2 Bayview Terrace, Asylum Road, Londonderry

2 Bayview Terrace is a mid-terraced, three-bay, three-storey-with-attic rendered Victorian townhouse, built in 1870 to an unknown architect's design. It forms part of Bayview Terrace, a continuous row of seven houses of similar type and style (Nos 1–7) lining the south side of Asylum Road on the western bank of the River Foyle, within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. It sits between No. 1 Bayview Terrace to the west and No. 3 Bayview Terrace to the east, and its significance is enhanced by its group value as part of that unified terrace.

The house is set behind a stone wall with steel railings above, and the main entrance on the north-facing front elevation is approached by a short flight of five stone steps. The plan form is rectangular, facing north, with a three-storey rendered return to the rear.

The front elevation features rendered banded rustication at ground-floor level with a rendered plinth below. A continuous painted sill course runs across the full width of the elevation at first-floor level. The ground floor has a recessed elliptical arched door opening flanked by rendered square pilasters and an entablature above, painted in a contrasting colour. The doorway itself is framed by moulded square pilasters of the Doric order, with a moulded entablature above and a plain fanlight, and opens to a pair of timber single-panel doors. Two window openings sit to the right of the doorway at ground-floor level. At first and second floor, there are three window openings per storey, centred above the front door and ground-floor windows. All window openings are square-headed with moulded architrave surrounds, and all now contain modern uPVC casement windows. The moulded architrave surrounds and the timber panelled front door beneath its decorative entablature survive as notable original external details, even though the windows are modern replacements.

The pitched slate roof has two small dormers, one to the front and one to the rear. The front dormer is small, pitched, centred on the roof slope, has slated cheeks and a semicircular uPVC casement window set within uPVC horizontal boarding. It is flanked by two small rooflights. There is a two-stage rendered chimney stack with terracotta clay pots. Eaves details include a timber fascia and slightly overhanging timber soffit, with moulded uPVC guttering discharging to a circular uPVC downpipe on the north elevation.

The rear elevation (south-facing) has a smooth rendered unpainted finish, with square-headed window openings containing uPVC casement windows throughout. A metal external fire escape staircase, a later addition, abuts the rear elevation on its west side. The east side of the rear elevation is abutted by the three-storey rear return, whose south-facing elevation is blank and finished in rough-cast render. The south elevation of the rear return is blank.

The terrace takes its name from its original commanding views over Rosses Bay on the River Foyle, which the houses enjoyed by virtue of their position close to the riverbank. Subsequent land reclamation and building development on the eastern side of the Strand Road have since removed that view entirely.

Asylum Road itself predates 1830, and originally formed the southern boundary of the Londonderry District Lunatic Asylum, built between 1825 and 1829. The asylum was demolished in the 1960s, but its perimeter wall of locally quarried Derry Schist still stands opposite the terrace as a surviving reminder of the institution's boundary. No buildings had been erected along Asylum Road by the time of the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853. The first houses on the road, Nos 1–13 Asylum Road at the top of the hill, were constructed around 1860, broadly contemporary with the Georgian-style terraces of Queen Street and Clarendon Street, most of which were laid out between approximately 1837 and the 1860s. Nos 1–7 Bayview Terrace followed a decade later, in 1870, and display a more distinctly Victorian character than their Georgian-style neighbours, though they are similar in scale. The terrace was first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1870 and first depicted on the Annual Revisions Plan of Londonderry of approximately 1873. The ornamental detailing throughout the terrace is of note: door frames throughout feature Doric columns and entablatures, and Nos 1, 4, and 7 Bayview Terrace additionally have bay windows with entablatures bearing fretwork frieze decorations.

The terrace was built on land owned by Harvey Nicholson, a local magistrate and Justice of the Peace. The landlord was Matthew McClelland, a local magistrate and builder who resided at No. 1 Bayview Terrace and who leased the entire terrace from Nicholson. McClelland's family continued as landlords to the majority of the row until the 1970s.

No. 2 was originally valued at £45 and first occupied by a Mrs Rogan. As with the neighbouring streets, the houses of Bayview Terrace became the residences of Londonderry's professional and merchant classes. By 1911 the property was occupied by William H. Mee, a local flour merchant, magistrate and Justice of the Peace. The census building return for that year described the house as a first-class dwelling consisting of ten rooms. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the value was slightly reduced to £42. By the 1930s the house was occupied by a Mr Robert Johnston, with a Mrs Mary Lynch taking possession in 1947. Ownership also passed to a Mr Edward Tinney shortly before 1936. By at least 1956 the property had been converted into a nursing home, at which point its valuation was raised to £96, remaining at that figure through the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72).

In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Bayview Terrace and the surrounding streets as the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, as an area of special architectural or historic interest whose character it is desirable to preserve or enhance. No. 2 Bayview Terrace was subsequently listed in 1979. The former nursing home was later converted into a number of self-contained apartments in 1996.