Warehouse, Mill Street, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 1PD

This is a former press and paper room associated with the Northern Constitution and Coleraine Chronicle newspapers, located on Mill Street, Coleraine. The building dates from the late 19th century in its earliest parts, with a substantial extension added around 1920, and is currently vacant.

The structure is semi-detached, double-height, and open-plan in arrangement, comprising two principal phases of construction that together form a multi-bay, gabled building. The earlier western portion is a gable-ended structure of squared, roughly-coursed grey rubblestone at ground floor level and Flemish-bonded red brick to the upper storey. This is abutted to the east by a large double-height extension with rubblestone and roughcast-rendered walls and a distinctive curved barrel roof supported on Belfast trusses.

The northern building has a pitched slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles and reconstituted stone to the gable heads. A single plain brick chimney rises from the west gable, and a central projecting pulley arm with a timber canopy sits above the eaves. Half-round uPVC rainwater goods are fixed to a projecting brick eaves course, with a plain timber fascia to the rear extension. The rear extension is covered by a barrelled roof, the covering of which was not identified at time of survey.

Windows throughout are timber casements set in flat-arched openings with brick surrounds to the north elevation and rendered projecting sills. Doors are timber-sheeted and braced. The north-west elevation has a single door to the left and a double-leaf sliding door to the right, with five unequally spaced windows to the upper floor; a previous central opening has been infilled. The right (east) gable has a window to the right of centre, and the ground floor on this side is abutted by a neighbouring single-storey flat-roofed structure. The south (rear) elevation is largely obscured by neighbouring buildings and is abutted by the barrel-roofed extension. The eastern wall of the extension is of random rubble construction at ground floor level — forming part of an original earlier return — with roughcast-rendered brick above. This elevation has a regular pattern of eight vertical windows above fifteen smaller horizontal windows, all fitted with metal grilles. The left (west) gable of the extension is blank, with former central windows to each floor having been infilled. A cast-iron gate and post stand at the east gable wall, the corner of which is chamfered and rendered at ground floor level.

The Belfast truss roof system deserves particular attention. A Belfast truss is a timber girder in which diagonal lattice bracings support a segmental upper bow; in its purest form, the diagonal bracings meet at right angles along regularly spaced purlins of the bow. This construction method provided a means of spanning moderate distances quickly and economically and was widely used for industrial purposes during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its use declined after 1918 as steel became more readily available and capable of achieving larger spans, though Belfast trusses continued to be used for moderate spans until the 1960s, when modern alternatives became preferred. The example here, constructed around 1920, represents a relatively late use of this roof type and is considered a relatively rare surviving example.

Historically, an early building on this site — described in valuation records as a shed — is first shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1904, and was valued at ten shillings in the General Revisions of 1900 to 1912. The town plan map of 1882 shows that the structure replaced part of a terrace of houses that had extended northward, though these were recorded as having been removed in 1900. The offices and printing works of the Northern Constitution (formerly the Coleraine Constitution) were erected around 1900 a short distance to the north-east, and this shed was brought into use by the Constitution. Successive ownership passed through a Mr Stewart, then Florence Kiddles, then W. Church, without significant change in valuation. By the First General Revaluation of 1935, the building was being valued in conjunction with the Northern Constitution buildings. By the time of the first edition 25-inch Irish Grid Ordnance Survey map of 1967 to 1968, the rear return had been substantially expanded westward, forming the double-height extension with its Belfast truss roof. Field evidence indicates that the rear wall of the building along Mill Street was partially knocked through during this work, and the eastern wall of the extension was constructed on top of the walls of the previous return.

In terms of use, prior to 1972 the building functioned as a paper store for large printing press reels. It was subsequently converted to house a new offset printing press and remained in use as a press room until 2010, at which point the former press room attached to the main building reverted to use as a paper store.

The building is set in an urban context on Mill Street, to the rear of terraced shops, offices and houses along Railway Road and Long Commons. It faces north-west directly onto the narrow street, while the east elevation fronts onto a gravel alleyway that separates it from the associated Northern Constitution offices. The building forms part of a group with those listed offices (recorded as HB03/18/011A and B) and has direct historical associations with them.