Dunruadh

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large 2 storied house with attic in the Arts and Crafts Style. Stretcher bond smooth red bricks (lagan vale) to ground floor. White wet dash render and red terracotta tiles to first floor. Westmoorland green slates with projecting white timber dormer windows and barges.

The main entrance elevation facing due east towards the River Foyle is dominated by a two storey entrance porch projecting approximately 2m from the façade. This is terminated as a gable at first floor and is finished in the white render. The panelled and varnished timber entrance doors are flanked by two varnished timber Doric columns at the head of a flight of 4 stone steps. To the north, the line of the porch roof is continued into the attic and also rendered before dropping steeply to a modern extension. To the south of the porch a large chimney stack projects from the façade in brick, it is rendered in a similar colour to the brick for the storey height it projects above the eaves line (modern repair?). This portion of the façade is tile hung at first floor and terminated at eaves level with a dormer above. Further to the north the ground floor extends out to become a conservatory with a hipped red tile roof.

The north elevation has tiles above first floor and is a gable. The attic has a venetian window, two three pane casements are on the first floor. At ground floor the conservatory projects approximately 4m and is almost half the width of the façade. A bay window is situated to the rear corner at 45 degrees to the façade is similarly detailed to the conservatory.

The rear or west elevation is tile hung at first floor. A gabled bay projects approximately 1m from the façade at the north end. There is a flat roofed rectangular bay at ground level one four pane casement above and a two pane casement in the attic. A three pane dormer projects to the south with two pane casements aligning below. To the north of the projection is a single storey modern kitchen extension in similar materials but different roof pitch projecting 6m approx into the garden.

The north elevation of the original building consists of a long roof in Westmoorland slate dropping almost to first floor level with two projecting dormers. At present a modern single storey extension partly obscures this façade. The extension joins onto a two storey existing shed with boiler chimney (in brick as the original building), and has similar slate on a low pitch.

The extension is smooth rendered and painted white. The building sits on a large hillside overlooking the Foyle Bridge screened from Culmore Road by high planting.

Historical information

Built in 1898 for the Welch Brothers of Welch & Margetson shirtmakers in Derry City. A reputed arrangement between the brothers meant that one brother returned to England when the other married. Their son lived in the house until 1954 when the house was sold to a manager in their Shirt Factory Mr Laurie. The present occupiers bought the house in 1976 and carried out the extensions during the early 1980s. 1½ acres of the garden including tennis courts were compulsorily purchased in 1982 to provide an access road from the west for the new Foyle Bridge. A Cornish architect was apparently commissioned by Welch to design the house.

Primary Sources
1. O.S. Map 1904-5 Rev. Londonderry 36.

Secondary Sources
1. Present owner.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Late Victorian merchant’s house in the Arts and Crafts Style. Historical details well preserved. Dramatic entrance space and interesting exterior detailing. Architectural character reduced by modern extension. Original spaces beyond entrance hall, not of same drama and inventiveness of other houses in the style.