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

No. 13 College Terrace is a two-storey-with-attic end-of-terrace redbrick townhouse, built in 1889–90 as the southernmost of a continuous row of thirteen similar houses lining the eastern side of College Terrace, 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. The terrace was originally built by the Trustees of Magee College to provide accommodation for college employees and students, and forms part of the Magee Conservation Area.

The house is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return that steps down to a single-storey extension with a slated lean-to roof. The principal elevation faces west onto College Terrace, overlooking an urban tree-lined green, and is set at the back of the pavement beneath a natural slate pitched roof.

The west elevation is laid in Flemish brick bond with Victorian industrial brick dressings in contrasting colour. There is a dentilled brick cornice at eaves level with black brick dressings below, and continuous decorative brick stringcourses in contrasting colour at ground floor level, first floor level, and below the dormer window. Fenestration on the ground floor consists of a single segmental arch-headed window opening; the first floor has two segmental arch-headed window openings; and the dormer features a single small semicircular arch-headed window with a decorative metal finial at its apex, centred on the elevation. All openings have red and black brick voussoirs. Ground and first floor windows are four-over-two timber sliding sashes; the dormer has a small one-over-one sliding sash. All sills have a painted finish. The entrance is a semicircular arch-headed doorway, one step up from the pavement, with scrolled console brackets either side of a painted four-panel timber door set on moulded timber architraves supporting a cornice, with a stained glass fanlight above.

The north side is abutted by the adjoining No. 12 College Terrace. The south gable, which sits adjacent to the University grounds, is of two storeys with a blank cement-rendered unpainted finish. The east elevation to the rear is smooth painted rendered finish with a two-storey rear return stepping down to a single-storey extension. At ground floor level on the rear elevation there is a replacement timber back door with a plain rectangular fanlight over. Directly above at first floor level is a replacement timber casement window. At the half-landing of the attic level, above the roof of the two-storey return, there is a further replacement timber casement window. The north face of the two-storey return has two replacement timber casement windows at ground floor level and two one-over-one timber sliding sash windows at first floor level. The gable wall of the two-storey return has a replacement timber casement window to the right-hand side at ground floor level. The gable is abutted by the single-storey lean-to extension, the north face of which has a timber panelled door to the right and is open to the rear yard on the left.

The main roof and rear return are covered in natural slate with terracotta clay ridge tiles. A large two-stage redbrick chimney stack rises from the north side, centred on the ridge, and carries six clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and circular downpipes serve the front elevation; uPVC guttering and downpipes are fitted to the rear.

In 1985 the roof was reslated using European slate and the chimney brickwork was repointed. These alterations are noted as detracting from the building's overall integrity.

The terrace sits facing west onto a low schist wall topped with plain iron railings that forms the boundary with the University of Ulster at Magee College, behind which stand mature trees. A rear alleyway runs the full length of the terrace, providing access to the rear yards of all thirteen houses.

College Terrace was laid out in 1889–90 as part of the northward expansion of Londonderry, which had begun in the mid-19th century with the construction of Georgian-style terraces on Great James Street, Queen Street, and Clarendon Street. This expansion was driven by a period of economic growth and prosperity lasting from the 1860s until the end of the 19th century. Magee College had opened in 1865 as a seminary for young men seeking a career in the Presbyterian Ministry, and was renamed the Presbyterian Theological College when it became a constituent college of the Royal University of Ireland in 1879. The development of the Magee campus from the 1880s prompted the construction of new redbrick dwellings at College Terrace and the three-storey redbrick houses of Clarence Avenue, intended to house students and college employees. Three redbrick professors' houses were also constructed by the university during the three decades between 1881 and 1911, to designs by Young and Mackenzie, W. A. Barker, and Robinson and Davidson.

The Rock Road, on which College Terrace sits, had first appeared on maps as early as 1689 but was not named until 1865. It takes its name from The Rock, a house and hamlet of smaller buildings located off the Strand Road. One of the earliest known photographs of Derry, taken around 1872, depicts the 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 overlooking hill.

No. 13 College Terrace was constructed alongside the rest of the row in 1889–90. The Annual Revisions set the total rateable value of the house at £10. The first recorded occupant was a Mr Frederick Day. By 1911 the house had passed to Thomas Runciman, a cutter in a local tailor's shop; the 1911 Census Building Return described his dwelling as a second-class house consisting of six rooms. The Runciman family had vacated the property by the 1930s, when a Mr Peter Michael Fallon was recorded as occupant; his family continued to reside there until the early 1970s. The rateable value was raised to £19 during the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) and further increased to £28 by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72). Nos. 1–13 College Terrace were listed in 1980. Since Magee's incorporation into the University of Ulster in 1969, the majority of houses along the terrace have been converted from privately occupied dwellings to multiple-occupancy student accommodation, a change attributed in the Magee Conservation Area Design Guide to the negative impact of Strand Road bars and nightclubs on residential quality of life.

College Terrace was incorporated into the Magee Conservation Area in 2006 and, together with the Rock Road and part of Northland Road, was identified as a zone of distinct character within it. The gentle curve of the terrace represents a departure from the earlier rectangular squares at Crawford Square and De Burgh Terrace. The Conservation Area Design Guide notes that the terrace's overall composition — the pattern of stepped eaves, attic dormers, and chimneys, combined with its high architectural quality — adds enormously to the quality and variety of the wider Magee Conservation Area. The writer Calley has described College Terrace as competing with Palace Street for the accolade of the most charming street in the city, praising in particular the north side, which contains no buildings and borders the Magee campus behind a low schist wall topped with plain iron railings and a collection of mature trees, giving what is a small space the feeling of an oasis. The whole row of Nos. 1–13 College Terrace is listed together and carries group value as a significant feature of the conservation area.