Beerage Bottlers Ltd., Beresford Road, Coleraine, Co.Londonderry

Beerage Bottlers Ltd, Beresford Road, Coleraine — Former Shirt Factory (1894, with 1907 wing), now offices

This is a purpose-built shirt factory constructed in 1894 for the London-based manufacturer R.H. & S. Rogers, a firm previously trading as Thomas Rogers & Co and before that as Henry Rogers, which had operated from nearby New Row since the mid-1860s. A two-storey wing was added in 1907, and the entire complex was refurbished as office space between 2002 and 2005.

The main block is a five-storey red-brick building of considerable visual presence, sited directly on the street corner of Beresford Road and Beresford Avenue. Its horizontality is counteracted by strong vertical window bays, and the brickwork is enriched throughout with subtle decorative detailing: yellow-brick double platbands above the third floor, a moulded brick cill course to the fourth floor, and a corbelled brick eaves course that continues across the gables and along the gable verges. The base of the frontage is cement-rendered. According to the Valuation book of 1894, the building measured 96 feet by 31 feet in plan and stood 54 feet to the eaves, with four floors and an attic. It cost £3,300 to construct, and its machinery — presumably sewing machines — was powered by a 7 horsepower gas engine running on the town's gas supply. The 1904 Ordnance Survey map captions the building and its rear return as "Shirt & Collar Factory".

The principal (north) elevation faces the street and is composed of seven symmetrically arranged round-headed recessed panels across the façade. Each panel, except the middle one at ground floor level, contains a pair of windows to the ground, first, second, and third floors. All but the middle panel terminate just below the top floor; the middle panel rises to eaves level and is crowned by a gabled dormer above. The ground floor of this middle panel originally contained an archway through to the rear yard, but this has been infilled and rendered, with a single window inserted. Small single windows light the top floor in line with the panels below. Painted across the brickwork between the ground and third floors is the legend "The / Coleraine / Shirt and Collar Factory", though as of July 2018 the brickwork had been cleaned and the lettering had become very faint. All windows throughout the building — on this elevation and all others — are modern one-over-one bottom-opening timber replacements with double-glazed panes and all-round margins. All except those on the top floor and the ground floor of the middle panel have flush-mounted cast-iron cills.

The east gable is three window openings wide and is detailed in the same manner as the street elevation but without recessed panels. At ground-floor right there is a doorway; to its left are two brick-infilled window openings, and there are three further infilled openings at first floor. Former windows at the left end of the second and third floors have been infilled and rendered over, though otherwise two windows remain on each of these floors. The top floor is blank except for an oculus at the apex of the gable.

The rear (south) elevation is plain red brick with shallow brick pilasters forming full-height vertical bays of similar width to the recessed panels on the frontage. The middle section of this elevation is abutted by a full-height double-pile modern stairwell. The exposed section of wall to the left of the stairwell is one bay wide and retains paired windows to all floors except the top. The exposed section to the right is three bays wide; all ground-floor openings here have been rendered over, some with modern insertions, and paired windows remain to the first, second, and third floors in most bays, while the right-hand end has brick-infilled openings. The west gable is abutted by the two-storey wing; the exposed brickwork above is detailed as the east gable, with three windows to the second and third floors, small windows to the top floor, and an oculus at the gable apex.

The double-pile rear stairwell has pitched artificial slate roofs, plain bargeboards, boxed eaves, plastic gutters, roughcast rendered walls, and square double-glazed windows with concrete cills to all elevations. At ground-floor level it is abutted by a full-width entrance porch with a monopitched artificial slate roof and a gable over the entrance door.

The two-storey wing, added around 1907, has a flat concrete roof with a concrete-coped brick parapet. According to the Valuation book of that year it measured 22 feet long by 31 feet deep and 25 feet high, with a Vulcanite-covered (that is, flat) roof, and was originally described as a new engine shed housing a 30 horsepower gas engine. There was also a small open-sided corrugated-metal structure at the rear. The north elevation of the wing, facing the street, has three flat-headed recessed bays, each with a single window to the ground floor and to the first floor, detailed to match the main block. The west elevation is plain, with three windows to each floor, the middle ground-floor window being infilled. The rear south elevation is plain and cement-rendered at ground floor; it has two windows and a modern door at ground floor level, and three windows to the first floor.

The roof of the main block is pitched natural slate; rainwater goods throughout are ogee-section plastic.

The factory was shown on the 1922 Ordnance Survey map with the same "Shirt & Collar Factory" caption. Rocola Lodge, a manager's house, was built on the adjacent plot to the west in 1929. Messrs Rogers continued to manufacture shirts on the site until 1958. In the early 1960s, Seven-Up Bottlers — described in the street directories as wholesale bottlers and mineral water manufacturers — occupied the block, and in 1965 they were joined by another firm of soft-drinks bottlers, Peerage Bottlers Ltd. From 1971 to 1977 Peerage Bottlers were the sole occupants. The bottling plant closed in 1977 and the building stood until its refurbishment as offices in 2002–05. The current building name, Beerage Bottlers Ltd, reflects this later phase of occupation.

The building sits at the corner of Beresford Road and Beresford Avenue, adjoined to the west by Rocola Lodge, with a tarmacked car park to the rear. It is of considerable local historical interest as a purpose-built shirt factory that provided employment for women throughout the area, and is representative of one of Coleraine's principal industries from the later 19th century to the mid-20th century. The replacement windows detract somewhat from its architectural authenticity.