9 Derry Road, Strabane, Co Tyrone, BT82 8DT

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Nineteen-bay three-storey brick factory, built c.1880. Rectangular on plan facing west with integral carriage arch to south bay giving access to attached factory building to rear (built c.1970) and former Manager's house to east.
Pitched artificial slate roof with plastic rainwater goods to timber fascia. Painted red and yellow brick walling laid in English garden wall bond. Camber-headed window openings with brick arches, stone sills and replacement timber casement windows.

Three-storey front west elevation nineteen windows wide with painted lettering between floors.. 'PORTER & COMPANY, ABERCORN FACTORY'. Security steel grilles to ground and first floor windows. Pair of door openings with replacement timber frames, glazed hardwood doors, sidelights and overlights with steel roller shutters, opening onto concrete universal access ramp. Segmental-arched door opening to northernmost bay formed in brick with reinforcing steel plate and steel roller shutter. Segmental-headed carriage arch opening to southernmost bay formed in brick with rounded brick to piers. Rendered keystone to arch reinforcing steel plate, giving vehicular access to rear. To the left of arch is a square-headed opening formed in brick giving pedestrian access to rear along concrete footpath.

North side gable is four windows wide with painted redbrick walls and windows to first and second floors only. This elevation fronts onto front yard of adjacent Masonic Hall (HB10/12/017).

Rear elevation abutted by modern sheeted steel factory extension obscuring ground and first floors, except over carriage arch to south where four windows are visible to all three floors. This elevation retains its original unpainted brick walling to the upper floors with yellow brick surrounds to the window openings. Pebbledash walling to ground floor with rendered keystones left exposed to carriage arch and pedestrian arched openings.

South side gable has been rebuilt above ground floor level with modern brown brick. Four windows wide fronting onto gardens of neighbouring houses.

Roof Fibre cement slate
Walling Red and yellow brick
Windows Replacement timber casement
Rainwater goods Plastic

Historical information

The present factory was built c.1880. A previous factory on the site was built c.1865 together with workers’ and managers’ housing to the rear, some of which housing survives to the present day. It has remained in use as a shirt factory from the date of building to the present, with few interruptions.

The factory first appears on the third edition OS map of 1905. Behind the factory and apparently attached to it are two terraces of houses captioned ‘Factory Row’. Further to the east is another small terrace captioned ‘Gourleville Terrace’. On the fourth edition (1951) Gourleville Terrace shows a small extension to the east elevation.

The factory is first mentioned by valuers in the fieldbook dated 1864 and is described as a ‘Shirt factory, ware rooms, offices and yard’ valued at £90 and leased by William Gourlie & Son from the Duke of Abercorn. A marginal note gives dimensions of 36½x10x3a and records the presence of a steam engine of 8 horse power. The associated valuation map captions it ‘Abercorn Shirt Factory’. Sixteen houses behind the factory are given values of £3, later raised to £3 10s. The terrace to the east comprises four houses, two valued at £3 10s, later raised to £4 and two valued at £7, later raised to £8, perhaps indicating that they were in the process of being completed during the period covered by the fieldbook (1864-73). All the houses are leased from the occupier of the factory.

In 1875 the factory is briefly taken over by Mason Kennedy before being taken over again by Messrs J and R Pritchard & Co in 1878. By 1882 the factory is taken over by Stewart & McDonald who rebuild it. However, the value remains the same. It is reduced to £70 in 1891. The associated houses also have small reductions in value at this time.

The Strabane Chronicle of 19 December 1987 states, on the occasion of Porter’s 80th anniversary, that Stewart & McDonald were two Scotsmen who “brought their own builders and bricks with them from Scotland and had them transported directly to Derry in four ships. In those days there were two railways running from Strabane to Derry but instead, Arthur McDonald brought these bricks to Strabane in horse-drawn canal barges to the canal basin and had them wheeled up in iron barrows to the…site of the new factory…At the height of the shirt boom [1890’s], there were upwards of 250 people employed, many being part-time and home workers who walked ten miles from areas as far apart as Donemana, Glenmornan and Castlefin,”

In 1892 the houses behind the factory are renamed ‘Factory Row’ and renumbered 1-16. The smaller terrace is renamed ‘Gowrleville Terrace’ and numbered 1-4.

In 1901 the factory is taken over by Miriam Stewart and Robert Keady. In 1911 Gallagher & Egan become the owners and in 1921 the value is raised to £85.

In valuation revisions dated 1933 the factory is listed as ‘at rest’ and the lessor is Margaret Gallagher. In 1935 Margaret Gallagher complains that she has been unable to sell the factory and has moved her business to Lifford in Donegal. ‘Every such factory in Strabane has either closed up or…built abroad in Donegal’ In 1941 the factory is listed as occupied by HM Forces under the Defence Acts and is used as stores. The factory is then taken over by S and L Porter Ltd and held in fee. The value rises from £50 to £120. The valuer states in a note of 1943, ‘Purchased by Porter & Coy at £2300… Employees 120, sewing machines 90. Motive power two 3HP, one 7½HP, one 5HP electric motors. Exclusively shirt factory. Raw material to finished article.’ Porter and Co were founded in Derry in 1907.

In 1935 ‘Factory Row’ houses are described as ‘Old kitchen type house in poorish repair, WC in yard, also water tap. No sink in house. Gas. £5.5s.’ In 1952 ‘These houses are all condemned and will not be re-occupied’. By 1953 five of them have been demolished.

In 1901 Nos 3 and 4 Gourleville Terrace have been made into one house valued at £9.10s and occupied by Paul Gallagher. By 1911 he has become the occupier of No.2 as well.
By 1935 Gourleville Terrace has been converted into two dwellings numbered 1 and 2 and occupied by the Gallagher family. Number two is valued at £30, and Number 1 at £6.5s.

Kennedy, writing in 1987, notes that Porter and Co Ltd’s Abercorn Factory, formerly Gallagher’s Shirt Factory, employs ‘130 people to make pyjamas, night-shirts and boxer shorts’ In 1987 they opened a 10,000 sq ft extension to the factory. (p.61,124)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/6/5/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1833)
2. PRONI OS/6/6/5/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1854)
3. PRONI OS/6/6/5/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1905)
4. PRONI OS/6/6/5/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1951)
5. PRONI VAL/12/E/187/1/4 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (1874-1908)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/42/31A-M – Annual Revision Records (1860-1931)
7. PRONI VAL/3/C/7/23 – First NI General Revaluation Records (c.1935-56)
8. PRONI VAL/3/D/7 – Valuers RV Binder (1933-57)

Secondary Sources

1. Kennedy, Michael G. “By the Banks of the Mourne: A History of Strabane.” Strabane, Co. Tyrone: Strabane Historical Society, 1996.
2. The Strabane Chronicle, 19 December 1987

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Three storey nineteen bay shirt factory built in 1890's on the site of an earlier factory. The repetitive cliff-like façade of this factory building would have been an unusual sight in the 1880s, while at the same time providing a substantial number of jobs to the local population. While most original internal and external features have been lost, the overall composition remains intact and remains a link to the industrial heritage of Strabane as well as being a well-known landmark on the Derry Road.