19 Waterside, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 3DP

19 Waterside is a three-storey-with-basement, end-of-terrace building constructed around 1850 as part of a wider programme of urban improvement along Waterside, Coleraine. It was built to designs overseen by Samuel Angell, the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers' surveyor in Ulster, working alongside surveyor Stewart Gordon. The building is Georgian in style and was designed to provide living accommodation above a ground-floor commercial premises — a form typical of urban development of this period. It sits at the western termination of a largely homogeneous terrace and occupies a prominent corner site at the junction of Castlerock Road, Castle Lane, and Waterside.

The building is rectangular on plan with a canted south-west corner and multiple abutments to the rear. The roof is partially hipped and clad in slate, with blue-grey angled ridge tiles and lead-covered hipped ridges. There is a brick chimney stack with multiple terracotta pots. Rainwater goods are half-round replacement cast-iron, mounted on a plain timber fascia at the exposed eaves.

The walling is smooth rendered and painted, with a contrasting painted plinth course. The ground floor carries a traditional-style 20th-century shopfront comprising a narrow timber fascia supported on fluted pilasters with profiled brackets, and multi-paned timber casement windows flanking a central double-leaf, four-panelled timber door. The principal elevation faces south and contains two windows to each of the upper floors. Single windows are positioned to the canted south-west corner. First-floor sills are continuous, running across both the south and west elevations, above the traditional shopfront with lead flashing. Square-headed timber sash windows are used throughout — generally 2/2 sashes with moulded architraves, plain projecting sills — except to the rear where uPVC replacements have been installed. The west elevation contains three vertically aligned uPVC sash-style windows, with cast-iron bars at ground-floor level.

The north return contains a square-headed doorway with a projecting cornice carried on fluted pilasters with profiled and foliated brackets, all in painted masonry, and fitted with a replacement four-panelled timber door, with two uPVC windows above. There is a limited view of the ground and first floors of the north elevation at the rear. The second floor of the north elevation has two windows, with one window below to the left side. An L-plan flat-roofed return abuts at ground-floor level on the left side and is of no architectural interest. To the right, a two-storey hipped-roof return with a diminutive window to the first-floor right cheek abuts the building. A further flat-roofed return of no interest abuts at ground-floor level to the right. The east elevation is abutted by the adjoining terrace.

The building currently functions as a public house at ground-floor level with apartments above, continuing a use with deep historical roots: Phillip Mooney took up residency in 1891 and operated a licensed public house on the ground floor, a use evidenced in Census Records from 1901 through to 1931.

The history of the building is inseparable from the broader story of the Waterside area and the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers, one of the London Merchant Companies charged with developing and settling County Londonderry during the early 17th century. The Company had long leased out these lands, often to absentee landlords, which led to general decline and a lack of new construction. When the lease expired in 1840, the Company regained direct control and embarked on a substantial programme of improvement covering buildings, infrastructure, and education. A new bridge of increased height was built around 1844 to replace an earlier timber structure of around 1735, and stabilising works were carried out to the western embankment of the River Bann. The raising of the street level on the Killowen side to correspond with the new bridge height affected the existing buildings in the area. The Company decided it was more appropriate to demolish and entirely rebuild Waterside, so as to create a more dignified approach into their estate from the main part of Coleraine to the east.

The overall layout of Waterside was already broadly established before the redevelopment, so the terrace plan did not change substantially. However, the design, scale, and style of the new buildings were governed by strict architectural principles, first established by the neighbouring Clothworkers' Arms Hotel of around 1846, which marked the opening phase of the development. Demolition of the neighbouring houses began in 1847. Samuel Angell designed the new terrace to complement the hotel and to line the near-processional approach to the Clothworkers' Estate via the new bridge. While individual building designs were largely generated by other architects, each was strictly regulated by Angell and Stewart Gordon to conform to the overall scheme. The terrace was completed around 1854, by which point the Clothworkers' Company claimed to have spent approximately £4,000 on the erection of houses in the Waterside area. As architectural historian James Curl noted in 1986, the plain, balanced, and unembellished character of this terrace reflects the Company's conscious decision to avoid the excessive ornamentation embraced by other London Companies during the same period of widespread architectural improvement.

The building first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1849–50. It replaced an earlier building on the same site as shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830, which formed part of a street of similar plan with extensive outbuildings to the rear. The first recorded occupant after construction was Hugh Lyle, and the property was valued at £32 in Griffith's Valuation of 1856. Ownership passed to Sir Hervey Bruce around 1868 and subsequently to John McNeill in 1924, with the valuation remaining unchanged throughout. By 1911, the outbuildings to the rear included four stables, two barns, and storage facilities, but these have since been replaced or remodelled and no longer form part of the property. In more recent decades, additional flat-roofed returns have been added to the rear.

The building stands in an urban setting on a prominent corner site, with its main elevation directly fronting one of the principal approaches into Coleraine town centre via the nearby Old Bridge. It is situated on the western bank of the River Bann. A corresponding terrace stands on the opposite side of the street to the south, and the Old Courthouse is located a short distance to the west. The upper floors retain a high degree of their original character, though incremental changes to the ground-floor shopfront over the decades have eroded some historic fabric. No. 19 has group value with the other listed buildings in this terrace and contributes to one of the few coherent historic street facades remaining within Coleraine.