16 Clarence Avenue, Londonderry

16 Clarence Avenue, Londonderry is a late-Victorian mid-terrace townhouse built in 1900 to designs by R. E. Buchanan. It is a two-bay three-storey brick structure in the Arts and Crafts style, rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return built at half-landing level. The building forms part of a terrace of eleven similar houses lining the north side of Clarence Avenue within the Magee Conservation Area, set back from the pavement behind a low red-brick wall with concrete coping.

The principal elevation faces south onto Clarence Avenue and is built in Flemish bond brickwork. It is two bays wide with a two-storey canted bay to the right, surmounted by a rectangular gabled bay at second floor level that is cantilevered on large timber brackets with carved timber corbels on either side. The gable features diagonal half-timber panelling with a plain wide painted timber fascia board above.

All openings are square-headed. The entrance doorway, set two steps up, has a moulded cornice supported on console brackets mounted on moulded pilasters either side of a four-panel fielded timber door with a stained glass flat-topped fanlight above. The windows to the principal elevation are timber sliding sashes. Those to the canted bay at ground and first floor levels have 1/1 panes with stained glass upper lights, as does the window above the door opening at first floor. The box window at second floor level has 8/2 panes, and a single 4/2 pane window sits above the entrance door at second floor level. Painted rendered bands mark the window heads at ground and first floor, with painted sill courses to windows at first and second floor levels.

The east and west sides are abutted by adjoining buildings Nos. 14 and 18 Clarence Avenue. The north elevation is three storeys of painted rough-cast render with a three-storey rear return to the left, built at half-landing level, and a small red-brick replacement chimney rising from the gable-end of the rear return. A single-storey monopitch-roofed modern extension to the rear return has a smooth rendered finish, painted. Windows to the rear elevation include 1/1 pane timber sliding sashes at ground and first floor, 2/2 pane timber sliding sashes at second floor and to both first and second floors of the rear return, and top-hung casement windows on the ground floor level of the rear return and to the later extension. Within the east face of the return is a sliding sash window with 6/6 panes fitted with secondary glazing. The west face has margin-paned windows at first and second floor half-landing levels overlooking the yard to No. 14.

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

Materials consist of natural slate roofing, brick walling to the south, painted render to the north, and timber sliding sashes with uPVC casements to the north and later extension. A uPVC gutter has been fitted to the north extension.

The setting comprises a small front garden with a rear boundary wall of smooth rendered and painted white finish. This wall contains two square-headed openings: a black roller shutter to the left and a sheeted timber gate with overhanging eaves, painted fascia board and uPVC gutter to a flat-roofed enclosure on the reverse. The yard backs onto a shared alley with the University campus beyond.