MA Block

MA Block is a detached, symmetrical, multi-bay two-storey professor's house built around 1881, constructed in red brick with sandstone trim. The building is U-shaped on plan, facing south on an elevated site to the west of the University of Ulster's Magee Campus, adjacent to MB block and the Northland Road entrance.

The roof features natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles, lead valleys, and five profiled red brick chimney stacks with terracotta pots and corbelled capstones. Four timber-sheeted gabled dormers contain paired 2/1 timber sash windows with timber bargeboards. Moulded cast-iron guttering projects from sandstone eaves supported on angled brick courses (cogging), with cast-iron downpipes.

The walling is laid in Flemish bond with red sandstone trim. A projecting plinth course in red sandstone and a string course of red sandstone and angled brick separate the floors. Windows are square-headed with flush red sandstone basket-arched lintels and sandstone sills. The original windows are 4/1 timber sashes with slender ogee horns and include some historic glass.

The symmetrical south front elevation is four bays wide. Two full-height three-sided canted bay windows occupy either end, each topped by a gabled Dutch-style dormer with sandstone coping and ball finial.

The asymmetrical west elevation features a projecting large brick chimney stack to the right with an angled vertical course rising above the eaves. Left of this stack is a red sandstone blank cartouche set in a sandstone panel. At centre is a four-centred arched red sandstone doorcase with a replacement six-panelled timber door and original leaded coloured glazed fanlight. The doorcase is flanked by Tuscan pilasters with foliate capitals on raised plinths, surmounted by scrolled and fluted console brackets with foliate carving and swags supporting a hood cornice with diamond fielded spandrel panels. The door opens onto a concrete universal access ramp with steel handrails. The east elevation is similarly detailed.

The rear (north) elevation is asymmetrical. The two end bays return as gabled elevations, abutted by two lower two-storey lean-to additions and further single-storey flat-roofed sections. Red brick yards enclose each end bay at ground level, curved to the west and east, topped with moulded terracotta coping. Windows on this elevation are 6/2 timber sashes, with smaller 2/2 timber sash windows to the hipped roof lean-to sections. Both east and west projections have elliptical-headed openings with 2/2 timber sash windows with margin lights and leaded coloured glazing facing the yard between them. A single square-headed door opening to the northeast re-entrant corner has a Tudor-panelled timber door and plain overlight, opening onto a flight of diagonally-set concrete steps with curved retaining walls, rendered smooth with concrete copings and round planters. On the opposite side, a straight set of concrete steps descends from a later flat-roofed extension.

The site sits on elevated ground to the west of Magee University Campus, adjacent to the similar MB block, north of a bitumac driveway. Florence Terrace (HB01/22/008A-F) sits directly opposite. The western boundary to Northland Road is defined by local schist stone rubble walling, terminating in a square red-brick pillar with pyramidal dressed sandstone cap incorporating a recessed post-box inscribed 'GR', erected between 1910 and 1936. This pillar has been moved from its original position, and the corresponding pillar on the reverse side of the driveway, together with gates and flanking curved red-brick screen walling, has been removed.