Foyle & Londonderry College

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A suburban 2 storey villa in a neo renaissance style with smooth rendered and painted walls, projecting bays and porch and slated roofs.

The entrance front is 3 bays wide, each two storey and semi-circular.The eastern bay is set forward. The bay has 3 square headed 2 pane sliding sash windows on the ground floor and 4 round headed windows on the first floor. The piers between the windows are treated as pilasters with moulded base , capitals and moulded architraves.

The entrance porch set in the angle of the projection has a bold arch with panelled pilasters on either side, architrave, keystone and frieze above with cornice and low balustrading forming an open parapet.

The panelled door has side screens continued round the fanlight. Above the porch there is a single round headed window treated almost like an aedicule.

The shallow rectangular single storey bay to the west on this façade has 3 windows. In the centre a 2 pane sliding sash window, square headed but having rounded corners at the top. On either side there are 2 narrow round headed 2 pane sliding sash windows of equal height.. Piers are treated as pilasters and above the window heads there is a frieze, cornice and balustrade similar to porch but lower. Over this bay a pair of round headed 2 pane sliding sash windows again treated as other first floor windows.

There is a plinth with moulding lining with window cills. Between ground and first floor a double string course with frieze band between which is patterned on the semi-circular bay.

Under the eaves there is a panelled frieze interspersed with modillions supporting cornice and then ogee gutters. All external wall angles have faceted quoins of equal width. Each façade is treated similarly though there is less decoration on the rear elevation and it is obscured by steel fire escape stairs and additions.

Roofs are slated and appear to be recently done and it is likely the ridges had cresting or some form of decorative treatment. Chimney stacks finished in smooth rendering, panelled and finished with moulded cornice and corbels.

The east and west facades though differing in detail are similar in treatment.

The villa is set well back from the Duncreggan Road with short avenue approach. There are ample grounds well kept with many mature trees. The original curved conservatory is gone and replaced by a smaller rectangular version with pitched roof.

The line of the avenue has been changed and the original gate piers (see HB01/25/008B) set in a recess in a random stone wall look forlorn. The house now contains the offices, board room and meeting rooms for the Foyle and Londonderry College.

Historical information

In 1858 Griffith’s V.B. records house, offices and threshing mill in this site. There is no evidence of them now. W.D. Smith was the lessee and Hon Irish Soc. the lessor.

The present house was the residence of one of the early shirt magnates in the city. Tillie of Tillie and Henderson began the house in 1869. John Guy Ferguson was the architect. Later the house was acquired for the Londonderry Girls High School and adapted to teaching spaces. Other school buildings sprang up around it. More recently the school amalgamated with Foyle College boys school and is now co-ed. The present headmaster had the house restored and reverted to offices and meeting rooms.

The architects for this work was Albert Wallace and Partners.

John Guy Ferguson had been Tillies architect for his factory extension in the 1870s.

References

Primary Sources
1. Dublin Builder 1 Nov. 1869
2. School Secretary
3. Griffith Valuation Book 1858 Parish of Templemore Townland of Cloughglass.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Originally an ornate Victorian villa in the neo renaissance style designed by a prominent Derry architect for shirt manufacturing magnate Tillie. A substantial part of the Victorian interior detail survives as part of modern office accommodation. However the building has been much altered as part of its incorporation into a major modern secondary school which has also seriously compromised its setting. Also the original entrance has been lost as part of the conversion to school use. There are numerous surviving examples of this building type and recording rather than listing is more appropriate.