22 Clarendon Street, Londonderry, Co. Londonderry, BT48 7ET

22 Clarendon Street, Londonderry — Georgian-style Victorian Townhouse, Built 1863

This is a mid-terrace, two-bay, three-storey with attic, Georgian-style townhouse built in 1863, forming part of the continuous terrace of eleven similar houses that runs along the north side of Clarendon Street between Queen Street and Princes Street. It was built in the same year as Nos. 6–10 and 24–26 Clarendon Street, completing that terrace. The building sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, in the townland of Edenballymore, and is currently in use as office accommodation, having originally been built as a residential dwelling.

Architecture and Exterior

The building is rectangular on plan, with a projecting two-storey L-shaped block return to the rear that extends to the northern boundary of the site and encloses a small yard to the east. The principal elevation faces south onto Clarendon Street and sits behind a low rendered wall.

The roof is pitched natural slate with angled black clay ridge tiles. There are two roof lights to the south and a single dormer to the rear north. Each house in the terrace is stepped to follow the contour of the hill, and each has a red brick rectangular-section chimney to the east; No. 22 has buff clay pots and a red brick chimney to the east. Rainwater goods are cast iron, with semi-circular guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The principal south elevation has a painted smooth render finish — the building was originally brick but has since been rendered. The windows are square-headed: at ground floor right there are two 1/1 double-hung timber sliding sash windows, and at first and second floors there are two larger 6/6 timber sliding sash windows, all without window horns (the ground floor left sash window does have horns, which is noted as a later feature). To the left of the elevation is a three-centred arched entrance doorway, which is notably more ornate than those of the adjoining houses. It has a moulded dentilated cornice and quatrefoil foliate detailing, supported by columns of the Doric order either side of a four-panelled painted timber door with a radial fanlight above. The door has brass furniture.

The eastern side is abutted by No. 20 Clarendon Street and the western side by No. 24 Clarendon Street.

The rear north elevation is a three-storey painted smooth rendered facade visible from the yard. The two-storey projecting L-shaped return extends to the rear access route and has a pitched natural slate roof with angled black clay ridge tiles. The extension has a mixture of timber casement and uPVC windows. The dormer window has double-hung sliding sash windows; there is a 2/2 timber sash to the first floor and a double-hung timber sash to the ground floor. The two-storey extension, viewed from the rear access route, has two bays and a timber panelled door to the northeast.

Interior

The interior has been altered following conversion to office use, with consequent loss of historic fabric and detailing.

Setting

The property forms part of a row of eleven similar Georgian-style, early to mid-Victorian townhouses lining the north side of Clarendon Street. The front of the property is bounded by Clarendon Street, set behind a rendered wall enclosing a small gravel-surfaced area. There is an enclosed yard to the rear with a laneway beyond providing access to the rest of the terrace. The well-preserved setting adds to the interest of the building.

Historical Context

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period, with the first dwellings commencing around 1853. The area now occupied by the street had, as recently as 1830, been rural hinterland: the first edition Ordnance Survey map for the townland of Edenballymore recorded little of significance there, and the city's built development at that time extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. The only major construction north of the walls in the early 19th century had been isolated institutional buildings — the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College — with little domestic architecture. The only building in the area predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house built around 1815. Writing in 1847, Robert Simpson noted that the district covered by Great James Street, William Street, Little James Street and surrounding lanes had originally comprised meadow ground without a house.

Development of this part of the city was driven by a period of growth in the economy and population of Londonderry during the mid-19th century. John Hume records that between 1825 and 1850, reconstruction of buildings within the walls took place alongside the first development of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore. The laying out of Clarendon Street, Great James Street and Queen Street followed a geometric street pattern characteristic of Georgian street development, and the project represented the most ambitious town planning carried out in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city in 1613–19.

A contemporary 1847 plan of Londonderry depicted the final layout of Clarendon Street at least a decade before it was completed, and recorded that the street was originally known as Ponsonby Street, named after the Right Reverend Richard Ponsonby (1772–1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. By the 1850s the street had been renamed Clarendon Street in honour of the Fourth Earl of Clarendon, George Villiers (1800–1870), Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. The second edition Ordnance Survey map confirms the street had been renamed by at least 1853.

Although the 1847 plan showed Clarendon Street extending from the quay up to Francis Street, by 1853 only the lower section between the Strand Road and Queen Street had been laid out. Development proceeded slowly through the 1850s. Griffith's Valuation recorded only nine dwellings along the entire length of the street by 1856, when additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side. In 1851, Skipton and Miller had advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street and Patrick Street to be let in perpetuity.

No. 22 was one of the last buildings to be constructed along the north terrace and was built for a Mr. Lyons, originally valued at £28. This different lessor accounts for the building's notably more ornate doorcase compared to those of its neighbours. Writing in 2013, Calley described Nos. 6–48 Clarendon Street as a "delightfully long red brick terrace of the mid-19th century," noting that the buildings are nearly all the same — three-and-a-half storey, two-bay — with most ground floors "rather inelegantly squeezing in a doorway with two reduced scale window bays," and "depressed arched recessed timber-framed doorways [with] simple segmented fanlights and thin Doric columns supporting entablatures." No. 22's doorcase stands out as more ornate than these.

Throughout its history the occupants of Clarendon Street were drawn from the city's merchant and professional classes. In 1901 No. 22 was occupied by Andrew Lowry, a local grocer; the census described his house as a first-class dwelling with ten main rooms. The building remained in the ownership of the Lyons family until 1929, at which time it was occupied by a Ms. Gertrude McGinley. By the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935, the entire row of Nos. 6–26 Clarendon Street had been purchased outright by a Ms. Jennie Steen, who increased the rateable value of No. 22 to £42. Steen still owned the building by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), by which time the value had been reduced to £38.

In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets a Conservation Area, described as "an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance." No. 22 was subsequently listed in 1979. By the time of the most recent survey, the building had been divided into a number of self-contained office premises, a fate shared by the majority of the mid-Victorian townhouses along the street, most of which were converted to offices for local dental, legal and accountancy firms in the late 20th century.