5 Bayview Terrace, Asylum Road, Londonderry

5 Bayview Terrace is a mid-terraced, three-bay, three-storey house with attic, built in 1870 to an unknown architect's design. It forms part of a terrace of seven houses of similar type and style (Nos 1–7 Bayview Terrace) lining the south side of Asylum Road, on the western side of the River Foyle within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, Londonderry. The house sits in the townland of Edenballymore and is listed for its architectural and historical interest, including its style, proportion, ornamentation, setting, and group value with the rest of the terrace.

Architectural Overview

The house has a rectangular plan form facing north, with rendered banded rustication to the ground floor of the front elevation, a three-storey rendered return to the rear, and a two-storey outbuilding accessed from that rear return. The pitched natural slate roof carries two small dormers — one to the front, one to the rear — and a two-stage rendered and brick chimney stack with terracotta clay pots, rising from the east side and centred on the ridge. There is a timber fascia and a slightly overhanging timber soffit, with half-round cast-iron guttering discharging to a circular cast-iron downpipe on the north elevation.

Front Elevation

The north-facing front elevation has rendered banded rustication on the ground floor set on a rendered plinth, with a continuous painted sill course to the first-floor windows spanning the full width of the elevation. Window openings are square-headed with moulded architrave surrounds, fitted with 1/1 double-hung timber sliding sashes with moulded horns. Two window bays are aligned with the upper-floor bays to the right of a recessed, elliptically arched door opening approached by five steps up. The door opening is flanked by rendered square pilasters and has an entablature above, a plain fanlight, and a pair of single round-topped timber panel doors framed by moulded square pilasters of the Doric order with a moulded entablature above. A small pitched-roof dormer, centred on the front elevation, has slated cheeks and a semicircular 1/1 timber sliding sash window.

Rear and Side Elevations

The south-facing rear elevation is finished in red brick and render, with square-headed window openings. It includes a 6/3 timber sliding sash window at third-floor level and a wall dormer at attic level to the left-hand side. The three-storey return to the right has a pitched slate roof with black ridge tiles and uPVC rainwater goods; the east elevation of the return has a 6/6 timber sliding sash window to the left side on both the first and second floor levels. The west side of the house abuts No. 4 Bayview Terrace and the east side abuts No. 6 Bayview Terrace.

Outbuilding

To the rear of the site stands a stone outbuilding that forms part of the stepped row of outbuildings associated with the houses of Bayview Terrace. The south elevation of the outbuilding is built in stone rubble with red brick detailing; the ground floor contains a large altered opening with a timber lintel, and the first floor has two square-headed openings — a vertical timber-sheeted door to the right and a boarded-up window to the left. The east and west elevations of the outbuilding are abutted by the outbuildings of the neighbouring properties. The north elevation was not accessible at the time of survey. The outbuilding has a slated pitched roof with uPVC rainwater goods.

Setting

The house sits on the south side of Asylum Road behind a stone plinth wall with steel railings above. The main entrance is approached by a flight of concrete steps. The terrace of seven houses faces north as a unified row within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

Historical Context

Bayview Terrace was first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1870 and first depicted on the 1873 Ordnance Survey map of Londonderry. Asylum Road itself predates 1830 and therefore predates the surrounding streets of the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, which were laid out between approximately 1837 and the 1860s. The road 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 continues to stand opposite Bayview Terrace, marking the original boundary of the institution. No buildings had been constructed along Asylum Road as of the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853. Nos 1–13 Asylum Road, at the top of the hill, were the first houses erected in the area, built around 1860, contemporary with the Georgian-style terraces along Queen and Clarendon Streets. Nos 1–7 Bayview Terrace were constructed a decade later and display a more distinctly Victorian character than their Georgian-style neighbours, featuring ornate details such as Doric door frames with columns and entablatures. Nos 1, 4, and 7 Bayview Terrace also possess bay windows with entablatures bearing fretwork frieze decorations. The terrace was named Bayview for its proximity to the River Foyle, which originally afforded the houses a view over Rosses Bay; land reclamation and development on the eastern side of Strand Road has since removed that view.

The land on which the terrace was built was owned by Harvey Nicholson, a local magistrate and Justice of the Peace, as recorded in the Ulster Town Directories. No. 5 was originally valued at £45, and the landlord was Matthew McClelland, a local magistrate and builder who resided at No. 1 Bayview Terrace. As with the neighbouring streets, the houses of Bayview Terrace became residences of Londonderry's professional and merchant classes. The first recorded occupant of No. 5 was James Harvey, a local wine merchant with premises on Magazine Street. By 1911 the house had passed to Hugh C. O'Doherty, a local solicitor with offices on Shipquay Street, and the census building return for that year described the property as a first-class dwelling of ten rooms. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) records William Hamilton Weir, a local merchant, as the occupant during the 1930s; his family continued to reside there until 1966, when a Mr Samuel K. Mitchell took possession. The McClelland family remained the landlords of No. 5 by at least the 1970s, and by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72) the property's value stood at £48.

In 1978, the Department of the Environment designated Bayview Terrace and the surrounding streets as a Conservation Area, defined as an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. No. 5 Bayview Terrace was subsequently listed in 1979.

Alterations

By the 1980s the building had been converted into a number of self-contained flats, though in 1984 the first and second floors were changed to office accommodation. Between 1990 and 1991 the building underwent an extensive renovation that included replacement of the roof covering using natural slate, reconstruction of its dormer windows, and an overhaul of its sash windows.