45 Clarendon St., Londonderry

45 Clarendon Street, Londonderry

This is a mid-terrace, two-bay, three-storey with attic, red brick Georgian-style townhouse, built in 1862 as part of a terrace row that also included Nos. 29–43 and 47–51 Clarendon Street. It is a fine and typical example of the townhouses that line the south side of Clarendon Street, with detailing both inside and out that is consistent for its time and style, and with its original plan form mostly intact. It sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, and its well-preserved setting adds to its interest. The house forms an integral part of the terrace as a whole, and the terrace represents the mid-19th century development of the city of Derry, built during a period of growth in both the economy and population of the city.

Architectural Description

The house is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. The principal elevation faces north onto Clarendon Street and is set behind a low rendered boundary wall topped with a coping stone and painted decorative railings. The walls are built in Flemish brick bond on a painted rendered plinth base. The roof is a slated pitched roof with black clay ridge tiles and a single dormer to the front. A large brick chimney stack rises from the east side, centred on the ridge with seven clay pots; this has been rebuilt using modern red brick. Cast-iron guttering and circular downpipes are present to both front and rear.

The principal elevation has square-headed window openings throughout, with two windows at ground, first, and second floor levels, all of which are six-over-six timber sliding sash. The entrance doorway has an elliptical arched opening with a moulded cornice supported by scrolled corbel brackets with acanthus leaf detail on moulded pilasters, a painted timber door, and an Adam-style fanlight above.

The east and west sides abut the adjoining buildings at Nos. 43 and 47 Clarendon Street respectively. The south elevation is three-storey, cement rendered, with a two-storey rear return and a door opening onto the rear yard. The fenestration to the rear is irregular: six-over-six sliding sash windows to the ground, first, and second floors; a six-over-three timber sliding sash window to attic level; a six-over-six timber sliding sash window to the first floor of the rear return; a casement window to the second floor of the rear return; and a single small two-over-two timber sliding sash window to the east elevation of the rear return, positioned above the door. A single-storey cement rendered extension to the rear return has casement windows throughout and a natural slate pitched roof.

Interior

Despite the loss of some historic internal fabric — including fireplaces and original internal doors — much of the external historic detailing remains intact.

Historical Context

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period, with the construction of the first dwellings commencing around 1853. The wider development of Clarendon Street, Great James Street, and Queen Street was driven by significant growth in the economy and population of Londonderry during the mid-19th century. As the historian John Hume notes, during the period 1825–1850 "reconstruction of the city's buildings [within the walls] took place alongside the development, for the first time, of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore." The first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps of 1830 records that the Clarendon Street area, in the townland of Edenballymore, was originally rural hinterland with few significant structures. By 1830, the development of the city's streets had extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. In the early decades of the 19th century, the only major construction north of the city walls had been isolated institutional buildings such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College, with little or no domestic architecture erected in the same period. The only building in the area predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house constructed around 1815 which, as Calley notes, "opens a gap in the long terraces." Robert Simpson, writing in The Annals of Derry in 1847, recorded that "all the district now covered by Great James's Street, William Street, Little James Street … and the numerous lanes in that vicinity [originally comprised] meadow ground without a house."

The development of housing in this area began in the late Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era. With the construction of uniform rows of three-storey townhouses, a new and affluent neighbourhood was established that became the preferred residence of the city's merchant and professional classes. The laying out of Clarendon Street, Great James Street, and Queen Street followed a geometric street pattern characteristic of Georgian town planning, and represented the most ambitious planning project carried out in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city in the years 1613–19.

A contemporary plan of Londonderry dated 1847 — which depicted the proposed layout of Clarendon Street at least a decade before it was fully completed — recorded that the street was originally known as Ponsonby Street, named after the Right Reverend Richard Ponsonby (1772–1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. By the 1850s, the street had been renamed Clarendon Street in honour of George Villiers (1800–1870), the Fourth Earl of Clarendon and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. The second edition of the Ordnance Survey map confirms that Ponsonby Street had been renamed Clarendon Street by at least 1853. Although the 1847 plan depicted the street as 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 had 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; and in that same year, additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side of the street.

Nos. 29–51 Clarendon Street were constructed in 1862 as part of the second phase in the laying out of the street. No. 45, along with the adjoining Nos. 41–51, was constructed for James Corscaden, a grain merchant who held business premises on Shipquay Place, as recorded in the Ulster Town Directories. The house was originally valued at £28 in 1862. In 1901 the property was occupied by Robert Forsythe, a local grocer; the census building return of that year described it as a first-class dwelling consisting of ten rooms. Corscaden continued to own Nos. 45–51 Clarendon Street until 1913, when Dr. David J. Browne, the chief medical officer at Londonderry's workhouse, purchased the row. General Revaluation records show that Browne's widow, Margaret Browne, continued to own the four buildings until the 1970s, with the valuer setting the value of No. 45 at £35 in both 1935 and the period 1956–72.

In 1978, the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets a Conservation Area, defined as "an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance." No. 45 was subsequently listed in 1979.

In 2013, Calley described Nos. 41–51 as "three-and-a-half-storey, two-bay terrace houses [which] unlike those opposite have an extra window bay on the ground floor. The principal difference is that they have roof dormers facing the street and instead of doorway Doric columns the entablatures are supported by scrolled brackets."

Few of the mid-Victorian townhouses along Clarendon Street remain in residential use. The majority were converted into offices for local dentists, solicitors, and accountancy firms in the late 20th century, and at the time of the second survey No. 45 continued to be used as office premises.

Alterations

A renovation carried out between 1988 and 1991 involved the re-slating of the roof in natural slate, the repointing of the front elevation, the restoration of glazing with the insertion of Georgian window panes, and the installation of new railings based on the originals.