Boundary Post South East of Collon Terrace Buncrana Road Londonderry BT48 7QP

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Free-standing cast-iron boundary marker of c.1864, marking what was originally the perimeter of the administrative jurisdiction of the Municipal Corporation of Londonderry. The post is located on the footpath of the southwest side of the Buncrana Road; opposite 1 Maybrook Mews.
Square plan cast-iron bollard approximately 3 feet tall surmounted by an oversailing square cap with integral smaller cuboid on top, set on an enlarged square-plan moulded-top base. The shaft has a recessed panel on each of the four sides and on the front, this contains raised lettering, intact and discernible; stating: ‘CITY BOUNDARY’. The base has a raised name plate with Coppin’s maker’s mark in more heavily weathered lettering.

Material: Cast-iron.

Historical information

This boundary post is one of a series of which marked the limits of the jurisdiction - as set out in 1864 - of the then Municipal Corporation of Londonderry. The Corporation had applied to Parliament for permission to extend the municipal borough in late 1863, stating that ‘the great number of dwellings erected, and the consequent increase in population outside the present boundary render it necessary that the sanitary conveniences and municipal regulations should be extended to those localities’, and under the ‘Londonderry Improvement Act’ of the following year the city limits were extended to include the newly populated areas highlighted in the application.

In late September 1864 it was reported that ‘the tender of Mr. Thomas Miles to supply metal boundary pillars’ had been accepted by the Corporation. Thomas Miles appears to have been a business associate of William Coppin (1805-95), the noted Derry-based sailor, shipbuilder and inventor who had established a foundry off Strand Road in 1840, and Coppin’s maker’s mark appears on the base of the post.

The post is marked in this location on the OS map of 1904 and all others thereafter. There is a strong possibility that for the first few years of its existence, it may have been on the opposite side of the road, for an order was made to the City Surveyor in May 1876 to have 'the boundary post on the Buncrana road changed to the other side of the road'; though we have no available evidence to confirm whether this was indeed carried out.

References- Primary sources
1 ‘Derry Journal’ – 4 November 1863, p.2; 14 November 1863, p.1; 20 July 1864, p.4; 28 September 1864, p.2; 24 April 1866, p.3
2 OS town plan of Londonderry -1873
3 OS maps 6-inch county series, Londonderry sheet 14 - 1904, 1932, 1948; IG series sheet 26 - 1961-62, 1973, 1984

Secondary sources
4 Malley, Annesley and McLaughlin, Mary, ‘Captain William Coppin “Neptune’s brightest star”’, (The Foyle Civic Trust, Derry, 1992)
5 https://www.dib.ie/biography/coppin-william-a2031 (accessed 31 October 2023)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

S. Authenticity
R. Age
T. Historic Importance
X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

This free-standing cast-iron boundary marker marks the perimeter of the administrative jurisdiction of the Municipal Corporation of Londonderry in c.1864 and is testament to the expansion of the city beyond the previous municipal boundary.
The square plan cast-iron bollard survives fully intact in good condition. It has group value with the surviving ‘1864’ posts but is the only marker which is both fully visible and in its correct position since, or since very soon after, its initial installation.

General comments

Previous LQ HB01/LQ086