27 Clarendon St., Londonderry

27 Clarendon Street, Londonderry

An end-of-terrace, two-bay, three-storey Georgian-style red brick townhouse with attic over basement, built between approximately 1853 and 1856 as part of the early development of Clarendon Street. It was constructed at the same time as the adjoining No. 25 Clarendon Street, and together they form part of a continuous row of similar houses lining the south side of the street — a terrace that was built over a twenty-one year period and runs from Nos. 5 to 73 (excluding No. 53). The house, along with its railings and plinth wall, is listed in its entirety and sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area at the junction of Clarendon Street and Queen Street.

The building is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. It has a pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles, a single dormer to both the front and rear slopes, and a large brick chimney stack rising from the west side, centred on the ridge and fitted with ten clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and circular downpipes serve both the front and rear elevations.

The principal north-facing elevation is laid in Flemish brick bond. The basement level is rendered and terminates at a string course at ground floor level. The entrance is reached by five stone steps, with the bottom step projecting beyond the boundary wall onto the pavement. The doorway has a three-centred arch opening and a moulded cornice supported by columns of the Doric order to either side, enclosing a painted timber four-panelled door surmounted by a single-pane overlight. All window openings are square-headed with painted cement rendered reveals and painted sills. To the right of the door are two diminished windows at ground floor level; the first and second floors each have two windows, though the upper-floor openings are not aligned with those below. Two windows at basement level sit directly below the ground floor windows. A narrow pitched-roof dormer window sits to the right on the roof. All windows are replacement uPVC casements except where noted below.

The east elevation is abutted by No. 25 Clarendon Street. The west gable elevation is blank, with a cement rendered wall surmounted by the large red brick chimney stack.

The south (rear) elevation is brick with a cement rendered basement level and rises three storeys with attic over basement. A brick rear return — also with a cement rendered basement level and a pitched roof, shared with No. 25 — runs to the right, abutted by a modern single-storey extension, which is in turn abutted by a modern two-storey block of no architectural interest. In the left bay of the main rear block there is a door opening at basement level, with a single uPVC casement window at each of the ground, first, and second floor levels; the second-floor window is not aligned with those below. A uPVC-clad pitched-roof dormer with a single uPVC casement sits above. The right bay of the main block is abutted by the rear return; the exposed section retains a 3/3 timber sliding sash window — the only original window remaining in the building. The south gable of the rear return is abutted by the modern single-storey extension; the exposed section has a single uPVC casement window at first and second floor levels. The east face of the rear return is abutted by the rear return of No. 25. The west face has a uPVC door at basement level and a uPVC casement window at second floor left.

To the front, the property is set behind a low rendered wall surmounted by black painted metal railings. To the rear there is a small enclosed yard bounded by a stone wall along Queen Street and by the modern extensions to the east and south.

The conversion of the house to office use has resulted in some minor modernisation of the interior and the addition of the modern rear extension, as well as the insertion of inappropriate uPVC casement windows throughout. Despite these changes, much of the original internal detailing survives.

Historical background

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period as part of an ambitious expansion of the city beyond its historic walls. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 shows the Clarendon Street area as rural hinterland, with the city's developed streets extending no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. Writing in 1847, Robert Simpson recorded that the entire district now covered by Great James Street, William Street, and their surrounds had originally been open meadow ground without a house. John Hume noted that between 1825 and 1850 reconstruction within the walled city took place alongside the first significant development of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore — the townland in which Clarendon Street sits.

In the early 19th century the only major construction north of the walls had been isolated institutional buildings such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College, with little or no domestic architecture. The sole building in the area predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house of 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."

The street was originally known as Ponsonby Street, named after the Right Reverend Richard Ponsonby (1772–1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. It had been renamed Clarendon Street by at least 1853, in honour of George Villiers (1800–1870), the Fourth Earl of Clarendon, who served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. An 1847 plan of Londonderry depicted the proposed layout of the street — referred to there as Ponsonby Street — at least a decade before construction was complete, and showed it extending from the quay up to Francis Street. In practice, only the lower section between the Strand Road and Queen Street had been laid out by 1853. Griffith's Valuation recorded just nine dwellings along the entire length of the street by 1856, when further building ground on the northern side was being advertised for let.

The geometric street pattern of 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 in 1613–19. The development rapidly became the residence of the city's merchant and professional classes. In 1851, the building firm Skipton & Miller had advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street, and Patrick Street to be let in perpetuity.

Nos. 25 and 27 Clarendon Street were among the earliest houses built on the street, constructed in 1853–56 along with Nos. 12–20. They do not appear on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853 but are recorded in Griffith's Valuation of 1856, in which No. 27 was valued at £40 and noted as having been built for Forrest Reid, a local solicitor with business offices on Richmond Street. Forrest Reid retained ownership of No. 27 — and many of the adjoining properties — until his death in 1888, after which his holdings were administered by the executors of his will.

By 1901, the house was occupied by Dr. George McCaul, a local magistrate and surgeon. The census building return for that year described it as a first-class dwelling consisting of ten rooms, with a stable and coach house in a mews building to the rear. In 1931, Dr. Ronald W. Cunningham purchased No. 27 and occupied it as a private dwelling. The First Revaluation raised its assessed value to £45 in 1935. The house had been converted to use as a medical surgery by the 1950s but reverted to a private dwelling in 1961, at which point its valuation stood at £46.

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. 27 was subsequently listed in 1979.

In 1987 the building underwent an extensive renovation that included reslating the roof in Welsh slate, repointing the brickwork and chimney, and installing new cast-iron rainwater goods. The current one-and-a-half-storey stone building to the rear — which replaced the former stable and coach house — was constructed in 1990 to provide additional office space. The 2012 Design Guide for the Clarendon Street Conservation Area noted that the extension took advantage of a gap site and "could be considered as a traditional approach to design within the development reflecting the mass and character of the stable buildings traditionally located to the rear of such Georgian dwellings."

In 2013 Calley described Nos. 23–27 Clarendon Street as "terrace houses differing from their neighbours in that they have stone steps over basement wells leading to the doors, giving them the most elegant approaches of any houses on the street," adding that No. 27 "is like so many similar brick buildings in the city in that its side elevation is rendered."

Today the majority of the three-storey townhouses along Clarendon Street have been converted to office use — predominantly for solicitors, dentists, and accountancy firms — rather than remaining in residential occupation. No. 27 is currently used as offices for a local estate agency, while the former stable and coach house to the rear operates as a health and beauty salon.