11 Crawford Square, Londonderry

11 Crawford Square is a three-storey, two-bay rendered terraced house built in 1874, probably to designs by Robert Collins, though this attribution remains unconfirmed. It forms part of an impressive terrace of sixteen houses on a sloping site overlooking Crawford Square, a grassed and tree-lined park within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. The house is robust in design and largely intact, and carries group value alongside Nos 3–10 and 12–18 Crawford Square as part of this unified terrace. It also holds social importance to the local community as a former Presbyterian manse from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Crawford Square was originally laid out in 1861 by Fitzgibbon Louch (1826–1911), a civil engineer and architect who established an independent practice in Londonderry in 1859 and was responsible for the entrance to the City Cemetery and the design of the Magazine Gate entrance to the city walls. According to the Dublin Builder, the square was named after Samuel Law Crawford, a local solicitor who owned the land. It was conceived as part of the city's northward expansion following the Georgian-style terraces of Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street built between the 1830s and 1860s, and was designed to house Londonderry's professional classes. At the time of construction, the Northland Road was still described as a country road leading from the city toward Donegal. The square, along with Templemore and Victoria Parks, has been characterised as the city's response to Dublin's garden squares, providing a green oasis for wealthy residents close to the city centre, with an enclosed central garden bounded on three sides.

Nos 1 and 2 Crawford Square were the first to be constructed, erected in 1865 for Samuel Knox, a building contractor. The majority of the adjoining terrace was built for John McAdoo, a local seed merchant and landowner. Nos 3–10 were designed by Robert Collins — Londonderry's Consulting Engineer from 1866 to 1874 — and constructed by the building firm of G. & R. Ferguson, as recorded in the Irish Builder. No. 11 was constructed along with the adjoining No. 12 in 1874. Although it is not known whether Collins was personally involved in their design, the later houses clearly follow his original design closely and are almost identical to the earlier terrace. On completion, No. 11 was given a total rateable value of £40.

The house is designed in the Italianate style and has a rectangular plan form facing north-east, with a three-storey rendered return to the rear and a two-storey outbuilding accessed from the rear. It is paired with, and symmetrical to, the adjacent No. 12 Crawford Square. The pitched natural slate roof is continuous with No. 12, and a large buff brick chimney with clay pots is shared with No. 10. Timber fascia boards and a moulded soffit with paired block modillions finish the eaves, with half-round cast iron guttering discharging to circular cast iron downpipes. Replacement uPVC rainwater goods have been fitted to the rear elevation, with gutters supported on rise-and-fall brackets.

The front elevation features a two-storey, three-sided canted bay window with a parapet to the left of the entrance, recessed panels between the first and second storeys, and moulded cills and string courses. Window openings have segmental arched heads and 1/1 double-hung timber sliding sash windows with moulded horns. The first-floor window above the main entrance door has a moulded architrave with stop blocks and a moulded cill shared with No. 12. The doorcase has a semi-circular arch with a hood mould and keystone, decorative console brackets, and is recessed with a moulded soffit, glazed fanlight, tiled step, and a pair of panelled outer doors. Inside the entrance, a glazed inner door is flanked by slender timber columns with decorative capitals, and is surmounted by a rectangular fanlight. The original timber door beyond has a glazed top panel and a single moulded bottom panel. The space between the outer and inner doors has a flat ceiling with a cornice.

The three-storey rendered return has a half-hipped natural slate roof with blue-black hip and ridge tiles and a buff brick chimney with a moulded corbel, shared with the return of No. 12. The return has square-headed window openings with replacement uPVC casement windows to the upper floors. The shared return of Nos 11 and 12 is taller than those of the remainder of the terrace. The rear elevation was not seen during survey, and there was no access to the return at ground-floor level.

At the rear of the site is a stone-built outbuilding, which forms part of the stepped row of outbuildings associated with the Crawford Square houses and fronts onto Academy Road. The Academy Road elevation is of exposed stone with brick dressings and infill blockwork below a timber beam, with a single door opening. High-level sheeted timber doors are positioned above this opening. The quality of the setting is further enhanced by this outbuilding enclosing the rear of the site.

In 1911 the house was occupied by John Clement Glendinning, proprietor of the Londonderry Standard, one of the city's three principal newspapers. The 1911 Census Building Return described it as a first-class dwelling with 12 rooms and a stable as its sole outbuilding. By the 1930s the property had been acquired by the Trustees of Claremont Presbyterian Church and was used as the church's manse until at least the 1970s. Its rateable value stood at £36 by the end of the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72). Crawford Square was included in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area in 1978, and Nos 1–23 Crawford Square were subsequently listed in 1979. General repairs to No. 11 were carried out between 1979 and 1981, including the eradication of fungal rot in the roof timbers and the reslating of the roof.

The house faces north-east over the tree-lined Crawford Square green. It is set back slightly from the footpath and is modestly elevated, approached by a path and a short flight of stone steps shared with the adjacent property. A modest front garden is enclosed by a dwarf wall topped with railings.