Griffith's [Tenement] Valuation for William Street, Derry/Londonderry

As far as houses and buildings are concerned, the printed version of the Griffith's [Tenement] Valuation only provides information on the valuation of each building or set of buildings. Fortunately the VAL/2/B manuscript books from the Griffith's [Tenement] Valuation of the city are available for William Street. These books provide details on the quality and dimensions of all of the buildings on each individual property in the street. In addition valuers' comments can be found from time to time.

As an example of what these books contain, I have reproduced part of a page from the original manuscript book for the street which was surveyed and valued in December 1856. It shows, in particular, the houses and offices numbered 69 to 73 in William Street [without]. The detailed information on each property shown below was used to calculate the overall valuation of the buildings which made up a property, which was then entered  in the Printed Version of the Valuation which was published in 1858.

The valuers recorded the length [frontage] and breadth [depth] of the building as they had done in the earlier valuations of the 1830s. However, the measurements relating to the frontage and depth of buildings were now in yards rather than feet as in the earlier valuations. Note also that the height of buildings was now given by the number of floors or storeys [1, 2, etc.] rather than in feet and inches. 

The valuers also used a similar code A B C, etc. for describing the age and condition of each building, including offices, that was used in the earlier [Townland] Valuation of the 1830s. Normally the code would include a number to signify whether a house was slated [1] or thatched [2] The fact that no number is given for the buildings in William Street suggests that all houses in the street were category 1, i.e. slated. In many cases the valuers would add comments that never appeared in the printed version of 1858.

In this original manuscript version, property number 70 is listed as Tillie & Henderson. In the printed version it appears as Tillie Henderson which could easily be mistaken for a lady. Clearly the type setter had missed the &. Note that in 1856 Tillie & Henderson [the shirt manufacturers] were using this three storey house as a workshop.

I have databased the information on the main building [usually the dwelling house] on each property in the street. The database is available in Excel and PDF formats.

Note also that the same kind of information can be seen in the manuscript valuation books for Coleraine.

Copyright 2010 W. Macafee.