Telephone Exchange

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached multi-bay three-storey brick Modernist telephone exchange, dated 1957, to the designs of E. Reily. Rectangular on plan on an east west axis, concrete-framed construction with bowed and glazed stair block to the east.

Flat concrete roofs throughout with cast iron box hoppers and downpipes. Brown brick laid in Flemish bond. North and south elevations have square-headed window openings with cement surrounds and sills set within triple-height vertical concrete frames. Tripartite steel casement windows throughout.

Blank east elevation abutted by a full-height bowed stair block with curved brown brick wall to the east and curtain-glazed to either side. To the base of the bowed elevation is a Portland stone date stone inscribed; ‘This stone was laid by / Sir Gordon Radley / K.C.B., C.B.E., Ph.D(Eng), M.I.E.E. / Director General of the Post Office / 12th January 1957’. Fixed steel windows to either side rising from the ground to the roof plate with alternating red glazed panels and clear glass. To the northeast is a square-headed door opening with stone surround and cantilevered concrete canopy. Double-leaf hardwood doors with deep vertical panels and bronze handles. Above the principal entrance are enameled bronze lettering stating; ‘ TELEPHONE EXCHANGE’. Below the roof is a bronze Royal Insignia ‘E II R’.

South elevation is fifteen windows wide with vertical bays articulated by projecting concrete frame. Elevation abutted by a two-storey wing.

West elevation has a chamfered corner and a single horizontal window opening at each level with fixed-pane steel windows.

North elevation is sixteen windows wide with tiled surrounds to all windows set within the concrete frames.

Setting
Located within its own enclosed site to the west of Lodge Road accessed off Nursery Avenue and enclosed by tall steel gates.

Roof Concrete
RWG Cast Iron
Walling Brown clay brick
Windows Steel casement

Historical information

The foundation stone of Coleraine Telephone Exchange was laid on 12th January 1957 and the building was completed c1959 to designs by E Reily, Chief Architect to the Ministry of Finance in Northern Ireland (Coleraine Chronicle). Construction cost £290,000 and the site chosen was a vacant plot in a suburban area of Coleraine. The building is first shown on OS maps dating from the 1960s/70s. The automatic and auto-manual exchange replaced an earlier manual telephone exchange situated in the Diamond (Coleraine Chronicle). Valuation records list the exchange from 1960 at a valuation of £880, raised to £1000 in 1963 after additions including a garage.

Local newspaper reports of the period reveal that the new telephone exchange was built as a result of a heavy post-war demand for telephones that had resulted in long waiting lists, 161 applicants waiting for a telephone in the area at the time the foundation stone was laid. One in every four subscribers in Northern Ireland had to share a telephone line at this period. It was hoped that by 1960 new telephones could be installed on demand and to this end the Coleraine exchange was one of 28 new exchanges across the province to be planned in the late 1950s/early 1960s (Coleraine Chronicle).

The opening ceremony was performed by Sir Gordon Radley, Director General of the Post Office, on a site which in the nineteenth century had provided the sand used for the erection of a chapel in Long Commons and for the terrace in Nursery Avenue, erected in 1890. It was thought that the exchange would be surrounded by lawns once the Nursery Avenue terrace was ‘no longer in being’. Jack and Teddy Doherty, Coleraine brothers, were the contractors (Northern Constitution). The building itself was to cost £70,000 with the cabling and equipment costing £210,000. The exchange was designed to hold equipment for 2,000 subscribers, and it was thought this would be adequate for Coleraine’s needs for years to come, there being only 900 subscribers at the time. Two exchanges were housed in the building, one automatic to serve Coleraine and one ‘auto-manual’, with which telephonists controlled trunk calls from the surrounding areas of Counties Derry and Antrim (Coleraine Chronicle). The exchange has become fully automated in recent decades and the building remains in the ownership of British Telecom.

References:

Primary Sources

1. OS Map (1960s/70s)
2. PRONI VAL/4/B/5/3 Second General Revaluation 1958-72
3. Coleraine Chronicle 12th January 1957
4. Coleraine Chronicle 19th January 1957
5. Northern Constitution 19th January 1957

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance

Evaluation

Detached multi-bay three-storey brick telephone exchange, dated 1957, to the designs of E. Reily. Rectangular on plan on an east west axis with bowed and glazed stair block to the east. A utilitarian structure located in a residential district. This well proportioned large telephone exchange with coherent design and understated detailing is an important example of a post WW2 infrastructure building which is also of note as it retains its original use despite the miniaturisation of telephony equipment. It retains a wealth of histoirc detailing both externally and internally.

General comments

Listing Criteria R - Age; S - Authenticity and T - Historic Importance also apply.