5 Aberfoyle Terrace, Strand Road, Londonderry, County Londonderry, BT48 6SE

No. 5 Aberfoyle Terrace is a late-Victorian mid-terrace townhouse of two storeys with an attic level, built in 1892 to designs by the local architect and engineer William A. Barker (1851–1898). It forms part of a terrace of seventeen houses lining the west side of Strand Road, Londonderry, overlooking the River Foyle and situated close to the University of Ulster (Magee Campus). The terrace was erected in stages over approximately two decades, with the first house completed in 1891 and the last in 1911. Although Barker established the standard design for the whole terrace, he died in 1898 by which point only around half of the houses had been built. The terrace was originally known as Templemore Terrace but was renamed Aberfoyle in around 1903, after Aberfoyle House, which stood on the hill directly above Strand Road. The land on which the terrace was built belonged to John McFarland, a local magistrate and engineer who resided at Aberfoyle House.

No. 5 is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. It differs from its neighbours in two notable respects: like No. 3 it is smooth-rendered and painted rather than built in the polychromatic brick used for the rest of the terrace, and it is wider than Nos. 7–33, with three windows at first-floor level. Its relative plainness means it acts as a visual bridge between the more elaborately moulded No. 3 and the start of the brick houses at No. 7.

The principal elevation faces east onto Strand Road, set behind modern painted railings enclosing a concrete-paved forecourt. The roof is slated and pitched, with terracotta clay ridge tiles to the main roof, the dormer, and the rear return. A small modern Velux roof light sits on the east slope. A two-stage yellow brick chimney stack rises from the north side, shared with No. 3, centred on the ridge with circular clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and a circular downpipe serve the front elevation.

The smooth-rendered painted principal elevation has a slightly projecting rendered tapered cornice at eaves level. At ground floor there is a canted single-storey bay with a hipped roof. A continuous painted sill course runs across the full width of the elevation at first-floor level. Window openings to the canted bay and first floor are segmental arch-headed, as is the entrance doorway opening. The wall-headed gable dormer window has a round-headed opening and a painted apex fascia board. All windows are 2/2 timber sliding sashes — to the canted bay, the first floor, and a smaller version in the dormer. The entrance doorway has a plain architrave surround, a moulded cornice over, and is reached by three steps up from the pavement. The door itself is a painted four-panel fielded timber door with a plain fanlight above.

The north and south sides abut the adjoining houses, Nos. 3 and 7 Aberfoyle Terrace respectively. The rear (west) elevation is three storeys of cement-rendered unpainted finish, with a two-storey cement-rendered unpainted rear return built at half-landing height. This rear return is abutted by a single-storey extension built in 1990 that spans between the rears of Nos. 3 and 5, connecting both buildings and serving as a waiting area. There is no access to the rear yard.

The building was originally valued at £15 and its first recorded occupant was a Miss Mary McLoughlin. By 1911 the house had passed to Thomas J. Conn, a local insurance superintendent. The 1911 Census classified it as a first-class dwelling containing ten rooms. Ownership remained with the McFarland estate until at least the 1970s. By the 1940s the house was occupied by a Mr Dominic Lynch, at which point its rateable value had risen to £27. Lynch remained until 1965, when the adjoining medical surgery acquired the building. The ground floor was converted into additional space for the medical practice and the upper floors were subdivided into self-contained flats. The combined rateable value of Nos. 3–5 had risen to £107 by the end of the second revaluation period (1956–72). The building is now in use as a health centre.

William A. Barker was also responsible for Florence Terrace on the Northland Road, a professor's house within Magee Campus, and was associated with the layout of the Foyle College grounds for building purposes. The development of Aberfoyle Terrace formed part of the broader northward expansion of Londonderry that had begun in the mid-19th century with Georgian-style terraces on Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street, and continued through Crawford Square, De Burgh Terrace, Clarence Avenue and College Terrace, all in the vicinity of Magee University, which had been incorporated into the Royal University of Ireland in 1879.

Nos. 3–35 Aberfoyle Terrace were listed in 1979 and incorporated into the Magee Conservation Area in 2006. The Conservation Design Guide for the area identifies Aberfoyle Terrace as one of five zones of distinct character within the conservation area, while noting that its setting has changed considerably and that the terrace now overlooks heavy, fast-moving traffic on the four-lane Strand Road. Nos. 3–35 Aberfoyle Terrace are recognised as a group, their late-Victorian and Edwardian detailing and form contributing to the character of the Magee Conservation Area. Materials are natural slate to the roof, cast iron to the rainwater goods, smooth render to the walls, and timber sliding sash windows throughout.