Large shed

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large single storey store building of perhaps c.1920, with Belfast Truss roof and roughcast façade. The property is set on the SW side of Bank Square to the SE of Maghera town centre.

The building is rectangular in plan form and measures roughly 22m x 12. The façade is in unpainted roughcast. The front (NE) gable has a large off centre vehicle doorway with roller shutter. To the long SE elevation there are two relatively large windows to the right hand side each with relatively recent (but much dilapidated) frames. Large sections of this elevation are covered in creeper growth. To the NW elevation there is a small, roughly central high level window, now boarded up. The rear gable could not be seen.

The curved roof is covered in corrugated metal.

Historical information

This building may date from c.1920. It is currently unused.

The Belfast truss was developed in the mid-nineteenth century to meet the demand for efficient, lightweight and long span roofs brought about by the industrial revolution. A detailed description of the historical development of the Belfast truss is included in the record for HB18/08/139. In brief, the first known reference to a curved wooden felted roof structure supported by bowstring girders is in an advertisement in the Dublin Builder for 1866 by the Belfast firm of felt-makers, McTear & Co. McTear’s continued making trusses until they went out of business in 1908.

A second Belfast felt supplier, Anderson & Co., began to produce trusses, to a slightly different design, in 1886. In 1896, Anderson’s launched their Mk II version; promoted as maximising long spans whilst maintaining light weight. This model was subsequently used by other companies, and is referred to by historians as the Belfast truss, although this term is widely used to apply to all timber bowstring trusses where the internal bracing members meet not on the bottom of the truss as was the convention but on the top curved member.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Large single storey store building of perhaps c.1920, with Belfast Truss roof and roughcast façade. A large but unremarkable example of the genre, distinguished only by the fact that it is one of the few remaining Belfast Truss structures whose trusses actually retain a manufacturer’s mark.

General comments

Surveyed as part of the Belfast Roof Truss survey.