1 De Burgh Terrace, Academy Road, Londonderry

No. 1 De Burgh Terrace is a late-Victorian, end-of-terrace townhouse built around 1889, forming the first in a uniform row of seventeen similar two-and-a-half-storey houses on the north side of De Burgh Terrace, Academy Road, Londonderry. Together with its neighbours (the adjoining listed buildings in De Burgh Terrace), it has significant group value and is considered among the most important buildings within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. The local schist walling to the rear and to the west boundary at the gable end further enriches the quality of its setting.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house is two-bay, two-storey with a dormer attic, Georgian in style, and rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. Despite the loss of the original windows to the rear, the exterior has retained its character, style and proportion, making it a fine example of its period.

The principal (south) elevation faces onto a long, sloping raised garden enclosed by a red brick boundary wall with a modern timber gate. This elevation is built in Flemish bond red brick with a painted rendered plinth. At ground floor level there is a canted bay with a leaded roof and square-headed painted 2/2 sliding sash windows with horizontally divided panes and ogee-shaped horns. The entrance doorway has a segmental arched opening with double-leaf three-panel timber doors and a plain fanlight above. At first floor level the windows are segmental-headed painted 2/2 sliding sash windows, with coupled windows above the bay and a single light above the doorcase. A continuous projecting sill course runs across the first floor. At second floor level, a dormer above the bay contains a pair of round-headed 1/1 sliding sash windows. The dormer has a decorative bargeboard, and the main roof has bracketed eaves, all painted white. The brick soldier-coursed headers have also been painted white, as have the window reveals, which are in a toothed pattern.

The west elevation is blank and rendered, with red brick toothed quoins to the south side and the attached rear return to the north side. The east side is abutted by the adjoining No. 2 De Burgh Terrace. The north (rear) elevation is rendered with a two-storey gabled rear return and a door opening onto the rear yard. The rear and second floor windows are replacement casements. There is a flat-headed dormer at eaves level with a three-part window.

The roof is a pitched slate construction with clay ridge tiles to the main roof and a dormer to the front. A large brick chimney stack rises from the east side, centred on the ridge, with six clay pots. Guttering is uPVC with circular downpipes to the front.

To the west boundary there is a local schist stone wall with an access gate. To the rear of the site there is an outbuilding with a flat roof and double-leaf timber doors, accessed from the rear lane. The original rubble schist stone wall survives to the remainder of the rear (north) boundary.

MATERIALS

The roof is natural slate with lead to the ground floor canted bay. Rainwater goods are uPVC. The principal (south) elevation walling is red brick in Flemish bond; the north and west elevations are rendered. Windows to the front are timber sliding sash; windows to the rear are uPVC.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The circa 1873 valuation town plan of Londonderry records that De Burgh Terrace was originally laid out in the 1870s, though at that time the street was unnamed and had no buildings. The first houses were not constructed until 1889. De Burgh Terrace was part of the northward expansion of the city which followed the establishment of Georgian-style terraces along Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street in the 1830s to 1860s, when Londonderry's professional and merchant classes began moving out of the Walled City. The northern expansion was constrained by the walls of the Lunatic Asylum, and so new terraces — including Crawford Square and De Burgh Terrace — were erected to the north-west of the previous development on picturesque hill sites overlooking the River Foyle. As architectural historian Calley has noted, writing in 2013, the development of large terraces around a central garden or square can be seen as the city's delayed response to Dublin's garden squares, creating near the city centre a green oasis for its wealthy residents.

Following the laying out of Crawford Square in the 1860s to 1870s, Nos 1 to 17 De Burgh Terrace were developed by Ulick James Daly, a civil servant and gentleman who resided at Eccles Street in Dublin. Daly originally submitted plans for eighteen houses in 1888 but only seventeen were ever built. The terrace was constructed in stages between 1889 and 1894, with Nos 1 to 8 being the first to be completed. The majority of the buildings were leased by the Daly family following completion. Annual Revisions confirm that Nos 1 to 8 were constructed in 1889 and were individually valued at £14.

The first recorded occupant of No. 1 was a Mrs Joyce. By 1911 a Ms Frances Maria Motherwell, who derived her income from dividends, had taken up residence. The 1911 Census described Motherwell's property as a first-class dwelling consisting of eleven rooms. She remained at De Burgh Terrace until her death in 1916. By the 1930s, a Mr Cecil Edmund McClelland, a local electrician, had occupied the house, which had risen in value to £28 under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936 to 1957). McClelland resided at No. 1 until his death in 1939. By the end of the Second Revaluation (1956 to 1972), the total value of No. 1 stood at £30, with the Daly family retaining ownership.

Nos 1 to 17 De Burgh Terrace were listed in 1979. De Burgh Terrace had not been included in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area when it was first designated in 1978, but in 2006 the area was extended primarily in order to incorporate the terrace. It has consequently been designated an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance.

In 1985 No. 1 De Burgh Terrace underwent a renovation that included the reconstruction of the original chimney stack and the reslating of its roof. Calley, writing in 2013, described De Burgh Terrace as "quite simply delightful," noting in particular the long sloping raised gardens to the front, which are generally very well maintained with some fine trees.