1A Academy Road, Londonderry, County Londonderry, BT48 7HP

Victorian corner villa, built between 1866 and 1869, possibly designed by John Guy Ferguson, one of Londonderry's most prominent Victorian architects. The building stands at the junction of Academy Road and Northland Road, to the south of Crawford Square, within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

The house is a six-bay, two-storey rendered dwelling, rectangular on plan, with a cruciform pitched roof. The principal elevation faces south onto Academy Road. Despite the detraction of fibre cement roof slates and uPVC rainwater goods, the main façade remains well proportioned and, although plain, adopts the symmetry and order of Classicism. The central gable at eaves level reads as a pediment, while the early 20th century single-storey flat-roofed entrance porch with large vertical openings and a projecting cornice reads as a portico. The entrance door is positioned to the east side with a painted plaster moulded architrave. The principal elevation is finished in smooth ruled and lined painted render, with square-headed window openings on painted masonry sills, though at the time of recording all windows were concealed behind plywood sheeting. The roof carries terracotta ridge tiles, and a smooth rendered chimney stack centred on the ridge carries five tall clay pots, with the middle pot capped. Replacement uPVC ogee guttering, square-section downpipes, fascia and soffit are present throughout.

The rear elevation to the north is smooth painted render with no fenestration. A two-storey return projects to the west, with a single-storey lean-to return to the east. These returns interlock in section with the rear returns of Nos. 1 and 2 Crawford Square, with the roof continuing in a cruciform arrangement covered in sheet membrane. The east elevation is smooth painted block-lined render, with a single-storey lean-to extension accessed by six steps up from garden level, also roofed in fibre cement slates and set behind the rendered boundary wall. The west elevation abuts the outbuilding of No. 3 Crawford Square.

A small triangular garden lies to the east, bounded by a smooth rendered painted boundary wall with concrete capping and a modern galvanised metal pedestrian gate accessed from Northland Road. The building sits on a steeply inclined hill, forming an end-of-terrace to the rows of slated outbuildings belonging to the terraces of Crawford Square, with mature trees adding to the setting. It has group value with Nos. 1 and 2 Crawford Square, and all three properties interlock at the rear and share a yard.

The street on which the house stands had been laid out by at least the late 18th century, when it was known as Haw's Lane. It took its present name following the establishment of the Londonderry Academical Institution in 1870–71, a building subsequently demolished in the 1970s. Crawford Square itself was originally laid out in 1861 by the civil engineer and architect Fitzgibbon Louch (1826–1911), and was named after Samuel Law Crawford, a local solicitor who owned the land. The square was part of the city's northward expansion during the mid-Victorian period, developing alongside earlier Georgian-style terraces along Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street from the 1830s to 1860s, with new dwellings designed for Londonderry's professional classes. At the time the first tenders for Crawford Square were invited in the 1860s, the Northland Road was still described as a country road leading from the city towards Donegal. Crawford Square, along with Templemore and Victoria Parks, has been characterised as the city's delayed response to Dublin's garden squares, providing a green oasis for wealthy residents near the city centre.

Nos. 1 and 2 Crawford Square were the first houses in the square to be built, erected in 1865 for Samuel Knox, a building contractor. No. 1A Academy Road was constructed shortly afterwards between 1866 and 1869, originally leased from the Crawford estate and also occupied by Samuel Knox, who was assessed at a rateable value of £12. The architect is not known with certainty, but it is considered possible that the building was designed by John Guy Ferguson (d. 1901), architect to the Church of Ireland diocese of Derry and Raphoe and responsible for many of the city's most important civic, ecclesiastical and commercial buildings. Ferguson had designed Nos. 1 and 2 Crawford Square — amongst the earliest houses known to have been designed by him — and may also have designed Nos. 20–23 Crawford Square. The Knox family continued to occupy No. 1A Academy Road for many decades. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by a Mr. Samuel Downes Knox with a rateable value of £24, rising to £30 by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72), when a Ms. Vera Knox was resident.

No. 1A Academy Road and Crawford Square were included in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area in 1978, defined as an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. The building was subsequently listed in 1979 along with Crawford Square. It was refurbished around 1998. In September 2013 the building was badly damaged by fire, with the Londonderry Sentinel reporting that substantial portions of the roof structure were lost and the building left open to the elements.