View of Austins from Foyle Street
Shirt making was established in Derry by the local Scott family in the early 1830s. It proved immensely successful which encouraged outside industrialists to set up factories in the city in the 1850s. The shirt-making industry quickly became one of the most important employers in the region. By the 1920s, when industry growth reached its peak, shirt factories employed about 18,000 people (90% of these women) from the city and the surrounding district.
The city is dotted with large, and now mostly abandoned, nineteenth-century shirt-factory buildings, many of them constructed in elegant and varying architectural styles as their owners tried to outdo each other. However, some have found new life beyond shirt making and are being re-used with little change to their fabric or architectural styles.
The Welch Margetson factory, erected in 1872 on Carlisle Road, for example, is a fine example of industrial architecture, now housing a government department back office. Hogg and Mitchell’s, built in 1896 on Great James Street, is a five-storey factory building which now leases ground-floor spaces to different businesses while the remaining floors have been converted to apartments.
Likewise, other well-known factory buildings across the city have been given new lives as apartment blocks (Star Factory), or arts, education and business spaces (City Factory).
Unfortunately, many of the city’s most iconic factories, storehouses and retail / public premises have disappeared over time through natural causes (dilapidation and condemnation), urban regeneration or as a result of conflict during the Troubles.
The following images illustrate just some of the many architecturally significant buildings which have called the city home throughout the decades.
Premises being demolished in the Diamond
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- McCorkell building – Strand Road
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- Hogg and Mitchell (1) – Little James St
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- National Bank – Strand Road
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- Austins of the Diamond
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- Thompson’s Store
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- Hibernian Bank – Shipquay Street
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- Diamond Premises
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- W&R Barnett and Co – Foyle Street
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- Ballantine Premises – Strand Road
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- Brolly Premises – Strabane Old Road
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- Carlin Premises – Waterside
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- Metropole Hotel – Foyle Street
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- McCourt Shop – Ardmore
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- Ballantine Premises – Clarendon Street
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- Logue Pork Stores – Duke Street
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- McCorkell premises – Strand Road
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- Smith Premises – Foyle Street
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- Sweeney premises – Strand Road
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- Dougan cafe and shop – Ferryquay Street
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- Donaghey premises – Foyle Street
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- Mooney premises – Waterside
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- Hogg and Mitchell – Great James Street
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- Sherrard premises – William Street
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- Coyle and Co Book Store – Bishop Street
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- Young premises – Strand Road
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- Ballantine premises – Strand Road
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- Miller premises – Strand Road
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- Magee Shop – Linenhall Street
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- McKay lodgings – Bishop Street
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- Waterloo premises
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- Waterloo premises