65 Claredon Street

65 Clarendon Street, Londonderry

A mid-terrace, three-storey-over-partial-basement former house, now used as offices, built around 1874 on the south side of Clarendon Street in the townland of Edenballymore. The architect is unknown. The building was constructed as a pair together with No. 63 next door, and the two share group value. Although built later than most of the street's housing, No. 65 reflects the rhythm and proportions of the earlier, more Georgian-style terraces towards the lower end of Clarendon Street. A number of features, however, mark it out as distinctly Victorian: the canted bay window, round-arched windows with stucco embellishment, deep mouldings, and decorative corbels. The original plan form has been retained, and historic fabric, style, and character are largely intact throughout the interior, though some alterations and replacement windows to the rear detract from the overall integrity of the building.

Exterior

The building is rectangular on plan with a projecting return to the rear. The roof is natural slate, with rooflights to both front and rear. Black clay ridge tiles cover the main roof, with red terracotta ridge tiles to the return. A large red brick chimney stack rises from the east side, centred on the ridge, with six clay pots. Cast iron guttering and circular downpipes serve the front elevation.

The principal elevation faces north and is set behind a low rendered plinth wall with a painted masonry coping; evidence of former railings, now removed, can be seen along this wall. The front façade is smoothly rendered and painted, with stucco detailing throughout.

The entrance doorway is formed by a round-arched opening with moulded embellishment supported by a pair of pilasters painted in a contrasting colour. These pilasters are topped with a projecting cornice detail supported on acanthus leaf ornament, with a stucco bunch of grapes at the head of the arch, which is formed in an arched stucco architrave. The doors themselves are paired half-leaf within the opening, with a plain fanlight above. The entrance sits two steps above pavement level. The basement is windowless and not evident on either the front or rear elevations.

A two-storey canted bay projects to the north-west of the façade, contrasting with the single windows above the main entrance. At ground floor level, windows to the bay and at first floor level are square-headed plain openings containing one-over-one timber sliding sash windows with horns. A projecting cornice divides the ground floor from the first floor, with a similar detail to the top of the canted bay.

At first floor level, the single square-headed window is further embellished with moulded architraves and a projecting hood mould cornice — now missing — supported on decorative console brackets.

The second floor is composed of three round-headed arched windows: one above the main entrance and a pair above the two-storey bay. These arched windows are embellished in a similar manner to the first floor window below, with a projecting string course at sill level. Stucco quoins are present to the north-west corner, mirroring the detailing on the adjacent No. 63.

Unlike the adjacent dwelling to the west, No. 65 has a projecting eaves cornice supported on dentils.

The south elevation is three storeys high with rear return, smoothly rendered but unpainted above ground floor level. The fenestration pattern is irregular and all windows on this elevation have been replaced with uPVC units. A window to the rear attic takes the form of a dormer flush with the rear wall. A door opening leads from the south elevation into the rear yard. The return is formed by a short lean-to section of three storeys abutted by a two-storey pitched roof section, both with natural slate roofs. All rainwater goods to the rear are uPVC.

Interior

The original plan form has been retained, and the historic fabric, style, and character of the interior are largely intact.

Setting

Nos. 63 and 65 form a pair of Victorian townhouses set within a terrace of ten properties lining the south side of Clarendon Street, between Princes Street and Francis Street, within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. To the east is No. 63 Clarendon Street and to the west is No. 67. The terrace steps down in a strong linear formation towards the River Foyle. The front of the property is set behind the low rendered wall described above, which encloses the basement level.

Historical Context

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period, with the first dwellings beginning to appear around 1853. The development of this area, along with Great James Street and Queen Street, was driven by a period of economic and population growth in Londonderry during the mid-19th century. As John Hume records, during the period 1825 to 1850 reconstruction within the city walls took place alongside the first development of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 shows the Clarendon Street area as rural hinterland, with the city's streets extending 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 such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College, with little domestic architecture. The one building in the area predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house built around 1815, which Calley describes as 'a pleasing composition which offers a gentle rebuke to some of the exuberance of later nearby buildings… one of its pleasant features is that it opens a gap in the long terraces.'

Robert Simpson, in his Annals of Derry published in 1847, recorded that all the district then covered by Great James's Street, William Street, Little James Street, and the surrounding lanes had originally comprised meadow ground without a house. The initial housing development in this area began in the late Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era, establishing an affluent neighbourhood that swiftly became home to the city's merchant and professional classes. The geometric street pattern followed by Clarendon Street, Great James Street, and Queen Street was characteristic of Georgian town planning and represented the most ambitious planning project in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619.

An 1847 plan of Londonderry depicted the proposed layout of Clarendon Street — at that point still known as Ponsonby Street, named after the Right Reverend Richard Ponsonby (1772–1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe — at least a decade before it was fully completed. By the 1850s the street had been renamed Clarendon Street in honour of George Villiers (1800–1870), the Fourth Earl of Clarendon and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. The second edition Ordnance Survey map confirms the renaming had occurred by at least 1853. Although the 1847 plan showed Clarendon Street extending from the quay up to Francis Street, only the lower section between Strand Road and Queen Street had been laid out by 1853. Development proceeded slowly through the 1850s; Griffith's Valuation of 1856 recorded only nine dwellings along the entire length of the street. In 1851 Skipton and Miller had advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street, and Patrick Street to let in perpetuity, followed by a further drive in 1856 when additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side of the street.

No. 65 Clarendon Street, along with the adjoining No. 63, was constructed in 1874, approximately a decade after most of the Georgian-style dwellings on the street had been completed. Although the street possesses a strong Georgian character overall, the incorporation of bay windows and decorative corbels into the façade of Nos. 63–65 indicates a tentative shift towards a more contemporary Victorian design, also seen on Bayview Terrace. The pair was constructed for Alexander McElwee, a local magistrate and timber merchant with business premises on the Strand Road, and No. 65 was originally valued at £30.

Throughout its history, Clarendon Street's occupants were drawn from the city's merchant and professional classes. In 1901 No. 65 was occupied by Thompson Buchanan Adams, a local accountant; that year's census described his dwelling as a first-class property consisting of ten rooms. Alexander McElwee continued to own the property until 1910 when a Mr. Simpson purchased it. By the cancellation of the Annual Revisions in 1931, the value had slightly decreased to £28. Ownership changed again by 1935, when a Mr. Leslie Christie was recorded as lessor in the First Revaluation, at which point the property was revalued at £42. By the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–1972), the value had decreased to £34.

In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets 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. 65 was subsequently listed in 1979. In 1993 the house underwent a renovation that included the replacement of its roof and the demolition and reconstruction of the chimney it shared with No. 67. Calley, writing in 2013, described Nos. 63–65 as 'rendered late-19th century terrace houses with canted bays running through ground and first floors, with paired bracketed heavy cornice and heavy mouldings.'

Few of the mid-Victorian townhouses along Clarendon Street remain in residential use; the majority were converted into offices for local dental, legal, and accountancy practices in the late 20th century. No. 65 had been converted to office premises by at least 2000, at which time the inappropriate uPVC glazing to the rear of the building was installed.