14 Clarence Avenue, Londonderry

14 Clarence Avenue is a mid-terrace, two-bay, three-storey red-brick townhouse built in 1900 to designs by Robert Eccles Buchanan, a local architect and civil engineer active between 1887 and the 1920s. It sits on the north side of Clarence Avenue within the Magee Conservation Area in Londonderry, forming part of a continuous terrace of eleven similar houses that step down the hill towards the river. The house is Late Victorian in character with a strong Arts and Crafts influence expressed through leaded and stained glass upper lights and decorative half-timbering.

EXTERIOR

The plan is rectangular with a projecting rear return built at half-landing level. The principal (south) elevation faces onto Clarence Avenue and is set behind a low red-brick wall with painted railings above. It is laid in Flemish brick bond and is two bays wide. To the right, a two-storey canted bay rises through the ground and first floors and is surmounted at second-floor level by a rectangular gabled bay cantilevered on large timber brackets with carved timber corbels to either side. The gable is clad in vertical half-timber panelling and finished with a plain wide painted timber fascia board.

All openings are square-headed. The entrance doorway is reached by two steps up and features a moulded cornice supported on console brackets, with moulded pilasters to either side of a four-panel fielded painted timber door. A stained glass flat-topped fanlight sits above the door. Windows to the principal elevation are timber sliding sashes: 1/1 panes with stained glass upper lights to the canted bay on the ground and first floors, and the same window type above the door at first-floor level. The second floor has 8/2 and 4/2 pane sashes. Painted rendered bands run across the ground and first-floor window heads, with a painted sill course at first and second-floor levels.

The north elevation is finished in painted render and rises to three storeys. A two-storey rear return at half-landing level projects to the left, stepping down to a single-storey abutment at the rear with natural slates and a red clay ridge tile over a duo-pitched roof. Fenestration to the rear is irregular: 2/2 timber sliding sash windows serve the rear elevation and return, including the west face overlooking the yard of number 12, with a single casement window at ground-floor level within the rear return.

The main roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles. The rear return has black clay ridge tiles. A large red-brick chimney stack with a dog-toothed corbel rises from the east side, centred on the ridge of the main roof and fitted with clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and circular downpipes serve the front elevation.

SETTING

Number 14 is set back from the pavement behind a small front garden, as part of the terrace of eleven houses lining the north side of Clarence Avenue on a steep gradient. The rear yard is enclosed by plain rendered walling topped with a painted timber fascia board and accessed through a slide-back timber door painted blue that spans approximately half the yard width, with corrugated metal overhanging from a lean-to roof on the reverse side. The yard backs onto a shared alley with the university campus beyond.

Each house in the terrace retains its ornate doorcase and canted bay, with alternating diagonal and straight half-timbered gables to the cantilevered square bays above. The Conservation Guide described the dwellings along Clarence Avenue as representing some of the city's architecturally finest and grandest townhouses, noting the terrace as very unified architecturally and virtually intact. The Ulster Architectural Heritage Society praised Buchanan's terrace as excellently modelled.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Clarence Avenue was laid out in 1897 and named in memory of Prince Albert Victor, the last Duke of Clarence and son of King Edward VII, following his death in 1892 at the age of 28. The southern side of the street (numbers 1 to 17) was constructed in 1899 to 1900, and the northern terrace (numbers 2 to 22) was erected in 1900. The northern expansion of Londonderry had begun in the mid-19th century with Georgian-style terraces on Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street. The area around Edenballymore and Northland Road remained rural in character when the Victorian terrace at Crawford Square was built in the 1860s to 1870s. Growth continued through a period of economic prosperity lasting from the 1860s to the end of the 19th century, and new red-brick dwellings at College Terrace and Clarence Avenue were erected from the 1880s onwards to provide accommodation for students and staff of Magee College. Buchanan was also responsible for a number of church alterations during this period, including repairs to St Columb's Cathedral in 1911.

Number 14 was initially valued at £26 and was first occupied by Robert Gray Morrison, a local accountant at the Belfast Banking Company on Bank Place. The 1901 census building return described the house as a first-class dwelling with ten rooms. By the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland the value had risen to £37, and a Mr James A. Thompson was recorded as owner by at least the 1930s. The value rose further to £43 by the end of the Second Revaluation covering 1956 to 1972. The terrace was listed in 1979 and incorporated into the Magee Conservation Area in 2006. In 1986 number 14 underwent conservation work that included reslating of the roof in second-hand slate and an overhaul of its cast-iron rainwater goods.