5 Kingsgate Street, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT52 1LB

5 Kingsgate Street, Coleraine, was a three-storey brick or rendered building with a modern shopfront, demolished around 1998 following planning approval for replacement.

The building stood on the site of the former East Gate of the fortified town of Coleraine. Earthen ramparts surrounded by a ditch had been constructed at the time of plantation in 1611. By 1622, the East Gate had been fitted with a small gate and drawbridge 12 feet wide with a small timber room above, slated. The town gates were dismantled by 1710, though the ramparts remained in the Kingsgate area for some years longer. By 1738, a holding of 17 perches in the Kingsgate area had been appropriated for a school funded by the Irish Society, situated where the road widens in Kingsgate Street. By the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830, no rampart was evident on the south side of Kingsgate Street and the former line had been built over, with number 5 among the buildings constructed on this site.

According to the townland valuation of 1828–40, number 5 comprised a house and offices occupied by John Sarson and valued at £10 16 shillings. The valuation fieldbook recorded that numbers 1, 3, 5 and 7 were of identical height and depth but varied in street frontage width. All four had cellar kitchens. Number 5 had a stable to its rear.

At Griffith's Valuation (1856–64), number 5 was occupied by James Curry and valued at £13 with an annual rent of £16. The grocery was described as being in "a neat shop in good repair". Fieldbook measurements suggested the building remained unaltered from the 1830s survey.

Later occupiers included Denis O'Shea, John Massey, H & M Lithgow (1863), Thomas Lithgow, James McClean, John Gracey (1872), Thomas J Hervey (1876), John Darragh (1877), James Darragh (1884), Jane Darragh (1897) and Mary Alice Darragh (1924), who remained resident until the late 1940s when Molly Holley and then the Keenan family took over.

The 1901 and 1911 censuses recorded the shop as a draper's with thirteen rooms, occupied by Jane Darragh, a widow from County Down, assisted by three adult daughters. The ground floor comprised the shop, work room, and WC to the rear with stores at the bottom of the yard. Living accommodation was entered through the shop. In the 1950s a modern shopfront was fitted and the former work room became part of the shop. The living accommodation still had no bath or hot water at that date.

The building was listed in 1977. In 1998 permission was granted to demolish numbers 1, 3 and 5, which were subsequently replaced with modern shops.