4 Bayview Terrace, Asylum Road, Londonderry

4 Bayview Terrace is a mid-Victorian mid-terraced house built in 1870, forming part of a cohesive row of seven similar properties — Nos 1–7 Bayview Terrace — lining the south side of Asylum Road on the western bank of the River Foyle, within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area in Londonderry. The architect is unknown. Although the exterior has suffered inappropriate alterations, most notably replacement windows, the front facade retains sufficient original character to be considered architecturally significant, particularly the bay window with its fretwork frieze entablature. The house shares group value with the rest of the terrace.

Architectural Description

The house is of rectangular plan, facing north, and rises three storeys to an attic. The external walls are rendered, with banded rustication to the ground floor of the front elevation. There is a three-storey rendered return to the rear, adjoined by a separate three-storey outbuilding accessed from the rear of the site.

The roof is pitched and covered in replacement natural slate, with two small dormers — one to the front and one to the rear. A two-stage rendered and brick chimney stack with clay pots rises from the east side, centred on the ridge. The eaves have a timber fascia and a slightly overhanging timber soffit. Rainwater is handled by moulded uPVC guttering discharging to a circular cast-iron downpipe positioned to the left of the north elevation.

The front (north) elevation is the most architecturally expressive. To the right of the entrance, a two-storey three-sided canted bay window rises from ground to first floor level. The lower window has a plain frieze with an entablature, while the upper level features a blind fretwork frieze with dentilled moulding to the parapet above. A continuous sill course runs across the first floor windows. All window openings are square-headed with moulded architrave surrounds, and are currently fitted with uPVC casement windows.

The entrance doorcase is recessed within an elliptical arch, approached by four steps, and flanked by rendered square pilasters with an entablature above. The door itself is a pair of recessed timber panel half-doors, framed by moulded square pilasters of the Doric order with a moulded entablature above, and a plain fanlight over. A small pitched-roof dormer sits centrally on the main front roof slope, with slated cheeks and a semicircular uPVC casement window set within uPVC horizontal cladding.

The rear (south) elevation is of red brick. At third floor level there is a square-headed window opening directly above the three-storey pitched-roof return. To the left, a wall dormer sits at attic level. The remainder of the rear elevation is largely obscured by an external fire escape stair clad in corrugated plastic. The three-storey return has a pitched artificial slate roof with black ridge tiles and uPVC rainwater goods; its east elevation is abutted by the outbuilding of the adjoining property, No. 5 Bayview Terrace.

At the rear of the site stands a refurbished three-storey rendered unpainted outbuilding, which forms part of the stepped row of outbuildings associated with the Bayview Terrace houses. Its south elevation has square-headed window openings with uPVC casement windows at all floor levels. Its west elevation adjoins the outbuilding of No. 3 Bayview Terrace. The outbuilding has a slated pitched roof with uPVC and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The west side of the main house is abutted by No. 3 Bayview Terrace and the east side by No. 5 Bayview Terrace.

Materials: Natural slate to main roof; artificial slate to rear return; cast-iron and uPVC rainwater goods; painted render to the north elevation; red brick to the south elevation; uPVC casement windows throughout.

Setting

The house sits on the south side of Asylum Road, set behind a concrete wall with steel railings above. The main entrance is approached by a short flight of concrete steps. The property faces north as part of a uniform terrace of seven houses of similar type and style, all situated within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

Historical Background

Bayview Terrace was laid out in 1870 and first recorded in the Annual Revisions of that year, appearing on the Annual Revisions Plan of Londonderry of around 1873. Asylum Road itself predates the surrounding streets, running between the Strand and Northland Roads before 1830 — earlier than the streets of the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, which were laid out between around 1837 and the 1860s. The road formed the southern boundary of the Londonderry District Lunatic Asylum, built between 1825 and 1829. The asylum was demolished in the 1960s, though its perimeter wall of locally quarried Derry Schist still stands opposite Bayview Terrace, marking the original institutional boundary.

The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853 shows no buildings yet constructed along Asylum Road. Nos 1–13 Asylum Road, higher up the hill, were the first to be built, at around 1860, contemporaneously with the Georgian-style terraces along Queen Street and Clarendon Street. Bayview Terrace was constructed about a decade later and displays a more distinctly Victorian character than its Georgian-style neighbours. The terrace takes its name from its proximity to the River Foyle, which originally afforded views over Rosses Bay; land reclamation and construction on the eastern side of the Strand Road has since removed that prospect. Notable ornamental features across the terrace include Doric-columned door frames with entablatures, and bay windows with fretwork frieze decorations to the entablatures of Nos 1, 4 and 7.

The terrace was built on land owned by Harvey Nicholson, a local magistrate and Justice of the Peace. No. 4 was originally valued at £48, with Matthew McClelland — a local magistrate, builder and resident of No. 1 Bayview Terrace — recorded as landlord, a position he retained until the 1970s. The first recorded occupant of No. 4 was a Mr David Johnston. By around 1880 the house was occupied by George Walker, a grocer and seed merchant with premises on Magazine Street. The 1911 Census building return describes the majority of the terrace's houses as first-class dwellings of ten rooms, though No. 4 itself was recorded as vacant at that point; a Mr Archibald Halliday is noted as occupying the property in 1911.

Also in 1911, the building was converted from a private dwelling into a branch of Skerry's College. The college had been established in Edinburgh in 1878 by George Skerry, with the aim of preparing candidates for Civil Service examinations; its success led to branches being opened across the United Kingdom. Archibald Halliday served as the branch principal and also resided at the property.

Skerry's College closed in 1948, at which point the building was converted into clubrooms for the Derry Catholic Club; the rateable value was increased to £75 in that year. The club continued to occupy the building until around 1990, by which time the rateable value had risen to £184. In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Bayview Terrace and the surrounding streets as 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. 4 Bayview Terrace was subsequently listed in 1979.

By 1985 the building was still occupied by the Derry Catholic Club, but was recorded as vacant in 1996, after which it was converted into a number of self-contained apartments.