The Derry Visitor and Tourist Information Centre
This building is a hidden Gem on the outskirts of the city, even though it’s in the town, it’s not well placed but full of interesting area. I was well informed from the people, about the area of Foyle road.
Please return as found position!
Foyle Road
Originally marshland dividing the river from the land mass which made the city nearly an island. It begins at the FoyleSide Roundabout, with Foyle and Bridge Streets scross from it, and extends to the Letterkenny Road. The earliest section was in front of the ferry landing and later where the first wooden bridge came ashore. It was extended along the shore south west as the shoreline was firmed up and filled in. By the mid-18th century it was passable enough for it to be called the Strand Road to the gallows which were placed at the bottom of what now is Bishop Street without. Beyond this point it became the road to Strabane . In the 1840’s and 50’s it all became known as Foyle Roadand was used as a railway line which ran alongside it. Now destroyed, there was a fine terminus to it which had a glazed roof supported by lattice iron girders
Tillie and Henderson (demolished): Just beyond the underpass of the Craigavon and Tillie’s brave is a presently bit of scrub ground which was the site of the most significant building in the city. The Tillie and Henderson factory was a roughly U-shaped red brick building fronting Foyle Road, Tillie’s Brae (Carlisle Square) and Abercorn Road and was built in stages. The origional section, built by W and A McElwee, was a five-storey 19,000 square foot L shaped edifice with 70 feet (21.3m) of frontage to Foyle Road and 105 feet (31.4m) to Wapping Lane (this section now named Tillie’s Brae and built up). It predated the Carlisle Bridge, which when built just a few years later partially obscured the lower frontage with its twin decks. Success must have been nearly instantaneous as in 1860 a four-storey extension along Foyle Road was added, increasing the square footage by 12,000 and creating a large block of a building with regularly specked bays on each level. In 1866 a major extension, designed b6 John Guy Ferguson who has also been suggested at the designer of the early secti9ns, created the distinctive chateau like appearance facing Carlisle Square. This was achieved by two flanking four-bay projecting pavilion-like wings with Mansard roofs; that closest to Abercorn Road three-storey, and compensating for the slope of the site the five-storey. The three-storey block between them had ten segmental-headed bays per floor, all nicely detailed with sandstone dressings. In 1869 Ferguson designed two and three-storey additions along Abercorn Road built by Alexander McElwee. The architect Alfred Arthur Forman may have also worked c1900 and was perhaps responsible for the domestic trio of roof dormers on Eash of the projecting wings. It was well served by vandalism and fire and was finally felled, despite being listed, in 2003. It dominated the western approach to the city from the Carlisle and later Craigavon Bridge, announcing ones arrival in an important industrial city. Besides it’s dominating physical presence, it’s real importance was that it was the first large scale shirt factory and heralded the period of the city’s dominance in this field. Founded by William Tillie and John Henderson, two Glaswegians who arrived in the city c1851, the firm is credited with bringing the first sewing machine to the city. This revolutionised what was mostly a piece work business and turned into a industrialised factory prouct this creating over one hundred years of dominance for the city in shirt making. Karl Marx refers it to “Das Kapital” as an example of the transformation from domestic industries into the factory system, thus making it a symbol of not just the city’s shirt industry but of the industrialisation of the western world.
For further information contact the centre and Experience the city today!
Manager has given me permission to plant this cache here
Thank-you for Visting!
