11 De Burgh Terrace, Academy Road, Londonderry

Number 11 De Burgh Terrace is a late-Victorian mid-terraced townhouse built around 1889, forming part of a uniform row of seventeen two-and-a-half-storey, two-bay houses on the north side of De Burgh Terrace, Londonderry. It sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area and shares group value with the adjoining listed buildings in the terrace. The exterior has retained its character, style and proportion, the plan form is largely intact, and much of the original fabric survives internally, making it a fine example of its period.

EXTERIOR

The house is Georgian in style despite its late-Victorian date, built in red brick to a rectangular plan with a projecting rear return. The principal elevation faces south onto a long sloping raised garden. The roof is a slated pitched roof with a wall-head dormer to the front, clay ridge tiles, and a large brick chimney stack rising from the east side, centred on the ridge and fitted with six clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and a circular downpipe serve the front elevation.

The principal south elevation is laid in Flemish bond brick with a painted rendered plinth. At ground floor level there is a canted bay fitted with square-headed painted 2-over-2 sliding sash windows with horizontally divided panes and ogee horns. The entrance doorway sits within a segmental arched opening beneath a moulded cornice supported by scrolled console brackets with acanthus leaf detail on pilasters; the doors themselves are painted double-leaf timber panelled doors with a plain fanlight above. At first floor level the windows are segmental-headed painted 2-over-2 sliding sash windows, with coupled lights above the bay and a single light above the doorcase. A continuous projecting sill course runs across the first floor. The second-floor dormer, positioned above the bay, contains a pair of round-headed painted 1-over-1 sliding sash windows and is finished with a decorative bargeboard. The eaves to the east and west sides are bracketed where they abut the adjoining properties, Number 10 and Number 12 De Burgh Terrace respectively.

The north elevation is rendered and rises to three storeys at the rear return, with a small gabled dormer to the east side. Ground floor windows on the north side include a 6-over-6 timber sliding sash and modern timber casement windows at the return. The remaining windows are 2-over-2 timber sliding sash, with a 4-over-4 sliding sash to the dormer. At first floor level, at the junction between the rear return and the main north elevation, a later projection cantilevered outward has been formed in sheeted timber, painted white, with lead sheeting to a flat roof. This projection contains a 1-over-1 timber sliding sash window in its east face and internally houses a WC.

The boundary wall to the south is of red brick, rendered with a concrete coping, painted throughout, with a painted metal gate, railings and hedge.

REAR YARD AND OUTBUILDINGS

Access to the rear yard is from a shared lane. The north boundary is defined by a random schist stone wall with upright random schist stone copings, spanning the full width of the yard and returning to separate Number 11's yard from the adjoining properties on both sides. This party wall is partially encompassed within single-storey red brick outhouses, lime-washed externally, which remain intact, though one has a replacement corrugated metal roof covering. A timber sheeted door, painted grey, is inserted within the rear wall, with red brick dressings to the jambs and a concrete lintel surmounted by a concrete pyramidal cap. The local schist walling and surviving lime-washed red brick outhouses to the rear further enrich the quality of the setting.

MATERIALS

The roof is natural slate with clay ridge tiles. Rainwater goods are cast iron. The south-facing walling is red brick in Flemish bond; the north elevation is rendered. Windows throughout are timber sliding sash.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

A town plan valuation of around 1873 records that De Burgh Terrace was originally laid out in the 1870s, though the street was then unnamed and contained no buildings. The first houses were not built until 1889. De Burgh Terrace was part of the northward expansion of Londonderry serving the city's professional and merchant classes, who had already established Georgian-style terraces along Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street in the 1830s to 1860s. Further expansion northward was blocked by the walls of the Lunatic Asylum, so new terraces were erected to the north-west on picturesque hill sites overlooking the River Foyle, including Crawford Square in the 1860s to 1870s and subsequently De Burgh Terrace. The development of large terraces around a central garden or square has been described as the city's delayed response to Dublin's garden squares, creating a green oasis for wealthy residents close to the city centre.

The entire row of seventeen houses was developed by Ulick James Daly, a civil servant and gentleman residing at Eccles Street in Dublin. Daly originally submitted plans for eighteen houses in 1888, but only seventeen were ever built. Construction proceeded in stages between 1889 and 1894, with numbers 1 to 8 completed first. Numbers 11 and 12 were constructed in 1892–93 and were each valued at £15, a pound higher than numbers 1 to 8 on account of their additional room. The majority of the completed houses were leased by the Daly family.

The first occupant of Number 11 was Evans Richards. By 1911 the house had passed to William Caldwell, a local draper, whose Census Building Return described it as a first-class dwelling of eleven rooms. Caldwell remained at Number 11 until 1937, when the house was taken by William Kelso, who occupied it until the 1960s. The Daly family retained ownership of Number 11 until at least the end of the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1972, by which year the rateable value had risen to £32.

Numbers 1 to 17 De Burgh Terrace were listed in 1979. De Burgh Terrace was not included in the original Clarendon Street Conservation Area of 1978, but the area was extended in 2006 primarily in order to incorporate the terrace, which has since been designated an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance.

ALTERATIONS

In 2012 Number 11 underwent renovation including minor repairs to the roof, replacement of the rear windows and restoration of the interior. Further grant-funded work was completed in 2015, comprising lining of chimneys, lime plastering internally, overhauling of windows and replacement of the bargeboard to the front dormer.

SETTING

De Burgh Terrace lies immediately north-west of the town centre on the western side of the River Foyle, accessed from Academy Road, which runs between Rosemount Avenue to the north-west and Northland Road to the south-east. Brooke Park lies to the south-west. The row of seventeen houses has long front gardens and small rear yards served by a rear alleyway running the length of the terrace.