20 Florence Terrace, Northland Road, Londonderry

20 Florence Terrace is a three-storey, two-bay, rendered Italianate-style end-of-terrace townhouse built in 1874–75, situated on the north-west side of Northland Road to the west of the River Foyle in Londonderry, in the townland of Edenballymore. The architect is not known. It forms part of a terrace of six similar houses (Nos 10–20 Florence Terrace), with Nos 12–20 constructed in 1874–75 and the adjoining No. 10 added in 1890. The building was included in the Magee Conservation Area in 2006 and was listed in 1979.

The plan is rectangular, facing south-east, with a three-storey rear return built at half-landing height. The roof is a pitched natural slate construction, continuous with the adjoining No. 18 Florence Terrace, finished with black clay ridge tiles. There is a small dormer to the front elevation, centred on the roofline, a single rooflight to the left side and two to the right. A large two-stage brick chimney stack with five buff clay pots rises from the north-east gable-end elevation. The eaves have timber fascia boards and moulded soffits with paired block modillions. Half-round cast iron guttering and a circular downpipe serve the front elevation.

The front (south-east) elevation is the principal face of the building. To the right of the entrance door is a single-storey, three-sided canted bay window on a raised plinth, with segmental arched-headed windows set on a sill course, above which is a deep moulded cornice and a parapet painted in a contrasting colour. All windows are 1-over-1 double-hung timber sliding sashes with moulded horns. Upper-floor windows have moulded architraves with stop blocks on the sills; first-floor windows have keystones. The entrance door is set in a recessed segmental arched-headed opening reached by five steps. The doorway is flanked by decorative corbel brackets on plain pilasters supporting a deep moulded cornice with a plain fanlight above. The door itself is a replacement raised-and-fielded four-panel timber door. A low rendered and painted wall runs to either side of the steps.

The south-west elevation is party wall, adjoined to No. 18 Florence Terrace. The north-east gable-end elevation is rendered and painted, with a segmental arched-headed 1-over-1 timber sliding sash window to the left side at both first- and second-floor levels, and is topped by the large two-stage brick chimney stack described above.

The rear elevation is of rendered and painted finish. It has uPVC casement windows and a large slated pitched-roof dormer to the main roof. The three-storey rear return, built at half-landing height, is of roughcast painted finish. Its north-west elevation has square-headed uPVC casement windows at all levels. The north-east elevation of the return has a timber panelled door at each level opening onto a spiral metal fire stair which abuts the north-east elevation at ground, first and second-floor landing levels. uPVC rainwater goods serve both the rear elevation and the rear return.

The building sits on the north-west side of Northland Road with a tarmac parking area to the front enclosed by a low rendered and painted boundary wall. The front elevation looks south-east over the grounds of Magee University and beyond to the River Foyle.

No. 20 Florence Terrace carries group value with the rest of the Florence Terrace row (Nos 12–20, and the later No. 10), and its presence enhances the Magee Conservation Area.

Historically, Nos 12–20 Florence Terrace were leased by James Caldwell, a local tea merchant whose business, J. Caldwell & Co., operated from premises on the Strand Road. The terrace was first recorded on the Annual Revisions Town Plan of Londonderry (circa 1873–1910), which shows the row in its current layout, including the rear returns, suggesting few structural changes have been made since construction. The Annual Revisions record that No. 20 was built between 1874 and 1875 and was originally valued at £33. Its first recorded occupant was Archibald McCorkell, a local magistrate and secretary of the Belfast Banking Co. on Shipquay Street. By 1901 the house was occupied by Robert S. Smyth, a retired Postmaster; the 1901 census described it as a first-class dwelling of eleven rooms with a coal house as its sole outbuilding. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) recorded that the terrace was by then owned by the McFarland family of Aberfoyle House and that No. 20's valuation had risen to £32. In 1947 a Mrs Mary E. Porter occupied the house and continued to do so until at least the 1970s, by which time the Second Revaluation (1956–72) had further raised the value to £34. By at least 2012 the building had been converted into self-contained apartments, and it is now used as student accommodation.

The broader context of the terrace lies in the northward expansion of Londonderry from the mid-19th century onwards. The area around Northland Road and Edenballymore remained rural in character when the Victorian terraces of Crawford Square were built in the 1860s–1870s. Economic growth and prosperity from the 1860s through the end of the 19th century, along with the opening of Magee College in 1865, prompted the construction of several new terraced streets in the vicinity, including College Terrace, Clarence Avenue and Florence Terrace itself. The adjoining No. 10 Florence Terrace, built in 1890, was designed by William Barker (1851–1898), a local architect and civil engineer also responsible for one of the red-brick professor's residences on the opposite side of Northland Road, the Bethany Hall on Park Avenue, and the standard design of Aberfoyle Terrace on the Strand Road. It is considered unlikely that Barker was also responsible for Nos 12–20, which were constructed before he had established his independent practice in the city.