18 Clarence Avenue, Londonderry

18 Clarence Avenue is a mid-terrace, three-storey-with-attic red brick townhouse built around 1900 to designs by local architect and civil engineer Robert Eccles Buchanan. It sits on the north side of Clarence Avenue — a street laid out in 1897 and named after the Duke of Clarence — within the Magee Conservation Area in Londonderry. The house is one of a continuous terrace of eleven similar properties, Nos. 2–22 Clarence Avenue, that step down the hill towards the river in a well-articulated and architecturally distinctive row.

Architectural Overview

The building is rectangular on plan with a full-height gabled bay to the principal elevation and a three-storey rear return. The roof is pitched, covered in artificial slates, and finished with terracotta ridge tiles and a profiled red brick chimney stack to the east. Rainwater goods to the front have been replaced in metal; uPVC goods have been fitted to the rear. The walls are laid in Flemish bond red brick throughout, with continuous painted flush masonry lintel courses. All window openings are square-headed and fitted with timber sliding sash windows.

Principal (South) Elevation

The front elevation is two bays wide. To the right, a two-storey canted bay rises from ground level 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 features vertical half-timber panelling and a plain wide painted timber fascia board, with a terracotta finial at the apex. This half-timbered detailing reflects an Arts and Crafts influence and contributes significantly to the character of the terrace.

Windows to the ground and first floors are 1/1 timber sliding sash with leaded coloured glazing to the upper sashes. The second floor has a 4/2 timber sliding sash window, alongside paired 8/2 timber sliding sash windows within the projecting cantilevered bay.

The ground-floor entrance consists of a square-headed door opening fitted with an original diamond-panelled raised and fielded timber door. This is flanked by flat-panelled pilasters and corbels supporting a lintel cornice, with a leaded coloured glazed fanlight above. The door opens onto a concrete path and a paved front area enclosed by a low red brick wall to the street.

Rear and Side Elevations

The east side elevation abuts No. 17 Clarence Avenue. The north rear elevation is partly abutted by the three-storey gable-ended return to the right. The exposed section to the left carries 1/1 timber sliding sash windows to the ground and first floors, and a 2/2 timber sliding sash window at second-floor level directly above. The return features square-headed window openings with painted masonry sills and largely 2/2 timber sliding sash windows with slender ogee horns. The return is further abutted by a single-storey pitched-roof addition with an artificial slate roof and red clay ridge tiles. The east face of this addition includes an original vertically-sheeted timber door to the left, a 1/1 timber sliding sash window to the right, and two further door openings to the far right. The west side elevation abuts No. 19 Clarence Avenue.

Setting

The house is set back from the pavement behind a small front garden, with a small paved rear yard. The rear boundary wall is smooth rendered and unpainted, with a precast concrete coping and a sheeted timber gate within a square-headed opening. The yard backs onto a shared alley, with the university campus beyond. Together, the eleven houses of the terrace form one of the most distinctive groups within the Magee Conservation Area, built in tandem with the adjacent college campus.

Historical Context

Clarence Avenue was laid out in 1897. According to the Annual Revisions, the southern terrace (Nos. 1–17) was constructed in 1899–1900, while the northern terrace comprising Nos. 2–22 was erected in 1900, though additional information from the current owner — citing title deeds and a will — suggests No. 18 may have been built in 1904. The Irish Builder records that the northern terrace was designed by Robert Eccles Buchanan, who was active as an architect and civil engineer between 1887 and the 1920s. Buchanan undertook numerous domestic commissions in Londonderry and was also responsible for several church alterations, including repairs to St Columb's Cathedral in 1911.

The construction of this terrace formed part of the broader northward expansion of Londonderry. This expansion 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 was still largely rural when Crawford Square was built in the 1860s–1870s. Economic growth and prosperity from the 1860s through to the end of the 19th century fuelled the city's expansion, continued by De Burgh Terrace in the 1880s and then by the red brick terraces of Clarence Avenue into the early 20th century.

The Annual Revisions record that Nos. 16–20 were owned by Henry Thompson, described in those records as a local baker and restaurateur, though the current owner states that Thompson was in fact a bank manager who lived in the Victoria Park area of the Waterside and Prehen Road. No. 18 was first occupied by a Mrs Hamilton, who resided there only briefly. The 1911 Census of Ireland records the house as having passed to George Edwin Armstrong, who was employed as Principal of Londonderry Technical School on the Strand Road and continued to live at No. 18 until his death in 1940. The current owner provides additional detail, noting that Armstrong was Thompson's son-in-law and that Thompson bequeathed No. 18 to his daughter and son-in-law in 1924, not 1911 as the census records suggest. The current owner further states that Romain Willman purchased the house in 1938, and that on his death in 1956 it passed to his wife Una Willman and her children. Una died in 1991, after which the house passed to her daughters and remains in the ownership of a member of the Willman family.

The 1911 Census classified No. 18 as a first-class dwelling comprising seven rooms, with a shed as its sole outbuilding. The house was valued at £26 at the time of first occupation and at £44 by the end of the Second Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72). The terrace as a whole was listed in 1979. NIEA Historic Buildings records note that No. 18 underwent renovation in 1984, which included restoration of the existing sash windows and treatment of wood rot within the kitchen timbers. The artificial roof slates are noted as a detraction from the otherwise well-preserved Late Victorian and Arts and Crafts character of the building.