7 College Terrace, Rock Road, Londonderry, County Londonderry, BT48 7NZ

7 College Terrace is a Victorian mid-terrace two-bay, two-storey-with-attic redbrick townhouse, built in 1889–90 as one of a continuous row of thirteen similar houses lining the eastern side of College Terrace. The street curves gently close to the junction of Rock Road and Strand Road, on the north side of the city centre on the eastern bank of the River Foyle, and the terrace faces west overlooking an urban tree-lined green and the boundary wall of The University of Ulster at Magee College.

The principal west-facing elevation is set in Flemish brick bond with ornate Victorian industrial brickwork dressings in contrasting colour. A dentilled brick cornice runs at eaves level with black brick dressings below. The fenestration consists of a single segmental arch-headed window opening on the ground floor, two matching openings on the first floor, and a single small semicircular arch-headed window opening at dormer level, all centred on the elevation. The entrance door opening is semicircular arch-headed, set one step up from the pavement, and fitted with a painted four-panel timber door flanked by scrolled brackets with leaf detail on moulded timber architraves that support a slightly projecting cornice, with a plain fanlight above. All openings have red and black brick voussoirs. Continuous decorative brick stringcourses in contrasting colour run at ground floor level, first floor level, and below the dormer window. The ground and first floor windows are 4/2 timber sliding sashes, and the dormer carries a matching small 4/2 sliding sash. All sills have a painted finish. Cast-iron guttering and circular downpipes serve the front elevation.

The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate, with a small roof light to the rear, terracotta clay ridge tiles to the main roof and rear return, and a large two-stage redbrick chimney stack rising from the north side, centred on the ridge and fitted with clay pots.

The plan is rectangular with a projecting rear return that steps down to a single-storey extension with a slated lean-to roof. The rear east elevation is finished in pebble-dash. Two uPVC casement windows are visible from the rear alley — one at attic half-landing level and one at first floor level to the right — though the remainder of the rear elevations were not visible at the time of survey. To the north and south, the house is abutted by the adjoining No. 6 and No. 8 College Terrace respectively.

The setting is defined by a rear alleyway running the full length of the terrace giving access to the rear yards, and to the front by a low schist wall topped with plain iron rails along the western side of the street, behind which stand mature trees on the Magee College campus boundary. Writer and historian Calley has noted that this arrangement gives the small space the feeling of an oasis, and has described College Terrace as competing with Palace Street for the accolade of most charming street in the city.

Historically, College Terrace was originally laid out in 1889–90 by the Trustees of Magee College to provide accommodation for college employees and students. The Rock Road itself had appeared on maps as early as 1689 but was not named until 1865, taking its name from The Rock, a house and hamlet of smaller buildings located off the Strand Road. One of the earliest known photographs of the city, taken around 1872, shows this hamlet as a small number of two-storey buildings on the current site of Rock Terrace, close to the banks of the Foyle, with Magee College standing alone on the hill above. 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, driven by a period of economic growth and prosperity lasting from the 1860s to the end of the 19th century. From the 1880s, the development of the Magee College campus prompted the construction of new redbrick housing at College Terrace and the three-storey redbrick houses of Clarence Avenue to serve the college community. Magee itself had opened in 1865 as a seminary for young men pursuing a career in the Presbyterian Ministry, was renamed the Presbyterian Theological College when it became a constituent college of the Royal University of Ireland in 1879, and was incorporated into the University of Ulster in 1969. Three redbrick professors' houses were constructed by the university during the period between 1881 and 1911 to designs by Young & Mackenzie, W. A. Barker and Robinson & Davidson.

No. 7 was constructed along with the rest of the terrace in 1889–90, and the Annual Revisions set its total rateable value at £10. The first recorded occupant was a Mr Walker. By 1911 the house had passed to Samuel Bingham, a local hardware merchant, whose census building return described it as a second-class dwelling consisting of six rooms. Bingham continued to reside there until 1955. Within a decade of the terrace's completion, the majority of houses had passed to occupants unassociated with the college. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the rateable value was increased to £20, rising further to £28 by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72). Since Magee's incorporation into the University of Ulster, most houses along College Terrace have been converted from privately occupied dwellings to multiple-occupancy student accommodation, a change the Magee Conservation Area Design Guide attributes to the negative impact of Strand Road bars and nightclubs on the quality of residential life.

The entire terrace of Nos. 1–13 College Terrace was listed in 1980. Following listing, No. 7 underwent a renovation in 1982 that included the repointing of its brickwork, repair of its entrance door, reslating of its roof, and restoration of its redbrick chimney stack. College Terrace was incorporated into the Magee Conservation Area in 2006, where it was identified alongside the Rock Road and part of Northland Road as a zone of distinct character. The Magee Conservation Area Design Guide notes that the terrace's gentle curve represents a departure from the earlier rectangular squares at Crawford Square and De Burgh Terrace, and that its overall composition — the pattern of stepped eaves, attic dormers and chimneys combined with high architectural quality — adds enormously to the quality and variety of the wider Conservation Area.