Old Foyle College, Aka Foyle Arts Centre, Strand Road, Londonderry

Old Foyle College (also known as the Foyle Arts Centre), Strand Road, Londonderry

This is a Classical-style former school building in dressed local stone, built between 1809 and 1814 to designs by the Dublin-based architect John Bowden (d. 1822). It stands on an elevated site on the north-west side of the Strand Road, overlooking the River Foyle to the north-east. The building is five bays wide, three storeys tall over a basement in its central block, with two-storey slightly projecting wings to either side. Modern extensions have been added to the rear. It forms part of the Magee University Campus and has group value with the other Magee buildings. The listing covers the university building and the stone wall with archway.

Historical Background

Foyle College is Londonderry's earliest surviving educational institution, with origins in the early 17th century. The 17th-century maps of Londonderry (1622 and 1689) show the original Free School located on land between Palace Street and Society Street — the latter known as Free School Lane in the late 18th century. The 1689 and 1799 city plans place the original school on the opposite side of the street from St. Augustine's Church, describing it as a rectangular building.

Simpson's Annals of Derry (1847) records that the first schoolhouse was built in 1617 at the expense of Mathias Springham, a merchant tailor from London, with the Corporation of London charged with its maintenance. It was a one-and-a-half-storey stone building measuring 67 feet in length by 25 feet in breadth, with a ground floor comprising a schoolroom hall and parlour, and sleeping apartments above lit by four windows in range. The building was severely damaged during the Siege of Derry and was almost entirely rebuilt afterwards by Bishop King. It continued to serve as the Free School until the early 19th century.

Having stood within the historic city walls for nearly two centuries, the school relocated to its present site on the Strand Road in 1814. Funds were raised under the direction of Bishop Knox, who personally contributed £1,000 and obtained additional grants from the Livery Companies and the Corporation. The Dictionary of Irish Architects records that the first designs were submitted in 1808 by Richard Elsam, an English architect who had established a practice in Londonderry around that time. Elsam proposed a Tudor-Gothic building, but these designs were rejected in favour of the Classical Regency-style plans of John Bowden. Bowden later served as official architect to the Board of First Fruits (1814–21) and was also responsible for Londonderry's County Court House (1813–17) and may have worked on modifications to the Bishop's Palace in the early 19th century.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs (1837) record that the foundation stone was laid in 1814 by Bishop Knox and that the school opened the same year. The memoir writer described it as follows: "Its length is 135ft, and its greatest breadth 66. It is a simple but handsome stone edifice, consisting of a central building, 21ft long, and two wings, terminating in angular pavilions, which are each 24ft long. The height of the central building is 47ft, and of the wings 40." The school was renamed Foyle College upon opening and admitted its first pupils, all boys, in 1814. Foyle College was among the first major buildings constructed outside the historic city walls in the early decades of the 19th century, alongside the Infirmary (1810), the Lunatic Asylum (1825–29) and Christ Church (1830) — buildings which, as Curl notes, expressed the city's ambition to construct edifices of architectural quality.

The Townland Valuation of the 1830s set the school's rateable value at £100. The Town Plan of 1834 and the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1848–49 both show the school in its original layout and record a gate lodge at the Strand Road entrance to the site, believed to be contemporary with the college, though it had been demolished by the turn of the 20th century and does not appear on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1904–05. Griffith's Valuation of 1856 records the rateable value as having risen to £160.

By the mid-19th century Foyle College had established itself as an institution patronised by the gentry, counting peers, bishops and judges among its alumni. It offered a classical education well beyond the reading, writing and arithmetic common in most city schools, with fees running at more than £5 per annum — a significant outlay even for wealthier families — though twenty-four scholarships were available.

The most notable alumnus of Foyle College was John L. M. Lawrence (1811–1879), born in Richmond, Yorkshire, who spent part of his youth in Londonderry and was educated at the college where his uncle, the Reverend James Knox, presided. Lawrence went on to serve in India as District Officer of Delhi, Commissioner of the Jullundur region following the Sikh War (1845–46), and Chief Commissioner of the Punjab from 1853. Following the suppression of the Indian Rebellion he succeeded James Bruce, Lord Elgin, as Viceroy of India in 1864, serving until 1869. He died on 27th June 1879 and was buried at Westminster Abbey. The street immediately to the south of Foyle College was renamed Lawrence Hill in his honour in the late 19th century, and a statue of Lawrence, originally located in Lahore, was brought to Londonderry and installed in front of the college in March 1964 to commemorate his connection with the school.

In 1896 Foyle College amalgamated with the Londonderry Academical Institution following the passing of the Foyle College Act. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the rateable value was increased to £215. The school continued to operate from the Strand Road site until 1968, when it relocated to new premises on the Northland Road, where A. T. Marshall's three-storey building was opened and has since served as Foyle and Londonderry's junior school. The removal of the school also resulted in the relocation of the Lawrence statue, which now stands in front of the Northland Road building.

