1-2 Clarendon Terrace, Londonderry, County Londonderry, BT48 7ES

1-2 Clarendon Terrace, Clarendon Street, Londonderry

This is a pair of late-Victorian semi-detached houses, three storeys with attic over basement, built around 1881–82 at the lower end of Clarendon Street. They were constructed approximately two decades after the Georgian-style townhouses that line both sides of the street, and were originally built for the city's merchant and professional classes. Since a renovation in the mid-1980s, the two former dwellings have been knocked through internally to form a single property, now used as offices. The listing covers both houses and the railings to the front.

Architecture and Exterior

The buildings are rectangular on plan, with a large projecting modern two-storey rear extension that detracts from their historic character. The principal elevation faces south onto Clarendon Street. The front is set in Flemish brick bond with stone dressings to the upper floors and rock-faced sandstone with cut stone dressings at ground floor level. The symmetrical south elevation is set back behind a low painted rendered wall topped with decorative painted cast-iron railings.

The roof is mansard-style, with straight and scalloped red clay tiles to the lower section and slate to the upper pitched section. Dormers have scalloped red clay tiles to the cheeks and a slate top finish. Terracotta clay ridge tiles run along the main roof, with black clay ridge tiles to the slated half-hipped roof of the rear extension. There are large cement rendered chimney stacks with projecting cornices rising from the east and west sides, centred on the ridge, each carrying ten octagon-shaped clay pots. Rainwater goods to the front are painted cast iron with square section downpipes; uPVC is used to the rear.

A canted bay on each house rises through two storeys from ground floor level, topped by a scalloped red clay tiled hipped roof. The bay windows feature mullioned windows with polished red granite columns and foliage sandstone capitals. All ground floor window openings and the bay window openings to the first floor are shoulder-headed, fitted with 1/1 timber sliding sashes. The entrance door openings are also shoulder-headed, centred on the elevation, reached by three steps up, and flanked by polished red granite columns either side of a pair of three-panelled painted timber half-leaf doors extending to the full height of the opening. A sandstone sill course runs beneath the upper floor windows, with an unpainted belt course at the window heads on the first floor. A deep projecting cornice at eaves level is supported by sandstone corbel brackets grouped in threes, decorated with acanthus leaf detail painted in a contrasting colour.

The east and west elevations are blank, finished in unpainted cement render. The east elevation abuts the Former Reformed Presbyterian Church at ground floor level. The north elevation to the rear is also unpainted cement rendered, with a cat-slide roof to a projecting return. The fenestration to the rear is irregular, with 6/6 and 1/1 timber sliding sashes and casement windows. The large modern rear extension is in red brick with a half-hipped roof and casement windows.

Interior

Although the historic plan form has been lost following the amalgamation of the two properties into one, much historic internal detailing survives.

Historical Background

Clarendon Street and the surrounding area were originally rural hinterland, as recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1830 for the townland of Edenballymore. At that time, the city's street development extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street and William Street. The only significant buildings north of the walls in the early 19th century were isolated structures such as 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, 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."

As Robert Simpson recorded in The Annals of Derry (1847), the district that would become Great James Street, William Street and the surrounding lanes originally comprised meadow ground without a house. Housing development in this area began in the late-Georgian period and continued through the Victorian era. The construction of uniform rows of three-storey townhouses established a new affluent quarter that quickly became the preferred residence of the city's merchant and professional classes. The geometric street layout of Clarendon Street, Great James Street and Queen Street was characteristic of Georgian urban planning, and represented the most ambitious town 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 least a decade before it was completed and recorded it under its original name, 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 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 street had been renamed 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 progressed slowly through the 1850s. In 1851, Skipton and Miller advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street and Patrick Street to be let in perpetuity. Griffith's Valuation of 1856 recorded only nine dwellings along the entire length of the street, and in the same year additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side of Clarendon Street.

Nos 1 and 2 Clarendon Terrace were built in 1881–82, approximately two decades after the majority of the Georgian-style dwellings on the street had been completed, and were originally constructed for Joseph Ballantine, a timber merchant and owner of a local saw mill on the Strand Road. Each property was valued at £40 upon completion in 1882. The first occupant of No. 2 was William Mitchell, an insurance agent with offices on Foyle Street. By 1901 the house was the residence of Dr Michael O'Kane, a local magistrate and general practitioner. The 1901 census building return described his home as a first-class dwelling with 13 rooms, possessing a coach house and coal house to the rear — both now demolished. Upon Joseph Ballantine's death around 1910, his widow Annie Wilhelmina Ballantine took ownership of No. 2 until her own death in 1927. The Ballantine family continued to own Nos 1–2 Clarendon Terrace until at least the 1970s.

By the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935, No. 2 had been increased in value to £42. Between 1935 and 1956 the former private dwelling was converted into a number of self-contained apartments. By the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72) the value stood at £98. In 1970 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society guide for Londonderry described the pair as "a pair of semi-detached houses, three-storey houses built before 1900." In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets a Conservation Area, being an area of special architectural or historic interest the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. The two houses were subsequently listed in 1979.

In the 1980s the walls between Nos 1 and 2 were knocked through to form a single connected building for use as office premises. A renovation carried out in 1991 involved the reconstruction of the chimneys, the re-tiling of the mansard roof, the replacement of rainwater goods and the repointing of the exterior brickwork. Writing in 2013, Calley described the pair as "a pair of three-and-a-half-storey late-19th century houses treated as a single composition. They have a red tiled mansard style roof with a hint of a barn. Upper floors are red brick whilst ground floor is rock-faced sandstone with cut stone dressings."

At the time of the most recent survey, both Nos 1 and 2 were occupied as offices by a local solicitor's firm, reflecting a wider pattern on Clarendon Street where the majority of the Victorian townhouses have been converted into offices for dentists, solicitors and accountancy firms.

Setting

The buildings stand on the north side of Clarendon Street, with their principal entrance facing south onto the street. They abut the Former Reformed Presbyterian Church on the east side at ground floor level. Clarendon Street lies on the western side of Queen's Quay and runs between Strand Road and Northland Road. Despite the loss of the historic internal plan form and the detraction caused by the large modern rear extension, the authenticity and historic importance of Nos 1 and 2 continue to enhance the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.