30.11.2021, 18:30 P.M.
City of Derry: From Siege to Survey by Dan Calley
The long 18th century in Derry could be said to have begun with the near total destruction of the city by the forces of James II under the command of the Earl of Antrim during the Siege of Derry in 1689. The publication of Colonel Thomas Colby’s Ordnance Survey Memoir of the City and North Western Liberties of Londonderry in 1837 quantified the city’s successful reconstruction, just at the point when the city was expanding beyond its original walls and beginning its greatest period of economic wealth and expansion.
Daniel Calley was born in Washington DC and grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, the home town of George Washington, and where he fell in love with Georgian architecture. He was educated in the USA and Scotland. He now lives in Co Londonderry where he pursues his interest in Irish architectural and family history. A long-term member of the Irish Georgian Society he is chairman of the Friends of the Belfast Linen Hall Library and vice-chairman of the British Association of Friends of Museums. He is the author of City of Derry, An Historical Gazetteer to the Buildings of Londonderry (Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2013).
Image: A view of the city of Derry from a drawing by Paul Sanby after a sketch by James Nixon published in 1793. It includes Derry’s finest Georgian architectural conceit, Bishop Frederick Hervey, the Earl of Bristol’s spire, which including the tower, soared 228 feet.
This pre-recorded Zoom talk will be issued at 6.30pm on Tuesday 30th November and will be available to watch for seven days from issue. Talks cannot be reissued after the seven day period.
This is the ninth and final talk in the Irish Cities in the Georgian Era: architecture and urban morphology series.
Supported by the Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage.
