes, R. F. G., Magee 1865-1965: The evolution of the Magee colleges’ Belfast: B. N. L. Printing Co., 1965.
4. Logan, W., ‘The story of Magee College’ Londonderry: Standard Office, 1909.
5. Rowan, A. J., ‘The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster’ London: Yale University Press, 2003.
6. ‘A design guide for the Magee Conservation Area’ Belfast: Department of the Environment, 2010.

Online Resources
1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie
2. Natural Stone Database - http://www.stonedatabase.com/
3. University of Ulster website - http://library.ulster.ac.uk/magee/history.htm

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical multi-bay two-storey with attic red brick building on the east side of Northland Road, built c.1881 to designs by Young & Mackenzie as two semi-detached professors' houses. Almost identical to the adjacent MB block, the brick, red sandstone and moulding details also share much in common with the MC & ME blocks that flank the main neo-Gothic building on College Avenue.
Dutch-style gabled dormers imply a Queen Anne influence that saw popular revival in the High-Victorian era, whilst the cogging brick courses, basket-arched lintels, tall profiled chimney stacks and leaded glass overlights reflect a desire for hand-crafted detailing that emerged with the Arts & Crafts movement. Now used as offices by the University of Ulster, the two houses are connected internally and modernised, although the original plan form is discernible and the interior retains some historic fabric, including both staircases.
Despite the institutional appearance of the ramp and handrails, the exterior retains much character and the brick yard enclosures, together with one surviving gate pillar that incorporates a recessed post-box inscribed 'GR', further enhance the quality of its setting. The MA Block shares group value with a wealth of nineteenth-century structures dispersed throughout the campus (HB01/22/009A-D & F-I inclusive) that contribute significant interest to the Magee Conservation Area.