57 Clarendon St., Londonderry

57 Clarendon Street, Londonderry

57 Clarendon Street is a mid-terrace, three-storey with attic, four-bay former townhouse, built in 1872 as part of a row of four terraced houses together with nos 55, 59 and 61 Clarendon Street. The architect is unknown. Originally constructed as a private residence, the building is currently in use as office premises. It sits on the south side of Clarendon Street, near the junction with Princes Street, within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, in the townland of Edenballymore.

The building is rectangular in plan, with its principal elevation facing north. It was built as one of two pairs within a row of ten similarly scaled townhouses lining the south side of the street. Although constructed slightly later than the majority of dwellings on Clarendon Street, no 57 reflects the rhythm and proportion of the earlier, more Georgian-style terraces lower down the street, while a number of specifically Victorian details — including round-arched windows, plasterwork, and paired corbelled eaves brackets — distinguish it from its neighbours.

Principal (North) Elevation

The ground floor of the principal elevation is finished in painted render, with Flemish bond brickwork above on the upper floors. At ground floor level, the doorway and windows are set within round-arched openings; the windows also feature bull-nosed sills and a moulded apron panel beneath each one, with a moulded shoulder course running between them. Each window has a hood mould and flying keystone. The entrance is reached by two steps up from the pavement and features a painted timber four-panelled door with a plain fanlight above. All windows throughout are timber sliding sash with 1-over-1 panes. First floor windows are square-headed, with a painted masonry sill course; second floor windows are segmental-arched. To the attic level, a flat-topped dormer with a casement window faces the street, with fixed glazing to both cheeks. At eaves level, the brickwork is painted, with cast-iron guttering supported on corbel brackets and a cast-iron downpipe to the front.

Rear and Side Elevations

The east and west sides abut nos 55 and 59 Clarendon Street respectively. The south (rear) elevation is three storeys, finished in unpainted render, with a three-storey projecting gabled bay to the left side and a two-storey rear return joined at half-landing level. Windows to the rear elevation and projecting bay are square-headed 1-over-1 timber sliding sashes; the rear return has top-hung casement windows and a door opening, all fitted with metal bars. Rainwater goods to the rear are uPVC.

Roof

The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate, with black clay ridge tiles. A large rectangular red-brick chimney stack rises one bay in from the east side, centred on the ridge and fitted with eight clay pots. There is a flat-roofed dormer and a skylight on the front (north) roof slope, and a pitched roof dormer on the rear (south) slope.

Interior

Despite ground floor alterations that have resulted in some loss of original plan form, and the replacement of attic doors, a substantial amount of historic fabric survives internally.

Setting and Group Value

The property is set behind a low painted rendered boundary wall with a concrete capping stone, enclosing a small hard-surfaced area. Together with the adjoining nos 55, 59 and 61, it forms an intact terrace of four mid-Victorian townhouses, all of similar scale, which share group value. This terrace sits within a wider sequence of similar rows of neat townhouses that step down in a strong linear formation towards the River Foyle. The intact character of the group makes a unique contribution to the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

Historical Background

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period, with the first dwellings commencing around 1853. The area now occupied by the street was originally rural hinterland, as recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1830 for the townland of Edenballymore, at which point the city's developed streets extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street and William Street. The only major construction north of the city walls in the early 19th century had been isolated institutional buildings such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College, with little domestic architecture in the same period. The sole surviving building in the area predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house built around 1815.

As noted by John Hume, the period between 1825 and 1850 saw reconstruction within the city walls alongside the first development of housing outside them, at Bogside and Edenballymore. Robert Simpson's Annals of Derry, published in 1847, recorded that the district now covered by Great James's Street, William Street, Little James Street and nearby lanes had originally comprised meadow ground without a house. The laying out of Clarendon Street, Great James Street and Queen Street followed a geometric street pattern characteristic of Georgian urban development, and was described as the most ambitious town planning project in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619.

The street appears on the O'Hagan plan of Londonderry of 1847 — at least a decade before it was completed — under the name Ponsonby Street, having been 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 and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. The second edition Ordnance Survey map confirms the renaming had taken place 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 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; in that year, additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side. The construction of uniform rows of three-storey townhouses quickly established the area as the preferred residence of the city's merchant and professional classes.

No 57, together with the adjoining nos 55 to 61, was constructed in 1872, almost a decade after the majority of the Georgian-style dwellings on the street had been completed. Nos 55 and 57 were built for Captain Samuel Hatrick, and in 1872 no 57 was valued at £27. Captain Hatrick — recorded in his will as a Master Mariner — was the first occupant, residing there until his death in 1879, after which his widow Jane Hatrick took possession. By 1901 the house was occupied by George W. Reeves, a local carriage builder; the census of that year described it as a first-class dwelling consisting of ten rooms. On Jane Hatrick's death in 1901, ownership of nos 55 to 57 passed to William Wallace, recorded in the 1911 census as a retired ironmonger. The property remained in the Wallace family's ownership until the 1970s.

The First Revaluation records that the house was increased in value to £31 in 1935. Between 1935 and 1956, the former dwelling was partially converted into a private medical surgery for Dr Desmond Sidebottom, and by the end of the Second Revaluation in 1972 the combined value of the house and surgery had risen further to £36.

In 1978, the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets a Conservation Area, described as an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. No 57 was subsequently listed in 1979.

The most recent significant works recorded were carried out in 2013, when the roof was reslated and new insulation installed. As noted by Calley in 2013, nos 55 to 61 Clarendon Street are treated as a single terrace but grouped in pairs to accommodate the change in street level, with ground floors rendered with round-headed bays linked by a shoulder course that creates an arcaded feel.

Few of the mid-Victorian townhouses on Clarendon Street remain in residential use today. The majority of the three-storey buildings on the street were converted into offices for dentists, solicitors and accountancy firms during the late 20th century. At the time of the most recent survey, no 57 was in use as office premises for a local solicitors firm.