4 Clarence Avenue, Londonderry

No. 4 Clarence Avenue is a mid-terrace Arts and Crafts style townhouse of two bays and three storeys, built in 1900 to designs by Robert Eccles Buchanan, a local architect and civil engineer active in Londonderry between 1887 and the 1920s. It sits on the north side of Clarence Avenue within the Magee Conservation Area, in the townland of Edenballymore.

The house is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return built at half-landing level. It is set back from the pavement behind a low red-brick boundary wall with a concrete capping stone and metal railings, with a small front garden between the wall and the entrance.

The principal south-facing elevation is built in Flemish brick bond. Two bays wide, it features a two-storey canted bay window to the right, surmounted at second-floor level by a rectangular gabled bay that is cantilevered on large timber brackets with carved timber corbels to either side. The gable is filled with diagonal half-timber panelling, and a plain wide painted timber fascia board sits above the window head, which contains a pair of 1-over-1 sliding sash windows. A terracotta finial marks the apex of the gable. All openings on the front elevation are square-headed. The entrance doorway features a moulded cornice supported on console brackets, set on moulded pilasters to either side of a four-panel fielded timber door with a stained glass fanlight above. All windows to the front are 1-over-1 timber sliding sash windows. A painted rendered band runs across the ground and first-floor window heads, and the sill course to the first and second-floor windows is painted in a contrasting colour.

The east and west sides are abutted by the adjoining properties, Nos. 2 and 6 Clarence Avenue. The north elevation is three storeys in height, with the rear return rising to four storeys, finished in painted render, and with a double door opening onto the rear yard. The rear return of No. 4 is notably higher than those of the other houses in the terrace. It has asymmetrical openings, a chimney to the west face, and an irregular fenestration pattern incorporating both 1-over-1 sliding sash and casement windows. The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta clay ridge tiles to both the main roof and the rear return. A large red-brick chimney stack with a dog-toothed corbel rises from the east side, centred on the ridge and fitted with clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and circular downpipes are retained to the front elevation.

No. 4 forms part of a contiguous terrace of eleven similar houses stepping down the hill northward towards the river, collectively comprising Nos. 2 and 6–22 Clarence Avenue. Each house in the row retains its ornate doorcase and canted bay window, with alternating diagonal and straight half-timbered gables to cantilevered square bays above. The terrace was built in tandem with the development of the Magee College campus; from the 1880s onwards, new redbrick dwellings on Clarence Avenue and at nearby College Terrace were erected to provide accommodation for students and college employees. Clarence Avenue itself was originally laid out in 1897, according to Calley. The southern terrace of the street (Nos. 1–17) was constructed in 1899–1900, while the northern terrace comprising Nos. 2–22, including No. 4, was erected in 1900, as recorded in the Annual Revisions. The Irish Builder of 15 January 1900 attributes the design of the northern terrace to Buchanan, who was also responsible for a number of other domestic commissions in the city as well as several church works, including the repair of St Columb's Cathedral in 1911. The avenue was named in memory of Prince Albert Victor, the last Duke of Clarence and son of King Edward VII, following his untimely death in 1892 at the age of 28.

The wider northward expansion of Londonderry had begun in the mid-19th century with Georgian-style terraces on Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street. The Edenballymore area and Northland Road remained largely rural when the Victorian terrace of Crawford Square was constructed in the 1860s and 1870s. Sustained economic growth from the 1860s to the end of the 19th century drove further expansion, of which Clarence Avenue forms a part. The Conservation Guide for the Magee Conservation Area later described dwellings along Northland Road, Lawrence Hill, Springham Street and Clarence Avenue as representing some of the city's architecturally finest and grandest townhouses, noting that Clarence Avenue in particular is very unified architecturally and virtually intact. The Ulster Architectural Heritage Society guide described Buchanan's terrace as excellently modelled, and Calley characterised the row as a generously proportioned terrace whose second-floor oversized cantilevered box-like pedimented square bay windows rest on the bay window below and are supported by robust timber brackets.

No. 4 Clarence Avenue was initially valued at £27 when built in 1900, and was first owned by a Mr F. J. Simmons, whose family retained ownership until at least the 1970s. The first occupant, recorded in the 1901 census, was Samuel Lee, a local shirt manufacturer; the census building return described the house as a first-class dwelling with eleven rooms. By the 1930s the McClean family occupied the house and were still recorded as occupants at the close of the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72), by which time the valuation had risen to £40. The terrace was listed in 1979 and incorporated into the Magee Conservation Area in 2006.

Although the proportions of the front sash windows have been altered and the rear return is larger than those of the other houses in the terrace, the overall style and character of No. 4 are well preserved. Conservation work carried out in 2009 included the reslating of the roof, the restoration of the rainwater goods, and the installation of a new window screen and entrance door to the rear of the house.

The rear yard is enclosed by rubble schist stone walling, with a metal-sheeted gate within a square-headed opening and vertical boarded timber fencing above set on galvanised steel uprights. The yard backs onto a shared alley with the university campus beyond.