No 14 Great James Street, (Former Factory), Londonderry, Co.Londonderry, BT48 7DA

No. 14 Great James Street is a former shirt and collar factory, built in approximately 1889 by the Glasgow-based textile manufacturer and wholesaler Arthur & Co. Ltd. The architect is unknown. It is a three-storey, red-brick building in mid-terrace position on Great James Street, Londonderry, within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. The building has since been converted to commercial use, with a retail shop at ground floor and, until recently, the Post Office Sports & Social Club occupying the upper floors.

EXTERIOR

The principal elevation faces south-west onto Great James Street and is four bays wide, presenting a total of nine openings. Red brick walling is laid in Flemish bond with polychromatic white brick dressings on a brick plinth. The elevation is vertically divided by projecting brick pilasters into groupings of three, one, three, and two openings. At ground floor level, openings are semicircular arch-headed archways with indented keystones. Upper floor bays are segmental arch-headed with red-brick hood moulds and stone and brick voussoirs, and are fitted with timber casement windows with openable sections. Two archways sit between the window bays at ground floor level. The right-side archway, which formerly gave access to a coach entryway, has been filled in and now serves as an entrance lobby to the commercial premises at ground floor; the arch head is concealed behind large modern signage. This filling-in of the original coach arch and entryway is the most notable alteration to the building in its history.

The roof is pitched natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A large moulded salient cornice conceals a red-brick parapet wall behind it. Two red-brick and rendered chimney stacks rise from the north-west and south-east sides. A large red-brick chimney rises from the north-east gable end at the left side rear return, and a rendered chimney stack with two buff clay pots rises from the north-west elevation of the right side rear return.

The north-west side roofline projects above that of the adjoining property at No. 16 Great James Street. The gable-end walling is of red brick and render, topped by a squat chimney stack with no clay pots. The north-west side elevation of the rear return has an unpainted rendered finish with plainer detailing, and comprises a full-height projection at the centre of the elevation. A further single-storey projection to the left side contains a metal external fire-escape staircase rising the full height of the building. The rendered elevation has a series of square-headed openings concealed with ply-sheeting. An unpainted rendered chimney stack with two buff clay pots rises from this elevation, to the right side of the flat-roofed full-height projection. At ground floor level, the projection is abutted by a high red-brick boundary wall to the adjoining neighbouring property.

The north-east double-pile gable-end elevation to the rear is of stone and red brick, blank with no openings. The left side of this elevation is topped by a squat red-brick chimney stack. The south-east side elevation is blank, with a smooth painted rendered finish spanning the full length of the site. The gable end of the main factory building on this side is topped by a rendered squat chimney stack.

Rainwater goods are of uPVC/plastic. Windows are replacement hardwood casements.

INTERIOR

Alterations have led to the loss of much of the interior fabric and the original plan form.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The shirt industry in Londonderry was founded in the early 19th century by William Scott, a local weaver who capitalised on a shift in men's fashion driven by the mass production of American cotton. By the 1830s, imported cotton was replacing flannel as a cleaner, cheaper, and softer material. Scott remained the only shirt maker in the city as late as 1850, but his success encouraged others — including Tillie, Hogg, and Sinclair — to establish shirt manufactories. The Northwest Archaeological and Historical Society records that these manufacturers recognised the potential of the sewing machine, invented in 1845 by Elias Howe of Massachusetts, and understood that consolidating workers into a factory setting, rather than dispersing them across the countryside, would produce significant savings.

Arthur & Co. Ltd., the company for which No. 14 was built, was a Glasgow-based textile manufacturer and wholesaler established in 1855 as a subsidiary to handle the wholesale business of Arthur and Fraser, itself originally founded in 1849 as a small Glasgow drapery. Following the dissolution of Arthur and Fraser in 1865, Arthur & Co. Ltd. continued as a separate concern and went on to operate premises in London, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The company's Ulster Town Directory entries show it had established a presence in Londonderry from the 1860s, initially at Nos. 11–12 Artillery Street, before moving to William Street in the 1870s. The Londonderry branch was Arthur & Co. Ltd.'s third outlet in the United Kingdom.

Valuation records first include No. 14 Great James Street in 1889, confirming the construction date. Arthur & Co. Ltd. leased the plot from Bartholomew McCorkell, a local magistrate and official at the Savings Bank on Bank Place. The building was initially valued as a shirt factory at £130. Annual Revisions Town Plans dating from approximately 1873 to 1910 depicted the factory in its current layout, indicating that few structural changes were made to the building in the late 19th century.

Arthur & Co. Ltd. was still recorded as operating in Londonderry in 1910 but appears to have withdrawn from the city following the First World War, possibly as a result of the downturn in the international textile market. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the building was in use as a shirt factory by Lloyd, Altree & Smith, a London-based shirt and tie manufacturer established in 1857, and its rateable value had risen to £140. By the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72) the total rateable value stood at £260. Lloyd, Altree & Smith continued to operate from the factory at least into the 1970s. Between 1970 and 1978 more than thirty shirt factories closed across Northern Ireland due to increasing overseas competition from developing countries. No. 14 Great James Street was included in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area in 1978.

SETTING

The building occupies an extensive mid-terrace site on Great James Street and dominates the streetscape to the north-east side. It sits in close proximity to the former Great James Street Presbyterian Church and Manse to the south-west. A less formally designed south-east side elevation faces onto a vacant infill site.