16 Queen'S St., Londonderry

16 Queen's Street, Londonderry

This is an end-of-terrace Victorian townhouse built in a Georgian style around 1865, forming the northernmost of a terrace of four similar houses lining the west side of Queen Street, Londonderry. It is a substantial three-storey, three-bay building over a basement, with an attic storey, and a three-storey projecting rear return. The building is rectangular on plan, with its principal elevation facing east onto Queen Street. It is considered one of the finest Georgian-style terraces within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, and the group of four houses — numbers 13 to 16 — has significant group value as an ensemble. The listing covers the house itself, the railings to the front, and the bootscraper.

Exterior

The principal east-facing elevation is built in red brick laid in Flemish bond with cement pointing, set behind a low-level rendered plinth wall with a sandstone coping. In front of this sits a run of painted decorative cast-iron railings. All window openings have square-headed flat-cut brick arches on painted masonry sills. On the ground floor, the window bays are aligned with those on the floors above, and are fitted with 6/6 timber sliding sash windows. The entrance doorway is elliptical arch-headed and slightly recessed, with engaged fluted columns of the Ionic order to either side, a four-panel painted timber door, a projecting entablature, and an elliptical fanlight with timber glazing bars above. The door is reached by six steps up from the pavement. The first and second floors are also fitted with 6/6 timber sliding sash windows. A continuous sandstone string course runs across the elevation at ground floor level.

The basement is accessed by steps down to the left of the front door. The basement walls are of schist with stepped red brick dressings around the 6/6 timber sliding sash windows and a six-panel painted timber door.

At roof level, there is a large central roof dormer with a timber front and decorative bargeboard, slated sides, a slated pitched roof, and a 6/3 timber sliding sash window. The main roof is finished in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A large red brick chimney stack with ten terracotta clay pots rises from the south side. A painted render flat band runs at eaves level. Cast-iron half-round guttering is carried on iron drive-through brackets, terminating at a cast-iron hopper and circular downpipe on the front elevation.

The south elevation is abutted by No. 15 Queen Street. The south elevation of the rear return is of smooth painted render to first floor level, with red brick above, and has an irregular fenestration pattern comprising a mix of 6/6, 3/3, and 2/2 timber sliding sash windows, along with one replacement uPVC window at basement level.

The west rear elevation is three storeys high, with smooth painted render to the basement and ground floor levels. The large red brick rear return has a pitched slated roof. A small single-storey extension with a flat roof serves as a balcony to the first floor, accessed by double timber doors. Original 6/6 timber sliding sash windows serve the ground, first, and second floor levels, with a 6/3 timber sliding sash to the dormer. The rear return is built at half-landing height. Window openings are square-headed with plaster reveals on painted masonry sills. There is a replacement timber door with a glazed sidelight to the ground floor of the rear return, and a further replacement door at basement level.

The north elevation is of red brick laid in English Garden bond with cement pointing, and has a single small 1/1 replacement sliding sash window to the second floor on the east side.

Interior

The interior retains a significant amount of fine historic detailing.

Setting and Context

The house fronts directly onto the pavement on the west side of Queen Street, forming part of the terrace of four similar houses at numbers 13 to 16. To the rear is a large yard enclosed by a painted rendered wall, alongside the large two-storey rear return. The building sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, whose character is significantly enhanced by the historic authenticity of this terrace.

Historical Background

Queen Street was originally laid out around 1840, with the first buildings constructed along it by at least 1847. Its development — along with that of the adjoining Great James Street and Clarendon Street — was driven by a period of economic and population growth in Londonderry during the mid-19th century. As John Hume has recorded, the period 1825 to 1850 saw the reconstruction of buildings within the city walls alongside the first development of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore. Queen Street was the second major new street in the area, following Great James Street, which had been laid out around 1833.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 recorded the Queen Street area as rural hinterland with few significant structures. At that date, the city's streets extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. In the early decades of the 19th century, the only substantial construction north of the walls had been isolated buildings such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College, with little domestic architecture in the area. The only building in the vicinity predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house built around 1815. Robert Simpson's Annals of Derry, published in 1847, recorded that all the district then covered by Great James Street, William Street, Little James Street, and the surrounding lanes had originally comprised meadow ground without a house.

The construction of uniform rows of three-storey townhouses created a new and fashionable district that quickly became the preferred residence of Londonderry's merchant and professional classes. The geometric street pattern of Clarendon Street, Great James Street, and Queen Street was characteristic of Georgian town planning, and the development represented the most ambitious exercise in town planning in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619.

O'Hagan's 1847 plan of Londonderry recorded the street as originally named Queen's Street and noted that at least twelve houses had been constructed along it by that date. Numbers 1 to 8 and numbers 9 to 12 Queen Street are among the earliest terraced dwellings in the Conservation Area, built by at least 1847. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853 did not yet depict the later terrace at numbers 13 to 16, but construction of this row began almost immediately afterwards. The Annual Revisions record that No. 16 Queen Street was constructed in 1865. The adjoining No. 15 was not completed until 1868, briefly leaving a gap in the terrace between numbers 13 to 14 and No. 16.

The Annual Revisions record that No. 16 was originally owned by William John Foster, a local magistrate and Justice of the Peace, who was also its first occupant and who owned the adjoining No. 15. The house was originally valued at £45. By 1911, the house was occupied by Ross Hastings, a local flour merchant and magistrate who operated from the Commercial Buildings on Foyle Street and served as President of the Londonderry Unionist Association. The 1911 census building return classified No. 16 as a first-class dwelling comprising ten rooms, with a stable as its sole outbuilding.

In 1928 the house was acquired by the Trustees of St. Augustine's Church and used as a rectory. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland, carried out in 1935, raised the value of the house to £51 and noted it was then occupied by the Reverend H. A. McKegney, Canon of the church. In 1963 the property was purchased by a Mr E. Pollock, who converted the former private dwelling into four residential apartments; by the end of the Second Revaluation (covering 1956 to 1972), its assessed value had risen to £92 10s.

In 1970 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's guide to Londonderry described numbers 13 to 16 Queen Street as "a fine dignified Georgian terrace of four three-storey houses with attics … each entrance approached by a flight of steps spanning a basement area … the whole is finished with a neat trim railing." In 1978, the Department of the Environment designated the mid-19th-century streets and terraces of Queen Street, Great James Street, and Clarendon Street as a Conservation Area, defined as an area of special architectural or historic interest whose character it is desirable to preserve or enhance. Numbers 13 to 16 Queen Street were subsequently listed in 1979.

Writing in 2013, Calley described the terrace as one that "vies with nos 20–23 Crawford Square and nos 56–60 Northland Road as the finest in the city," noting that the houses are "a little later than nos 9–12 and are somewhat grander versions of them." He described each as "three-and-a-half-storey over basement, three-bay of dark brick," with wide doorways reached up stone steps spanning basement wells edged with period fleur-de-lys-topped railings, good timber panel doors, columned timber surrounds, and segmented fanlights. He noted that numbers 13 and 14 have Tuscan columns while numbers 15 and 16 have Ionic columns, and that each has a single gabled dormer.

Few of the mid-19th-century townhouses along Queen Street remain in residential use; most were converted to offices for dental, accountancy, and legal practices in the late 20th century. No. 16 was converted from a private dwelling to office accommodation in 1986, but was subsequently returned to domestic use and currently operates as a bed and breakfast known as Merchant's House. The most recent renovations, completed in 2009, involved converting the former servants' quarters in the basement into en-suite bedrooms.