MA Block

MA Block, University of Ulster Magee Campus, Northland Road, Londonderry

MA Block is a detached, symmetrical, multi-bay, two-storey-with-attic red brick building on the east side of Northland Road, built around 1881 to designs by Young & Mackenzie as a pair of semi-detached professors' houses. It now serves as offices for the University of Ulster. The building is almost identical to the adjacent MB Block, and its red brick, red sandstone and moulding details share much in common with the MC and ME Blocks that flank the main neo-Gothic college building on College Avenue. The Dutch-style gabled dormers suggest a Queen Anne influence that enjoyed a popular revival during the High Victorian era, while the cogging brick courses, basket-arched lintels, tall profiled chimney stacks and leaded glass overlights reflect the Arts and Crafts movement's emphasis on hand-crafted detailing.

Architectural Description

The building is U-shaped on plan, facing south, and sits on an elevated site to the west of the University of Ulster's Magee Campus, adjacent to MB Block at the Northland Road entrance. The roofs are hipped natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles, lead valleys and five profiled red brick chimney stacks with terracotta pots and corbelled-out capstones. Four timber-sheeted gabled dormers each contain paired 2-over-1 timber sash windows with timber bargeboards. Moulded cast-iron guttering sits on a projecting sandstone eaves course supported on angled cogging brick courses, with cast-iron downpipes.

The walling is red brick laid in Flemish bond, with red sandstone dressings to a projecting plinth course and a sandstone and cogging brick string course between the floors. Windows are square-headed with flush red sandstone basket-arched lintels, sandstone sills, and 4-over-1 timber sash windows with slender ogee horns; some retain historic glass.

South Elevation

The symmetrical south front is four bays wide and features two full-height, three-sided canted bay windows at either end. Each bay window is surmounted by a gabled wall-head Dutch-style dormer with sandstone coping and a ball finial.

West Elevation

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

North (Rear) Elevation

The two end bays of the rear elevation return as a pair of gabled elevations abutted by two lower two-storey lean-to accretions and further single-storey flat-roofed sections. A yard enclosed by red brick walling abuts each end bay at ground level; the enclosure is curved to the west and topped with a moulded terracotta coping. Windows on this elevation are 6-over-2 timber sashes, with smaller 2-over-2 timber sash windows to the hipped-roof lean-to sections. Both east and west projections have an elliptical-headed window opening with a 2-over-2 timber sash with margin lights and leaded coloured glazing, facing into the yard between the two projections. A single square-headed door opening at the north-east re-entrant corner has a Tudor-panelled timber door and a plain overlight. It opens onto a diagonally set flight of concrete steps with curved retaining walls rendered smooth in concrete, concrete copings and round planters at both ends. On the opposite side, a straight set of concrete steps descend from a later flat-roofed extension.

East Elevation

The asymmetrical east side elevation has a central door opening detailed in the same manner as the west elevation. This door opens onto concrete steps, the uppermost flight of three flanked by sandstone dwarf walls, with steel handrails to the lower flight, which descends through a steep garden.

Interior

The two houses have been connected internally and modernised, though the original plan form remains discernible. Some historic fabric survives, including both staircases.

History

Magee College was established through the bequest of over £20,000 left by Martha Maria Magee upon her death in 1846, intended for the Presbyterian General Assembly to build a college in Ulster. After lengthy delays over location and funding, Londonderry was selected as the site in 1853, and an architectural competition was held. The Dublin-based architect Edward P. Gribbon's Gothic design was chosen, and the foundation stone was laid on 18th August 1856. The original brief had included eight professors' houses, but these were abandoned due to budgetary constraints. The college officially opened to students on 10th October 1865.

In its first decade the college attracted very few students — only eight were enrolled in 1874. In 1879 Magee became a constituent college of the Royal University of Ireland, which brought increased enrolment, further boosted by the admission of women students from 1883. The new association with the Royal University and donations from supporters funded a number of additions to the campus in the late 19th century. The first professors' houses, originally planned in the 1850s, were finally built in 1881 on what became known as College Avenue.

Young & Mackenzie were a Belfast-based architectural partnership formed around 1867. The Dictionary of Irish Architects describes them as the most successful architectural practice in Belfast, who had become the leading architects for the Presbyterian Church in the north-east. They were also active for the Presbyterian Church in the north-west, having designed Londonderry's Fourth Presbyterian Church in 1877–79 and a second church on Clooney Terrace in the Waterside. The Natural Stone Database records that the sandstone dressings are Corsehill sandstone.

Valuation records show the building was valued at £90 when new, with each half occupied by a college professor. In 1901 the two occupants were the Reverend Hugh Graham, Professor of Metaphysics and Ethics, and the Reverend George Woodburn, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. The 1901 census building return described the structure as a pair of first-class dwellings comprising 28 rooms with two coal houses as their only outbuildings. By the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the building was occupied by the Reverend Woodburn and a Mr Robert Lyons Marshall, and its rateable value had risen to £102.

During the Second World War, many Magee College buildings were requisitioned, and a number of the professors' houses were used as classrooms. After the war they reverted to residential use, though by the 1950s not all remained occupied. In 1950, following the recommendation of the Acheson Report, some professors' houses were converted into student residences. By the Second Revaluation (1956–72) the buildings were being used for administration, teaching and residential purposes. MA Block was converted into student accommodation in 1953 and continued in that use until at least the 1970s, before being converted into classrooms following the expansion of the university after the opening of the University of Ulster in 1984. The buildings along College Avenue were listed in 1976 and included within the Magee Conservation Area in 2006.

Setting

The building sits on an elevated site adjacent to MB Block, with a bitmac driveway to the south. Florence Terrace 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 a pyramidal dressed sandstone cap. This pillar incorporates a recessed post-box inscribed 'GR', indicating it was installed between 1910 and 1936. Evidence from the first survey indicates that this pillar has been moved from its original position, and the corresponding pillar on the other side of the driveway, together with the gates and flanking curved red brick screen walling to both sides, has been removed.

Despite the institutional appearance of the concrete ramp and steel handrails, the exterior retains considerable character. The brick yard enclosures and the surviving gate pillar with its recessed post-box enhance the quality of the setting. MA Block shares group value with a wealth of 19th-century structures dispersed throughout the campus that contribute significant interest to the Magee Conservation Area.