76 Culmore Point Road, Londonderry, BT48 8JW

This is a group of model semi-detached cottages built under the direction of the Honourable Irish Society, intended as prototypes for similar dwellings. They are situated overlooking the River Foyle, where it narrows before widening into Lough Foyle. While some alterations have occurred, the cottages retain enough original character to be considered attractive and merit recording.

Numbers 76 to 86 comprise three pairs of one-and-a-half-storey semi-detached cottages facing the River Foyle, immediately north of Culmore Point and set back a short distance from the water’s edge by a concrete embankment with a raked surface. Each dwelling has a front and rear garden. The cottages are constructed of handmade brick, with pitched roofs and projecting porches. They feature wide, square-proportioned ground floor windows with a hood moulding located high above, and centrally placed, pitched-roof dormer windows with sills just above the gutter line. A plaster frieze runs beneath the gutter, with widely spaced decorative cast iron gutter brackets. Gutters drain into a centrally placed decorative cast iron trunkhead with a single downpipe shared between two dwellings, secured by decorative brackets. The roofs are slate-covered with a central chimney stack between each pair of dwellings, altered to rustic brickwork with four chimney pots replacing the original Tudor-style chimneys. Gable roofs extend into a lean-to over the rear portion, with plastered gable walls and a new back return extension. The porches are timber-clad with decorative barges and a pointed timber finial, mirroring the treatment of the dormer windows. The brickwork is in a Flemish bond pattern. The front door is sheeted, and the windows are divided into 12 equal panes with top-hung opening lights at the head. Dormer windows are triangular pointed, with a central diamond pane at the apex. The gable has a ground floor bedroom window and a centrally placed first floor window. A door has been added to the gable in a new position.

The Culmore estate reverted to the Irish Society in 1860. Richard Williamson, appointed surveyor for the Society concerning Fitzgibbon Louch, was instructed to build cottages fronting the river on the back strand of Culmore Point. Williamson’s plans and elevations were based on those of Henry Roberts (1803-76), who had previously prepared designs for the Society to improve the conditions of the labouring classes. Construction took place between 1863 and 1864. The cottages are now under individual ownership. An earlier row of cottages, named "Kings Row," is indicated on the 1853 Ordnance Survey map at the same location, suggesting they were replaced by the present buildings.