8 De Burgh Terrace, Academy Road, Londonderry

No. 8 De Burgh Terrace is a late-Victorian mid-terraced townhouse built around 1889, situated on the north side of De Burgh Terrace within an elevated row of seventeen similar houses. The principal elevation faces south onto long, sloping raised front gardens. Together with the adjoining listed buildings in De Burgh Terrace, it has group value and is among the most important buildings within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

The house is two-bay and two-storey with a dormer attic, built in red brick in a Georgian style. It is rectangular in plan with a projecting rear return. The roof is a pitched slate roof with a wall-head dormer to the front, clay ridge tiles, and a large brick chimney stack rising from the east side, centred on the ridge and fitted with six clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and a circular downpipe run across the front elevation. Bracketed eaves finish the main roof, and the dormer features a decorative bargeboard.

The principal south elevation is built in Flemish bond red brick on a painted rendered plinth. At ground floor level there is a canted bay with square-headed painted 2/2 sliding sash windows with horizontally divided panes and ogee horns. The entrance doorway has a segmental arched opening with a moulded cornice supported by scrolled console brackets with acanthus leaf detail on pilasters, a varnished four-panel timber door, and a plain fanlight above with modern stained glass infill. At first floor level the windows are segmental-headed painted 2/2 sliding sash, with coupled windows above the bay and a single light above the doorcase. A continuous projecting sill course runs across this floor. The second floor dormer above the bay contains a pair of round-headed painted 1/1 sliding sash windows. The east and west sides abut the adjoining properties, No. 7 and No. 9 De Burgh Terrace respectively.

The north elevation is rendered and painted, with a two-storey rear return. Windows here are 2/2 timber sliding sash where visible. A large square attic dormer with modern timber casement windows is present to the rear, and this represents the principal alteration that detracts from the building's character. The boundary wall to the south is red brick rendered with a concrete coping and timber gate. To the north, the boundary wall is concrete blockwork with a sheeted timber door, surmounted by corrugated metal cladding that folds over to form the roof of a single-storey outhouse abutting its inner face across the full width of the yard. Access to the rear yard is from a shared lane running the length of the terrace. Despite the modern rear dormer, the exterior has largely retained its character, style, and proportion, making it a fine example of its period.

The history of De Burgh Terrace reflects the northward expansion of Londonderry during the 19th century. Following the establishment of Georgian-style terraces along Great James Street, Queen Street, and Clarendon Street during the 1830s to 1860s, the city continued to grow northward to house its professional and merchant classes who were leaving the Walled City. This expansion was constrained by the walls of the Lunatic Asylum, which directed new development to the north-west onto picturesque hill sites overlooking the River Foyle. Crawford Square was laid out in the 1860s to 1870s, and De Burgh Terrace followed as part of this same pattern. As architectural historian Calley has noted, this kind of terrace development around central gardens or squares can be understood as Londonderry's delayed response to Dublin's garden squares, creating a green oasis near the city centre for its wealthier residents.

A town plan from the valuation survey of around 1873 shows that De Burgh Terrace had been laid out by the 1870s but was as yet unnamed and had no buildings on it. The terrace was developed by Ulick James Daly, a civil servant and gentleman who lived at Eccles Street in Dublin. Daly originally submitted plans for eighteen houses in 1888, though only seventeen were ever built. Construction took place in stages between 1889 and 1894, with Nos. 1 to 8 being the first to be completed, each individually valued at £14 in the Annual Revisions. The majority of the completed houses were leased by the Daly family.

The first recorded occupant of No. 8 was Robert McVicker, a local magistrate. By 1901 the house had passed to Bernard H. Knight, a local tailor, and the 1911 Census Building Return classified the property as a first-class dwelling. By the 1930s ownership had passed to R. J. Edwards, a local house and land agent, as recorded in the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland. By the time of the Second General Revaluation, the rateable value of the building stood at £34.

Nos. 1 to 17 De Burgh Terrace were listed in 1979. The terrace was not included in the original Clarendon Street Conservation Area designation of 1978, but in 2006 the area was extended primarily to incorporate it, designating it an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. Calley, writing in 2013, described De Burgh Terrace as "quite simply delightful," noting in particular the long sloping raised front gardens, which are generally well maintained and contain some fine trees.