51 Clarendon St., Londonderry

51 Clarendon Street, Londonderry

This end-of-terrace, two-bay, three-storey-with-attic red brick townhouse was built in 1862 in the Georgian style, forming part of a mid-Victorian terrace that lines the south side of Clarendon Street. It was constructed as one of a group (Nos. 29–49 Clarendon Street) and shares group value with the wider run of Nos. 5–49 and 55–73, which were built over a twenty-one-year period. No. 51 is a fine example that retains much of its external historic character and forms an integral part of the terrace as a whole. The property sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, and its well-preserved setting adds to its interest. It is currently in use as office space.

Architectural Description

The building is rectangular on plan, with a large projecting modern rear return. The principal elevation faces north onto Clarendon Street and is set behind a low cement-rendered wall with concrete coping and painted wrought-iron railings above. The roof is a pitched slated construction with a single dormer to both the front and rear, black clay ridge tiles to the main roof, rear return, and both dormers, and cast-iron guttering with a circular downpipe to the front.

The principal (north) elevation is laid in Flemish brick bond on a painted rendered plinth base. Window openings are square-headed, set within painted concrete reveals with painted sills, and all are glazed with 6/6 timber sliding sash windows — two windows at each of the ground, first, and second floor levels. The entrance doorway has an elliptical arched opening with a moulded cornice supported by scrolled corbel brackets on moulded pilasters either side of a painted double-panelled timber door, with a plain fanlight above. The dormer window is fitted with a coupled 1/1 timber sliding sash. A timber gate to the right-hand (west) side of the front elevation closes off access to the side and rear of the property.

The east side abuts the adjoining No. 49 Clarendon Street. The west elevation is blank, cement rendered, with a projecting chimney stack. The south elevation presents three storeys of cement-rendered unpainted finish, with a two-storey unpainted cement-rendered rear return built at half-landing height. This is abutted by a large two-storey modern extension spanning the full width of both Nos. 49 and 51 at the rear, with four modern Velux roof lights to each side of a slated pitched roof. The fenestration to the rear is irregular: a single 6/6 sliding sash window to the ground, first, and second floors; a 6/3 sliding sash at attic level; and a coupled 1/1 sliding sash to the dormer window.

There are two substantial chimney stacks: a large red brick stack rising from the east side, and a large cement-rendered stack rising from the west gable, centred on the ridge, each carrying seven circular clay pots.

Historical Context

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period, with construction of the first dwellings beginning around 1853. The development of this and neighbouring streets — Great James Street and Queen Street — was driven by a period of significant growth in the economy and population of Londonderry during the mid-19th century. As John Hume records, between 1825 and 1850 the reconstruction of buildings within the city walls took place alongside the development, for the first time, 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 few significant structures. At that date, the city's streets extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street, and the only major construction north of the walls had been isolated institutions such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College, with little or no domestic architecture in the vicinity.

The only building in the area predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house constructed 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 (1847), recorded that all the district then covered by Great James's Street, William Street, Little James Street, and the numerous lanes in that vicinity had originally comprised meadow ground without a house.

The geometric street pattern of Clarendon Street, Great James Street, and Queen Street was characteristic of Georgian town planning and represented the most ambitious project of urban development in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619. A plan of Londonderry dated 1847 — drawn at least a decade before the street was fully completed — recorded that Clarendon Street was originally known as Ponsonby Street, named after the Right Reverend Richard Ponsonby (1772–1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. By the 1850s it had been renamed Clarendon Street, in honour of George Villiers (1800–1870), the Fourth Earl of Clarendon, who served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. The second edition Ordnance Survey map confirms the new name had been adopted by at least 1853.

Although the 1847 plan showed Clarendon Street extending from the quay up to Francis Street, only the lower section between the 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; that same year, additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side of Clarendon Street.

Nos. 29–51 Clarendon Street, including No. 51, were constructed in 1862 as part of the second phase of the street's development. No. 51 was built for James Corscaden, a grain merchant with business premises on Shipquay Place, and was originally valued at £28. Corscaden continued to own Nos. 45–51 until 1913, when Dr. David J. Browne, chief medical officer at Londonderry's workhouse, purchased the row. In 1901, No. 51 was occupied by David Boal, a merchant and grocer with business premises on the Strand Road and Bishop Street; the census building return of that year described his house as a first-class dwelling consisting of ten rooms. Throughout its history the occupants of Clarendon Street were drawn from the city's merchant and professional classes, and the uniform rows of three-storey townhouses swiftly became the residence of that affluent community.

Alterations and Change of Use

The first general revaluation of 1935 recorded that No. 51 had increased in value to £37. By the time of the second general revaluation (1956–72), Nos. 49 and 51 had been combined into a single property used by the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority as a nurses' home and training school. In 1964 the former nurses' home was converted into a boarding house, valued at £108 by the close of the second revaluation.

Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets were designated a Conservation Area in 1978 by the Department of the Environment, being an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. No. 51 was subsequently listed in 1979.

Between 1984 and 1985, Nos. 49–51 underwent extensive renovation work, including the reconstruction of one chimney stack, the re-slating of the roofs in natural slate, and the overhaul of the sliding sash glazing. Between 2002 and 2004 the properties were converted from residential use to office premises; the conversion included the installation of the railings and repointing of the brickwork to the front façade, and the two-storey extension to the rear was constructed at this time. Calley, writing in 2013, described Nos. 41–51 as three-and-a-half-storey, two-bay terrace houses which, unlike those on the opposite side of the street, have an extra window bay on the ground floor, roof dormers facing the street, and doorway entablatures supported by scrolled brackets rather than Doric columns.

Few of the mid-Victorian townhouses along Clarendon Street are now occupied as residential dwellings; the majority were converted into offices for local dentists, solicitors, and accountancy firms in the late 20th century. At the time of the most recent survey, No. 51 was in use as office space for a local architect's firm and was no longer connected to the adjoining No. 49.