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

9 Aberfoyle Terrace is a mid-terrace, two-storey with attic, two-bay red brick townhouse built in 1892 to designs by local architect and engineer William A. Barker (1851–1898). It sits on the west side of Strand Road, Londonderry, overlooking the River Foyle, close to the University of Ulster. It forms part of a terrace of seventeen similar houses — Nos. 3–35 Aberfoyle Terrace — erected in stages over two decades between 1891 and 1911, and sits within the Magee Conservation Area.

Architectural Description

The house is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. The principal elevation faces east onto Strand Road and is set behind a low cement-rendered wall with a painted coping stone and painted steel railings above. The front elevation is built in Flemish brick bond in red brick with polychromatic yellow brick dressings and a projecting brick cornice at eaves level. At ground floor right there is a canted single-storey bay with a hipped roof; first-floor windows are united by a continuous painted sill course spanning the full width of the elevation. Window and door openings to the canted bay and first floor are segmental arch-headed, while the wall-headed gable dormer window has a round-headed opening with a painted apex fascia board. Glazing consists of 1-over-1 timber sliding sashes to the canted bay and first floor windows, and a 2-over-2 timber sliding sash to the dormer. The entrance doorway has a segmental arch-headed opening with a plain architrave surround, three steps up from the pavement, a painted four-panel fielded timber door, and a plain fanlight above.

The north and south sides are abutted by the adjoining Nos. 7 and 11 Aberfoyle Terrace. The rear west elevation is three storeys in height, finished in cement render painted, and is abutted by a two-storey cement-rendered and painted rear return built at half-landing height. There is no access to the rear yard.

The pitched slate roof is covered in natural slate with terracotta clay ridge tiles to the main roof, dormer, and rear return. A large two-stage polychromatic brick chimney stack rises from the north side, centred on the ridge, with circular clay pots. Rainwater goods consist of cast-iron guttering and a circular cast-iron downpipe to the front elevation.

Some historic detailing survives internally.

Historical Context

The northward expansion of Londonderry had begun in the mid-19th century with the construction of Georgian-style terraces on Great James Street, Queen Street, and Clarendon Street, followed by the residential terraces of Crawford Square and De Burgh Terrace. By the end of the 19th century this expansion had reached the campus of Magee University, which had been incorporated into the Royal University of Ireland in 1879. The development of the university campus was accompanied by new red brick terraces at Clarence Avenue, College Terrace, and Aberfoyle Terrace itself.

The terrace was built on land belonging to John McFarland, a local magistrate and engineer who resided at Aberfoyle House on the hill overlooking Strand Road. The terrace was originally known as Templemore Terrace but renamed Aberfoyle in around 1903, taking its name from Aberfoyle House. Its designer, William A. Barker, was responsible for the standard design across the entire terrace and was also the architect of Florence Terrace on Northland Road, a Professor's House within the Magee Campus, and was associated with the layout of Foyle College grounds for building purposes. Barker died in 1898 by which point only half of the terrace had been completed, with the remaining houses finished by 1911.

Annual Revision records note that No. 9 was originally valued at £15, with its first recorded occupant being a Mr James Elliot. By 1911 the house had passed to Henry McCrossan, a local cattle dealer, and the census building return for that year described it as a second-class dwelling consisting of eight rooms. The McFarland estate retained ownership of the terrace until at least the 1970s. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the rateable value was raised to £24, and under the Second Revaluation (1956–72) it was further increased to £27.

A 1970 Ulster Architectural Heritage Society survey described Nos. 3–35 Aberfoyle Terrace as "a pleasing terrace of two-storey houses with half dormers, each house with a ground floor half-hexagonal bay window in yellow brick. The whole terrace is in red brick with brick reveals, and dressings in yellow brick. The end houses (No. 3 and No. 35) are a little higher than the rest." 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 identified Aberfoyle Terrace as one of five zones of distinct character within the Conservation Area, while noting that the terrace is "quite disconnected" from the rest and "appears isolated on the Strand Road," its setting having changed significantly from its original residential character, now overlooking heavy four-lane traffic on Strand Road.

Setting

Aberfoyle Terrace occupies the western side of Strand Road immediately to the north of Derry city centre. Magee College (University of Ulster) stands at high level directly to the rear (west), and the River Foyle lies to the east. Nos. 3–35 Aberfoyle Terrace share group value, and the terrace as a whole contributes to the late-Victorian and Edwardian character of the Magee Conservation Area.