15-17 High Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 3 storey semi detached 2 bay wide red brick house with shopfront, gabled, slated, back return.

The ground floor has shopfront with separate 6 panelled grained door to upper floors with 3 pane fanlight with thin pilasters on each side with slim cornice. Some painted brickwork between jamb and pilasters. The shopfront has a central framed door, upper panels glazed and 3 pane fanlight over. On each side large display window each divided into 6 panes with slim glazing membranes. Beneath display window cill smooth rendered and painted panels. Thin pilasters frame shop door and windows. Over a painted name fascia with end scrolls, top cornice and lower moulding. 2 steps rise to both doors and there is a low plinth.

At 1st floor 2, 6 pane double hung sliding sash windows with segmental heads, window spaced to suit semi detached arrangement. Each sash is divided vertically in 3 matching fanlights. At 2nd floor similar windows directly over but of lesser height. ½ round metal gutter on brick corbel which terminates against a corbelled brick kneeler. Trunkhead under kneeler with unpainted cast aluminium downpipe. Walls redbrick in Flemish bond, cut soldier courses over windows, mortar natural colour. Cills sandstone painted. Roof natural slates with upstand barge to gable, brick chimney stack with tall clay pots.

Gable wall windowless, brickwork in Flemish bond and a slightly different red. Stack centred with 6 no pots. 1800mm high white coursed limestone wall enclosing the yard to Market Street with a pair of circular piers with conical tops and a pair of sheeted and framed timber gates. The back return begins 2 storeys high with lean-to roof, 1 bay long and changes to 1 storey, 3 bays long, changing again to a random built 2 storey outbuilding 3 bays long.

The rear wall of the main house has a single segmental headed 6 pane double hung sliding sash window at each floor not quite vertically over other and at 2nd floor another similar window over the lean-to roof. Corbel course under gutter terminating against a brick kneeler. The upper portions of gable and rear have been repointed several decades ago. Windows to back return 2 pane double hung sliding sash.

No. 15/17 with No. 19/21 form a matching semi detached pair in line with the neo-classical terrace of the market house and fronts onto a broad footwalk to High Street. This footwalk is presently being relaid as part of an Environmental Improvement Scheme.

Historical information

In 1862 a Deputation of the Draper’s Company visited Ireland and Daniel Magee, Builder, “was requested to prepare plans of houses in the High Street at the corner of the land leading to Hammond Road (Market Street corner) ……… instructed to base his plans upon the houses designed by Booth on the opposite corner of the lane”. (Houses on the north side of Market Street). Magee apparently followed his own design. No.s 15/17 and 19/21 replaced earlier houses.

The back return was put on later in the century as it is shown on the 1906 O.S. Map. The shop, presently a newsagent was formerly a chemist shop. The building was listed in 1975 during the occupancy of the present owner. Repairs were carried out in 1976, 1990 and 1998 with the aid of NIHE grant.

References

Primary Sources
1. O.S. Map 1832 Revised 1856 Londonderry sh. 46.
2. O.S. Map 1906 Londonderry sh. 109
3. Curl J.S. The Londonderry Plantation 1609-1914 p. 226
4. Notes, 1st Survey, E.H.S. Hill Street, Belfast

Secondary Sources
1. Camblin G, The Town in Ulster p. 81 ill. 57.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A semi detached redbrick house with shopfront of c 1860s, illustrating a good example of 19th cent. infill which took cognisance of adjoining Market House in respect of height and building line and handling of shopfront. The turning of corner into Market Street is well done with the stone built boundary wall and gate piers.