13 Clarendon St., Londonderry

13 Clarendon Street, Londonderry

This is a mid-Victorian mid-terrace two-bay three-storey townhouse with attic, built in 1861 in the townland of Edenballymore. It forms part of a group with Nos. 5–11 and 15 Clarendon Street, all constructed during the same phase of development, and shares group value with the wider run of Nos. 5–73 Clarendon Street (excluding No. 53), which were built over a twenty-one year period and line the south side of the street. The building is rectangular on plan with an extended rear return.

Nos. 11, 13 and 15 are distinctive within the terrace in being rendered and treated as a single unified composition, set among predominantly brick-faced townhouses. The front elevation is painted render with deeply ruled rustication at ground floor level and smooth render to the upper floors. Stepped quoins at the two outer edges of the trio reinforce the sense of a single composition across the three properties. The principal elevation faces north, set behind a low painted rendered boundary wall enclosing a small hard-surfaced area, approached by three modern granite steps.

The roof is pitched natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A large chimney stack rises from each gable, both centred on the ridge with nine terracotta pots each: the east chimney is brick and the west chimney is rendered. There is a small cast-iron rooflight to the west side of the front roof slope. Cast-iron guttering on iron brackets runs to the front elevation, with cast-iron guttering, rainwater pipes, and a hopper to the rear.

All windows are square-headed one-over-one timber sliding sashes unless otherwise noted. The entrance doorway is formed by a three-centred arch opening with a recessed cornice supported by scrolled console brackets on pilasters either side, containing a painted timber four-panelled door with a plain fanlight above. To the left of the door is a single tripartite one-over-one, one-over-one, one-over-one timber sliding sash window surmounted by a hood mould supported by scrolled console brackets. The first and second floors each have two windows; those on the upper floors are not aligned with the ground floor openings. First floor windows have a continuous sill course and moulded surrounds.

The east and west elevations are abutted by the adjoining Nos. 11 and 15 Clarendon Street respectively. The south rear elevation is brick in garden wall bond, three storeys with attic. To the left is a painted smooth-rendered three-storey pitched-roof return built at half-landing height, reducing to a modern two-storey return, which is abutted by a modern two-storey block running parallel to the main building. The right bay of the rear elevation has a single one-over-one timber sliding sash window at ground, first, and second floor levels. The exposed section of the left bay has a single six-over-three timber sliding sash window. The exposed section of the south face of the three-storey rear return is blank, being abutted by a two-storey return. The east face of the return has a modern timber door with glazed upper panel at ground floor and a single one-over-one timber sliding sash window at first floor. The west face is blank. The modern two-storey return and two-storey block have one-over-one timber sliding sash windows, rendered walls, and pitched natural slate roofs. There is an enclosed yard to the rear of the site, and a two-storey pitched natural slate roof rendered mews building at the rear of the site.

The conversion to office use has resulted in some modernisation of the interior, but the building's original character and much of its detailing survive.

Historical background

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period, with the first dwellings commencing around 1853. Its development was part of a remarkable period of growth in the economy and population of Londonderry during the mid-19th century. As John Hume has noted, the years 1825–1850 saw reconstruction within the city walls alongside, for the first time, the development of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 for the townland of Edenballymore records the Clarendon Street area as originally rural hinterland; by that date 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 walls had been isolated buildings such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College, with little or no domestic architecture erected nearby. The only building in the area predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house constructed around 1815.

Writing in The Annals of Derry (1847), Robert Simpson recorded that all the district then covered by Great James's Street, William Street, Little James Street, and the numerous surrounding lanes had originally comprised meadow ground without a house. The initial development of housing in this area began in the late Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era. Uniform rows of orderly three-storey townhouses established a new affluent district that quickly became home to the city's merchant and professional classes. The geometric street pattern of Clarendon Street, Great James Street, and Queen Street was characteristic of Georgian town planning and represented the most ambitious such project in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city in 1613–19.

A contemporary plan of Londonderry dated 1847 depicted the proposed layout of Clarendon Street at least a decade before it was completed, and recorded that the street was originally known as Ponsonby Street, named after the Rt. Rev. Richard Ponsonby (1772–1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. By the 1850s the street had been renamed Clarendon Street in honour of the Fourth Earl of Clarendon, George Villiers (1800–1870), Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. The second edition Ordnance Survey map records that 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 throughout the 1850s; by 1856 Griffith's Valuation recorded only nine dwellings along the entire street. In 1851, Skipton and Miller had advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street, and Patrick Street to let in perpetuity, followed by a second drive in 1856 when additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side of the street.

Nos. 5–15 Clarendon Street were constructed in 1861 as part of this second phase of development. Nos. 11–15 were built for William Stirling, a painter and glazier who operated his business from Pump Street. In 1861, No. 13 was originally valued at £32 and was occupied by a Mr John Talbot. The 1901 census building return described it as a second-class dwelling consisting of eight rooms, with a stable and coach house as its sole outbuildings. By 1911 it was occupied by John Tompson, a local merchant. Upon William Stirling's death in 1869, ownership of Nos. 11–15 passed by will to Hugh Stevenson, whose family continued to own No. 13 at least until the First Revaluation of 1935, when the house was increased in value to £39.

By the Second Revaluation (1956–72), the building had been partially converted into a private medical surgery, with ownership having passed to a Ms Annie Tinney, who also owned Nos. 5–9 Clarendon Street. The surgery was removed in 1965, when the building returned to domestic use, and by the end of the revaluation in 1972 its total value stood at £43. In 1970 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society recommended that Clarendon Street be incorporated into a comprehensive conservation area, and 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. 13 was subsequently listed in 1979.

Records note that the lower terraces of Clarendon Street suffered minor bomb damage in 1992; the only damage to No. 13 was the shattering of some of its original glazing. In 2002 the former single-storey outbuilding to the rear was demolished and replaced with a two-storey office extension. Few of the mid-Victorian townhouses along Clarendon Street now remain in residential use; the majority were converted into offices for local dental, legal, and accountancy practices in the late 20th century, and No. 13 continues to be used as office premises.

The building is located within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, and its well-preserved setting adds to its interest. Together, the terraces of Clarendon Street represent the mid-19th century expansion of the city of Derry, and No. 13 is a noteworthy example of the type of property built during this period of economic and population growth.