In 1968 the Strand Road building was acquired by the Londonderry and County Borough Education Authority and converted into additional classrooms and workshops for the neighbouring Municipal Technical College. By the end of the Second General Revaluation the rateable value had risen to £600. The building was listed in 1979. It was subsequently acquired by the University of Ulster and converted into an Arts Centre in 1992. The conversion included reslating of the roof in Welsh slate, installation of new timber windows throughout, repointing of the stonework and chimneys, and reorganisation of the interior floorplan. Modern extensions were added to the rear in approximately 2007 to provide additional accommodation for the university's schools of dance, music, drama, and arts and design. The building was included in the Magee Conservation Area, designated in 2006, whose Conservation Area Guide describes it as combining "quiet restraint and simplicity" with "excellent massing and proportions, simple detailing, and well selected and constructed materials to form a building of considerable architectural stature in the Magee Conservation Area and the wider city."

Exterior

The building is set back behind a high rough-cast rendered wall, with a large tarmac car park to the east side. The principal entrance is reached via a short flight of steps centred on the rendered wall, approached from Cranagh Terrace. The building has a rectangular plan with a large modern return to the rear, set within a generous green area screened by large mature trees of varying species.

The roof over the three-storey central block is hipped, covered in Welsh slate, with deep overhanging eaves and terracotta clay ridge tiles. A large stone chimney stack with stepped cornice and six octagonal-shaped clay pots — one missing — sits to the north-west side of the roof. The gabled side bays have stone copings. Half-round cast-iron guttering discharges to circular painted cast-iron downpipes throughout.

The symmetrical principal (south-east) elevation is built in coursed squared local schist with Giffnock sandstone band-courses running the full width. The main central block has projecting cornices. At ground floor level the windows are semicircular arch-headed, with square-headed windows on the upper floors, all with stone voussoirs. A continuous stone sill-course runs across the first floor windows, and the second floor windows diminish in scale, resting on sandstone sills. Each flanking wing is of Giffnock sandstone with one-bay linking ranges. The side bays feature a tripartite timber sliding sash window divided by stone mullions with scroll brackets at ground floor level, and a six-over-six timber sliding sash above, all set within a segmental arched recess and below a pedimented gable. The linking ranges contain a square-headed doorway with a projecting cornice over a pair of half-leaf diamond-faced panelled doors with glazed top panes, integrated side lights, and a semicircular fanlight above. A single square-headed six-over-six timber sliding sash window sits above the doorway on either side of the central block.

The south-west (side) elevation is finished in painted rough-cast render and is six bays wide, set behind a low schist wall with metal railings above. At basement level there are segmental arched windows and square-headed door openings, accessed via stone steps from the south-east side. At ground floor level a concrete open link leads to a pair of metal fire doors with a nine-pane transom light above; three square-headed window bays lie to the left and two to the right, aligned with the first floor windows. These windows are six-over-six timber sliding sashes. Two rendered but unpainted chimney stacks sit centrally on the ridge of the slated pitched roof, with stepped cornices and octagonal-shaped buff clay pots.

The rear (north-west) elevation is built in local schist with red brick dressings to the window surrounds. It presents four gable-ends facing north-west, with a three-storey block to the left merged between two gable-end returns. This three-storey block has a large modern flat-roof extension at ground floor level with a rendered and glazed front and a pair of large automatic sensor-activated metal doors to the left side. The fenestration to the rear elevation is irregular, comprising a mix of square-headed and semicircular arch-headed six-over-six and six-over-three timber sashes, and coupled six-over-six timber sliding sash windows.

The north-east (side) elevation is finished in painted rough-cast render. An entrance doorway sits to the far right at ground and first floor level, accessed by an external metal staircase; the ground floor has a pair of half-leaf panelled timber doors with a nine-pane transom light above. The ground floor has four bays and the first floor five bays, aligned with those below; windows are six-over-six timber sliding sashes, diminishing in scale at first floor level. The natural slate pitched roof has two modern rooflights and a red brick chimney stack to the north-west gable end. The basement is accessed via a concrete ramp from the south-east side, and features a mix of three square-headed and segmental arch-headed blind bays, a large square-headed doorway with a single-pane transom light above, and a segmental arched window to the left (south-east) side with a six-over-six timber sliding sash.

Setting

The building occupies an elevated site on the north-west side of the Strand Road, overlooking the River Foyle to the north-east. Its principal elevation faces south-east and is reached via a short flight of steps set within a high boundary wall, approached from Cranagh Terrace. The grounds include a car park and a large green area to the rear, screened by large mature trees.