Foyle & Londonderry College, Duncreggan Road, Londonderry, BT48 0AA

Foyle & Londonderry College, Duncreggan Road, Londonderry

This is a substantial two-storey suburban villa in the neo-Renaissance style, designed by John Guy Ferguson, a prominent Derry architect, and built from 1869 onwards for Tillie, one of the city's early shirt manufacturing magnates. The building exemplifies Victorian architectural ambition but has been significantly altered through its conversion to school use and is now occupied as offices, meeting rooms and a board room for the Foyle and Londonderry College.

The house is constructed with smooth rendered and painted walls beneath slated roofs. The entrance front is three bays wide, each two storeys tall with semi-circular projections. The eastern bay projects forward and contains three square-headed two-pane sliding sash windows on the ground floor and four round-headed windows on the first floor. The piers between the windows are articulated as pilasters with moulded bases, capitals and moulded architraves. Set within the angle of this projection is the entrance porch, which features a bold arch with panelled pilasters on either side, an architrave, keystone and frieze above, crowned by a cornice and low balustrading forming an open parapet. The panelled door has side screens that continue around the fanlight. Above the porch is a single round-headed window treated almost as an aedicule.

The shallow rectangular single-storey bay to the west contains three windows: a centrally positioned two-pane sliding sash window with square head but rounded corners at the top, flanked on either side by two narrow round-headed two-pane sliding sash windows of equal height. The piers are treated as pilasters, and above the window heads runs a frieze, cornice and balustrade similar in character to that over the porch but of lower height. Over this bay sits a pair of round-headed two-pane sliding sash windows, treated consistently with other first-floor windows. A plinth with moulding lines the base of the walls with window cills. Between ground and first floors runs a double string course with a patterned frieze band, the pattern echoing that of the semi-circular bay. Under the eaves is a panelled frieze interspersed with modillions supporting the cornice, which terminates in ogee gutters. All external wall angles feature faceted quoins of equal width. The east and west facades are treated similarly in overall character, though with variation in detail; the rear elevation is less decorated and is now obscured by steel fire escape stairs and later additions. Roofs are slated, recently refurbished, and likely once carried ridge cresting or other decorative treatment. Chimney stacks are finished in smooth rendering, panelled and topped with moulded cornices and corbels.

The villa stands well set back from Duncreggan Road, reached by a short avenue approach. The grounds are extensive and well maintained with many mature trees. The original curved conservatory has been replaced by a smaller rectangular version with pitched roof. The line of the avenue has been altered, and the original gate piers (recorded separately as HB01/25/008B), set within a recess in a random stone wall, now appear incongruous. A substantial part of the Victorian interior detail survives as part of the modern office accommodation.

According to Griffith's Valuation Book of 1858, the site formerly contained a house, offices and threshing mill, occupied by lessee W.D. Smith with the Hon Irish Society as lessor, but no evidence of these structures now remains. Tillie of Tillie and Henderson, shirt manufacturing magnate, commissioned the present house and began construction in 1869. The Dublin Builder reported on the work in November 1869. John Guy Ferguson, who had previously worked for Tillie on factory extensions in the 1870s, served as architect.

The house later passed into educational use, being acquired for Londonderry Girls High School and adapted for teaching spaces. Additional school buildings were subsequently erected around it. The school later amalgamated with Foyle College boys school to become co-educational. In recent years, the headmaster undertook restoration work, reverting the house to its current use as offices and meeting rooms. The architects for this restoration were Albert Wallace and Partners.

The building has been much altered as part of its incorporation into the major modern secondary school, and these changes have seriously compromised both the structure and its setting. Notably, the original entrance has been lost during the conversion to school use. Numerous surviving examples of this building type exist elsewhere, and the substantial alterations to this example have reduced its architectural integrity.