55 Rosemount Avenue, Londonderry

55 Rosemount Avenue is an end-of-terrace, two-bay, two-storey-with-attic red-brick townhouse, built in 1904 as the end unit of a terrace of five similar houses known as Park Villas, numbered 55 to 63 Rosemount Avenue. The building is situated on the north-west side of Rosemount Avenue, on an elevated site to the north-west of the city overlooking Brooke Park, and adjoins the Rosemount Factory (a four-storey shirt factory built for A. B. Grant & Sons in the same year) to its north-west. The record was delisted in April 2016, having previously been listed in 1979. It is considered to be of a late date, not one of the best examples of its type, and its interest has been further compromised by extensive alterations and extensions.

Rosemount Avenue was laid out following the earlier development of Park Avenue in the 1880s, which was largely complete by 1898 and comprised a mix of terraced and freestanding houses. The avenue extended south-west up the hill from Northland Road for almost a kilometre to the Creggan Road, with Brooke Park's boundary wall running along its south-east side. The majority of new housing was concentrated along the northern half of the street. The development of working-class housing in the Rosemount area was closely tied to the construction of the shirt factory on land formerly owned by the Church of Ireland, which had passed to the Church Temporalities Commission following disestablishment. The factory was designed by Matthew Alexander Robinson, a local architect and engineer also responsible for Claremont Presbyterian Church and the boundary wall, railings and gates at Brooke Park, and was built by the Belfast firm of H. Laverty & Son. The terrace of five houses at Nos. 55–63 was constructed to the north-east side of the factory in 1904, possibly in tandem with it, though the designer of the terrace is not known with certainty. The terrace was owned by a Mr William Doherty and was named Park Villas, so called because it stood opposite the entrance to Brooke Park.

The Annual Revisions initially set the rateable value of No. 55 at £13 and noted that its ground floor was used as a shop while the upper floors served as a private dwelling. The first recorded occupant was Ms Sarah J. Spence, who ran a newsagent's and corner shop from the address in 1911. The 1911 census building return described the property as a second-class shop and dwelling containing eight rooms. By the 1930s, Spence had vacated and a Mr William H. McFarland was resident. During the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), ownership of the terrace had passed to a Mrs Annie McVeigh and the rateable value of No. 55 had risen to £28. McFarland remained in residence through the Second Revaluation (1956–72), by which time the value stood at £33. In 1970, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's guide to Londonderry described Nos. 55–63 alongside the adjoining factory. In the 1980s the building was recorded as licensed premises, and by 1999 it had been converted to office use for a local estate agent. The record for No. 55 Rosemount Avenue now also incorporates No. 55A, previously recorded separately.

Writing in 2013, Calley described Park Villas as "two-storey two-bay with a high wall-head above the first floor windows creating a good sense of mass. The ground floors have contrasting rendered canted bay windows (except for No. 55 which is squared) with pitched roofs. All openings are segmental-headed. The boldly projecting cornices are of matching brick as are the chimneys and their matching cornice brick-work."

The building is rectangular on plan with a two-storey rear return built at half-landing height, stepping down to single storey, and a single-storey side extension to the north-east. It abuts the adjoining No. 57 Rosemount Avenue to its south-west side. The principal elevation faces south-east onto Rosemount Avenue. The entrance door is set at a 45-degree angle on the corner, raised two steps above pavement level. The roof is a pitched replacement fibre-cement covering with black clay ridge tiles and two modern rooflights. A large red-brick two-stage chimney stack with six terracotta clay pots rises from the north-east side of the main roof. There is a projecting stepped dog-tooth red-brick cornice at eaves level, with matching cornice detail to the chimney. A cast-iron downpipe serves the front elevation; all other rainwater goods are replacement uPVC.

The principal south-east elevation is built in red brick laid in English Garden Wall Bond. It features a square rendered and painted bay window to the left, with a painted cornice and a painted curved pitched roof. The corner door is set at 45 degrees to the elevation. Above, at first-floor level, are two windows with segmental-arched heads and brick voussoirs. All windows are replacement 1/1 uPVC with moulded concrete cills. Replacement ogee aluminium gutters and a cast-iron downpipe are present on this elevation, along with two large modern rooflights in the replacement fibre-cement roof.

The south-west elevation is abutted by the neighbouring No. 57. The rear north-west elevation is two-storey with attic, incorporating the two-storey rear return with a pitched roof built at half-landing height, stepping down to single storey with an enclosed yard to the west. The walling to the main rear elevation and the rear elevation of the rear return is smooth rendered, with a single replacement uPVC window at first-floor landing level on the main elevation.

The north-east elevation is of red brick in English Garden Wall Bond, with a modern single-storey lean-to extension added in Stretcher Bond, featuring a door at either end and a hipped roof to the south-east corner. On the gable wall are two 1/1 uPVC windows, one at first-floor level to the right of centre and one at attic level to the left of centre, both with segmental-arched heads and brick voussoirs. The gable is surmounted by a large red-brick chimney. The rear return is of red brick, built at half-landing level, with two square-headed openings containing replacement 1/1 uPVC windows with moulded concrete cills, a replacement slate roof, and uPVC gutters and downpipes. The rear single-storey extension has a pitched roof that forms a cat-slide roof onto the north-east side extension.

The architectural and historic integrity of the exterior has been compromised by the loss of the original windows and by the addition of extensions to the north-east and north-west sides.