12 Princes Street, Londonderry, Co. Londonderry, BT48 7EY

12 Princes Street, Londonderry

This is a Victorian mid-terrace three-storey two-bay red brick townhouse with a semi-basement, built in 1863 in the Georgian style. It forms part of a terrace of eight similar houses lining the east side of Princes Street, a narrow street running between Great James Street and Asylum Road on the west side of the River Foyle. The terrace steps gently in height from two to three storeys as it runs from south to north. The building is set within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area and currently operates as a travellers' hostel.

Exterior

The principal elevation faces west and is three storeys high, constructed of hand-made red brick laid in English Garden Wall bond with cement pointing. All window openings are square-headed, set on painted masonry sills with painted plaster bands to the reveals. The ground floor bay arrangement is not aligned with the window bays on the floors above. To the right of the entrance doorway on the ground floor there is a single window with a 6/6 timber sliding sash. On the first floor there are 6/6 timber sliding sashes, and on the second floor 6/3 timber sliding sashes. All windows to the front elevation appear to be replacements, as trickle vents are evident. Two grates set into the footpath beneath the ground floor window provide light to the basement level.

The entrance doorway is elliptical arch-headed and slightly recessed. It is flanked by engaged fluted columns of the Doric order and features a raised-and-fielded four-panel painted timber door, an entablature above the columns, and a modest glazed fanlight with timber glazing bars. The door opens onto a threshold reached by two concrete steps up from the pavement.

The roof is pitched and covered in artificial slate with terracotta clay ridge tiles. A rebuilt red brick chimney stack with clay pots rises from the south side at the front, and a further rebuilt red brick chimney stack with seven terracotta clay pots rises from the south side at the rear. Cast-iron half-round guttering is carried on iron rise-and-fall brackets, terminating at circular downpipes to both the front and rear elevations.

The north and south sides are joined to the neighbouring properties at No. 10 and No. 14 Princes Street respectively. The rear elevation, which is four storeys high due to the fall in ground level, is finished in smooth plain unpainted render. A three-storey rear return, built at half-landing height, has a slated pitched roof and is also finished in smooth plain unpainted render. Window openings to the rear are square-headed on painted masonry sills, with an irregular fenestration pattern; both the rear elevation and the rear return have replacement 6/6 timber casement windows. A modern single-storey flat-roofed rear extension with double doors opening onto the rear garden sits between the rear returns of Nos. 10 and 12.

No. 12 was built as one of a pair with No. 10 (a separately listed building), and together the two houses form a distinct group between the lower two-storey houses to the south and the taller three-storey No. 14 to the north. The front elevation sits directly on the pavement. To the rear there is a long narrow yard enclosed by a rendered wall.

Of particular note is the fine doorcase with its engaged fluted Doric columns and entablature, which survives as an intact piece of original external detailing and contributes significantly to the historic character of the street.

Historical Context

Princes Street occupies the line of the old Lower Road, which connected the walled city to Pennyburn Mills and was recorded on maps as early as 1689. The road was first labelled as "Lower Road" on maps from 1847, but was renamed Princes Street in 1862 following the death of Queen Victoria's consort, Prince Albert, on 14 December 1861.

The surrounding streets — Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street — were laid out in response to a period of significant economic and population growth in Londonderry during the mid-19th century. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 recorded the area, then within the townland of Edenballymore, as rural hinterland with few significant structures, and the city's built development had at that point extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street and William Street. Writing in 1847, Robert Simpson noted in his Annals of Derry that the district later covered by Great James Street and its surrounding streets had originally comprised meadow ground without a house. In the early decades of the 19th century, the only major construction north of the walls had been isolated public buildings such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum and Foyle College. The only building in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency-style house constructed around 1815.

From the late Georgian period onward, the construction of uniform rows of neat three-storey townhouses established a new affluent residential quarter that became the preferred address of the city's merchant and professional classes.

No. 12 Princes Street was constructed in 1863 on land owned by William Scott, the occupant of the neighbouring Foyle Cottage and founder of Londonderry's shirt industry. Scott leased the property — initially valued at £16 and 10 shillings — to a Mr. William Andrews. The Annual Revisions Town Plan of around 1873 to 1910 shows that the layout of the building, including the rear return, has not changed since the late 19th century. In 1881–82 Thomas McCready, a local pawnbroker and piano dealer, took over ownership of Nos. 10–12 and subsequently built No. 14 as his private dwelling. By 1911 the house was occupied by John Crossan, described in the census as a car owner; the census building return classified No. 12 as a second-class dwelling of six rooms, with a stable as its sole outbuilding. By the 1930s ownership of Nos. 10–14 had passed to a Mr. John J. Madden, a merchant who lived in the adjoining No. 16. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was revalued at £21 with the Crossan family recorded as occupants, remaining there until at least the 1970s. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the value stood at £22. In 1978 Princes Street was included within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, designated as an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance.