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

7 Aberfoyle Terrace is a late-Victorian mid-terrace two-storey townhouse with attic level, built in 1892 to designs by the local architect and engineer William A. Barker (1851–1898). It forms part of a row of seventeen similar red brick houses lining the west side of Strand Road, Londonderry, overlooking the River Foyle and situated close to the University of Ulster (formerly Magee College). The terrace was constructed in stages over two decades, from 1891 to 1911, and was originally known as Templemore Terrace before being renamed Aberfoyle around 1903, after Aberfoyle House, the residence of the landowner John McFarland, which stands on the hill directly above Strand Road.

The house is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. It is built in red brick in Flemish bond with polychromatic yellow brick dressings throughout. The principal elevation faces east onto Strand Road and features a projecting brick cornice at eaves level. At ground floor on the right-hand side there is a canted single-storey bay window with a deep projecting masonry cornice and a pitched roof. The window openings to the canted bay and to the first floor are segmental arch-headed, while the wall-headed gable dormer in the roofline has a round-headed opening with a painted apex fascia board. A continuous painted sill course runs across the full width of the first floor. All windows are two-over-two timber sliding sashes, including a smaller two-over-two sash to the dormer. The entrance doorway has a segmental arch-headed opening set three steps up from the pavement, with a plain architrave surround, a timber five-panelled door, and textured glass to the fanlight.

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

The property is fronted by a low painted concrete wall with pyramid-shaped masonry piers and horizontal steel railings spanning between them. To the north and south, the house is abutted by the adjoining numbers 5 and 9 Aberfoyle Terrace. The rear west elevation is three storeys in height, cement rendered and 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.

Barker designed a standard house type for the terrace, characterised by a two-and-a-half-storey two-bay arrangement with a ground-floor bay window and a dormer to the roof. He died in 1898, by which point only around half of the terrace had been completed; the remainder was finished to his design in the following years. The terrace was built on land belonging to John McFarland, a local magistrate and engineer. Barker was also responsible for 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.

Historically, the northward expansion of Londonderry began in the mid-19th century with Georgian-style terraces on Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street, followed by Crawford Square and De Burgh Terrace. By the end of the 19th century this expansion had reached the Magee University campus, which had been incorporated into the Royal University of Ireland in 1879. Aberfoyle Terrace was one of several new red brick terraces erected in association with the development of the university area, alongside Clarence Avenue and College Terrace.

The first recorded occupant of number 7 was a Miss Lynch. By 1911 the house had passed to Mark McNeary, a local bookkeeper, who recorded it in that year's census as a second-class dwelling comprising eight rooms. The house was originally valued at £15. By the 1930s it was occupied by James V. Donnelly, who continued to reside there until at least the 1970s, by which point the rateable value had risen to £27. The McFarland estate retained ownership of the terrace until at least the 1970s.

The numbers 3 to 35 Aberfoyle Terrace share group value and were listed in 1979. The terrace was incorporated into the Magee Conservation Area in 2006, where it was identified as one of five zones of distinct character. The Conservation Area Design Guide noted that the terrace appears somewhat isolated on Strand Road, whose character has changed considerably since the houses were built, with the four-lane road now carrying heavy, fast-moving traffic where once a quieter streetscape existed.