17 Fountain Street, Londonderry, Co. Londonderry, BT48 6QX

17 Fountain Street is a mid-terrace, two-storey, two-bay Victorian townhouse built in 1883, forming part of a uniform stepped terrace of fourteen similar houses running along the north-west side of Fountain Street. The architect is unknown. The building is recorded but does not meet the criteria for statutory listing, as little original historic fabric remains, though it carries group value alongside Nos. 9–35 Fountain Street and sits within the Historic City Conservation Area, designated in 2006.

The house is rectangular on plan with a projecting single-storey rear return roofed in felted flat finish with a pebble surface. The main roof is pitched fibre cement with black ridge tiles and a rooflight to the rear on the north-east side. A large red brick chimney stack rises from the north-east side, centred on the ridge, with five clay pots (some capped), a contrasting black brick course two courses below the top, and a concrete capping that replaces what was originally a projecting course. Rainwater goods are cast iron ogee guttering to the front south-east elevation and cast aluminium to the rear north-west elevation.

The principal elevation faces south-east onto Fountain Street, set hard at the back of the pavement and overlooking former industrial buildings on the opposite side of the street. It is built in English Garden Wall brick bond with cement repointing — note that poorly executed pointing has resulted in cement smeared over the brickwork above the upper-level windows. The elevation is characterised by the Victorian polychromatic brickwork that the 2012 Conservation Area Design Guide describes as displaying "the Victorian taste for polychrome brickwork derived from the Venetian Gothic." Decorative features include an ornamental projecting brick cornice at eaves level with a double band of black brick dressings below, and continuous decorative brick stringcourses in contrasting black running at sill and head levels on both the ground and first floors, with a further row of black brick separated by three courses of red above sill and below head level.

There is one segmental arch-headed window opening on the ground floor and two on the first floor, all with red brick voussoirs to the heads and three black bricks at the centre forming a keystoned detail. The entrance door opening is also segmental arch-headed, one step up from the pavement, with a four-panel uPVC front door and a plain segmental-headed fanlight above. All ground and first floor windows are uPVC casements. All sills are replacement concrete with a painted finish.

The north-east and south-west sides are abutted by the adjoining Nos. 15 and 19 Fountain Street respectively. The rear north-west elevation is of painted rendered finish. The fenestration to the rear is irregular, with uPVC casements, including windows to the south-west side of the rear elevation set at half-landing height. The rear return runs close to the south-east face of the historic city walls.

Fountain Street is one of the earliest streets to have been developed outside the walled city of Londonderry. Historical research indicates that houses on this site were depicted on maps as early as 1685, and the street may have been developed almost immediately after the city walls were built — though originally only on the side of the street away from the walls, which would have been kept clear for defence purposes. The street was named Fountain Street by the 1830s, in reference to a fountain located next to Church Bastion.

The 1848–49 Ordnance Survey Town Plan and the circa 1873–1910 Annual Revisions map show that Fountain Street originally extended from Ferryquay Street around the city walls before terminating on Bishop Street. The stretch between Ferryquay Street and Hawkin Street previously contained a number of irregular-sized buildings leased by Hamilton Graham, a local bookkeeper who resided on the Northland Road. This earlier terrace was demolished and replaced with the current uniform two-storey two-bay terrace in 1883. The new terrace continued to be leased by Hamilton Graham (who died in 1892) and was occupied by working-class labourers, the majority of whom were employed in the neighbouring factories and local industries — many undoubtedly working at the Welch Margetson Shirt Factory on the opposite side of the street.

The first recorded occupant of No. 11 Fountain Street (used here as a representative example for the terrace's history) was James McGonigle, a bank messenger whose wife and daughter were machinists in a local factory. The 1901 census described that house as a second-class dwelling consisting of six rooms with a coal house as its sole outbuilding, valued at £8 following completion of the terrace. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the value was raised to £12; the house was at that time occupied by a Mr Robert Greer and was purchased by the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy on Pump Street in 1945. Under the Second Revaluation (1956–72), occupied by a Mr A. Shields, the value was further raised to £15 and 10 shillings.

In 1970, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society guide described Fountain Street as typical of its neighbourhood: "The relatively narrow streets, the two-storey brick houses, the stepped roofs and the small domestic scale of the dwellings and the streets are typical of the environment." During the 1970s, the section of Fountain Street extending from Hawkin Street to Bishop Street was demolished and redeveloped as a modern housing estate, with an entire neighbourhood — including Albert Street and Place, Fountain Place, Victoria Street, Clarence Place, one side of Kennedy Street, and all but a single tower of the City Gaol — obliterated in the process. Nos. 11–35 Fountain Street are among only a small number of terraces to have survived this redevelopment. The flat-roof rear return was added to the terrace in the late 20th century.

The terrace stands just outside and backing onto the historic city walls, between New Gate and Ferry Quay Gate, and to the east of St Columb's Cathedral. It remains a remnant of the once strong industrial working-class character of the Fountain area, which supplied workers to the local shirt-making and shipbuilding industries during Londonderry's prosperous late Victorian period.