The Rhinns, 56 Culmore Road, Londonderry, BT48 8JB

The Rhinns is a 2½-storey redbrick house in the Arts and Crafts style, built around 1900 as a wedding gift by builder McGuiness for his daughter. The house stands free on a large plot at the junction of Greenhaw, Steelstown and Culmore Roads in Londonderry.

The design is characterised by gables, canted bays and steeply pitched slated roofs with Bangor blue slates and ridge red with cresting. The entrance elevation features a central panelled double door with upper glazing, side screens and fanlight, sheltered by a flat-roofed canopy supported on three columns and finished with a moulded cornice. The canopy edge forms a balustraded balcony onto which French doors from the first floor landing open. This balcony is roofed by the main slated roof supported on a wide bracketed and fretted timber segmental arch.

Flanking the entrance are two canted bays. The southern bay rises 2 storeys and is capped with a bold cornice and canted balustrading, its flat roof forming a balcony to a dormer lighting an attic bedroom with a 2-light casement window. The northern bay begins at first floor level, supported on the entrance canopy, rises into a half-pyramid roof extending into a gable, and features a simple 2-light window lighting the attic above.

The window treatment is a notable feature. The canted bays contain three sash windows at both ground and first floor. These sashes are distinctive in having a high lower sash and a smaller upper sash glazed with small square leaded lights. Window cills at first floor are extended as a string course, returning fully on the north side and partly on the south. A large staircase window on the south side contains good stained glass, as does the inner door to the side porch glazed entrance.

The south side includes a small single-pitched conservatory and a side door accessed through a glazed porch with single-pitched slated roof. On the north side, a rectangular bay with single-pitched slated roof is glazed all round with exposed rafter ends; the roof gables are decorated with brackets and exposed rafters. Well-formed eaves with flat soffits and verges throughout are finished with cast-iron ogee gutters and cast-iron downpipes. Redbrick chimney stacks have plinths and moulded caps topped with red pots.

To the rear, a storey-back return with a lower ridge line is partially sheltered by roof extending downward to cover a small projection. The frontage includes a terrace laid out as originally designed, with the entrance avenue positioned to one side of the garden. Behind and to the side of the house stands a 2-storey small barn, now in derelict condition, fronting onto Steelstown Road.

The house retains all its original architectural detail, particularly the stained glass in doors and screens and the square leaded lights in the upper sashes. The building demonstrates high-quality Arts and Crafts domestic design but is recorded without listing status.