Hampstead Hall, 40 Baronscourt, Culmore Road, Londonderry, BT48 7RH

Hampstead Hall is a 2-storey, 5-bay wide Georgian-style house with a basement, located at 40 Baronscourt, Culmore Road, Londonderry. The building is constructed of smooth rendered and colour-washed masonry with a hipped slated roof.

The south-facing entrance façade is the principal elevation. It features a central fanlighted doorway of particular quality. The door itself is 6-panelled with three-quarter engaged Tuscan Doric columns on each side, set on a stone blocking piece and supporting a good cornice with modillions. Glazed screens flank the doorway; the upper parts are divided into small square panes with solid panels below, and matching pilaster responds frame the composition. Above the door is an elliptical fanlight subdivided with radiating astragals, set within recessed reveals with a matching arch. Two broad sandstone steps lead to the entrance.

On either side of the doorway are 2 sliding sash windows with 12 panes at ground level. The first floor contains 5 sliding sash windows with 9 panes each, positioned immediately above the openings below. All openings are well proportioned with good relation between solid and void, and windows have suspended sandstone cills. Instead of a traditional cornice, a wide deep cast iron gutter with an ogee-shaped upper part forms the visual equivalent. This gutter is supported on decorative vertical supports secured to the wall at approximately 750 millimetre centres, with fillet moulding beneath. The bottom of the wall has a sandstone plinth with simple chamfer. Short and long quoins in sandstone are painted.

The east and west elevations are 3 bays wide with windows similar to those on the principal façade. The guttering, with decorative supports and running fillet, continues around both sides. Quoins are returned, and a chamfered string course runs over the rubble stone basement wall. The basement contains 3 windows on the east side and windows on the west side, all sliding sashes; those on the east have 9 panes, those on the west have 12 panes. Basement windows are trimmed with redbrick block bonded to stonework.

The rear elevation displays a semi-circular 2-storey projecting bay. At ground level are French windows; above is a central arched tall 21-pane sliding sash window lighting the staircase at the half landing. Both openings are trimmed with brick similar to the basement windows. The wall is finished with exposed random rubble schist stonework full height. Painted quoins are returned from the side elevations. The gutter continues along the rear wall, handsomely curved around the bay, supported on stubby cast iron corbel supports. One cast iron downpipe on this wall drains the entire roof. The basement does not project to the rear. Brick garden dividing walls abut the rear wall at each side.

The roof is hipped with natural blue slates, lead hips, and a short ridge. Two plain rendered and colour-washed chimney stacks with simple caps break the ridge.

Historically, the house originally sat in a large expanse of landscaped garden, but housing development has encroached significantly over the last 30 years and the original avenue is gone. The gate piers remain. The garden is now much reduced. The front garden is formally laid out with a central path leading to the front door. The garden to the east is laid out as a Japanese garden, while the west side is arranged in an Italianate manner with a sunken paved area positioned at about eye level when seated in the basement living room. Steps lead from the rear courtyard to the sunken stone-paved area and further steps descend to basement floor level. Behind the house, the courtyard—formed by the house, U-shaped outbuildings, and garden walls—is being stone paved.

The outbuildings are 2 storeys constructed of random rubble stone with brick trim, arched gateway, and arched windows. Several windows have been repositioned to achieve symmetry. Only a margin strip of ground surrounds the outside walls of the outbuildings before the adjacent housing development begins.