55 Claredon Street

55 Clarendon Street, Londonderry

No. 55 Clarendon Street is a Victorian end-of-terrace three-bay, three-storey painted render and brick townhouse, built in 1872 at the junction of Clarendon Street and Princes Street, on the south side of the street. The architect is unknown. It was constructed as one of a group of four terraced houses together with nos. 57–61 (a row in which it shares group value), as part of the outward expansion of the city beyond its historic walls. Although built later than many of its neighbours, it reflects the rhythm and proportion of the more Georgian-style terraces lower down the street, while a number of details — the round-arched windows, plasterwork, and paired corbelled eaves brackets — identify it as Victorian in character.

Architectural Description

The building is rectangular on plan, with a rear return at half-landing level. The principal (north) elevation faces onto Clarendon Street and is set back from the pavement behind a low painted rendered boundary wall with painted wrought-iron railings above. The entrance is reached by five concrete steps.

The ground floor of the north elevation is finished in painted render; the upper floors are in Flemish bond brick. The entrance doorway and ground-floor windows have round-arched stepped reveals; the windows also have bull-nosed cills and moulded apron panels below. Each window is framed by a moulded shoulder-course, hood mould, and flying keystone. The front door is a painted timber four-panelled door with a plain fanlight above. All windows on the north, east, and west faces of the rear return are timber sliding sash with 1/1 panes. The first-floor windows are square-headed with a sill-course; the second-floor windows are segmental-arched. Two modern rooflights are present in the roof slope.

The east elevation is asymmetrical and cement rendered. The gable end facing Clarendon Street contains a single square-headed 2/2 timber sliding sash window at ground, first, and second floor levels on the left side, and two small round-arched 1/1 timber sliding sash windows placed either side of a central red-brick chimney stack at attic level. This gable is abutted by a three-storey lower return, also rendered, which has a single boarded-up window and a side entrance door at ground floor; a pair of 2/2 timber sliding sash windows at first floor; and a smaller pair of 2/2 timber sliding sash windows at second floor.

A rendered chimney stack with five clay pots is centred on the ridge line at the south end, where the building adjoins No. 25 Princes Street. The west side is abutted by the adjoining No. 57 Clarendon Street.

The south elevation is three storeys, cement rendered, with a three-storey rear return. A projecting gabled bay to the left side of the main building has square-headed casement windows to the upper floors with clipped eaves. The lower return has irregular fenestration with a mix of 1/1 and 2/2 timber sliding sash windows, some fitted with security bars, and uPVC guttering and downpipes. A flat-roofed dormer with horizontal timber cladding and timber casement windows projects above eaves height on the return. All walls on the south elevation are smooth rendered and unpainted.

The roof is pitched slate with black clay ridge tiles. A large red-brick chimney stack, which has been rebuilt, rises from the east side and is centred on the ridge with eight clay pots. There are two skylights on the front (north-facing) roof slope and one to the rear (south). The eaves brickwork is painted. Cast-iron guttering runs along the north elevation, supported on paired corbel brackets, returning to the east elevation where it discharges to a cast-iron downpipe. uPVC guttering and downpipes serve the south elevation.

Materials summary: slate roof; cast-iron rainwater goods to the north, uPVC to the south; red brick and painted render to the north elevation; smooth unpainted render to the south; timber sliding sash windows to the north, east, and west face of the rear return; casement windows to the south.

Setting

No. 55 forms part of a row of four mid-Victorian townhouses — nos. 55–61 — lining the south side of Clarendon Street. It sits at the corner of Clarendon Street and Princes Street, with the front elevation set behind a low rendered wall enclosing a small hard-surfaced area. The intact terrace, along with several similar rows of neat townhouses that step down in a strong linear formation towards the River Foyle, makes a particular contribution to the character of the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

Historical Context

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period, with the first dwellings commencing construction around 1853. The development of housing in this area was driven by a period of economic growth and population expansion in Londonderry during the mid-19th century. As John Hume has noted, the years 1825–1850 saw both the reconstruction of buildings within the city walls and the first significant development of housing outside them, at Bogside and Edenballymore. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 records that the Clarendon Street area was still rural hinterland at that time, with the city's street development extending no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. The only major construction north of the walls in the early 19th century had been isolated institutional buildings — the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College — with no domestic architecture of note. The sole surviving building in the area that predates the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house of around 1815, described by Calley as "a pleasing composition which offers a gentle rebuke to some of the exuberance of later nearby buildings … one of its pleasant features is that it opens a gap in the long terraces." Robert Simpson, writing in his Annals of Derry (1847), recorded that the entire district now covered by Great James's Street, William Street, Little James Street, and surrounding lanes had originally comprised "meadow ground without a house."

The initial domestic development of this area began in the late Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era, with uniform rows of three-storey townhouses quickly establishing the district as the residence of the city's merchant and professional classes. The geometric street pattern of Clarendon Street, Great James Street, and Queen Street was characteristic of Georgian town planning and represented the most ambitious such project in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city in 1613–19.

The street originally bore the name Ponsonby Street, after the Right Reverend Richard Ponsonby (1772–1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. It was renamed Clarendon Street — as recorded on the second edition Ordnance Survey map by at least 1853 — in honour of George Villiers, the Fourth Earl of Clarendon (1800–1870), Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. Although an 1847 plan of Londonderry showed the street extending from the quay up to Francis Street, only the lower section between the Strand Road and Queen Street had been laid out by 1853. Development progressed slowly through the 1850s: building ground was advertised by Skipton and Miller in 1851, and Griffith's Valuation of 1856 recorded only nine dwellings along the entire length of the street. Further leases for building ground on the northern side were advertised in that year.

Nos. 55 and 57 Clarendon Street were constructed for Captain Samuel Hatrick, and in 1872 No. 55 was individually valued at £29. In 1901 the house was occupied by Charles M. MacLellan, a local coal merchant and Consul between Londonderry Corporation and Turkey; the census of that year described his house as a first-class dwelling consisting of ten rooms. The pair nos. 55–57 remained with the Hatrick family until 1901, when William Wallace, a retired ironmonger, took possession. The First General Revaluation of 1935 increased the assessed value to £38, by which time a Ms. Elizabeth McCrea had taken over ownership from William Wallace. She held the property until the 1970s, and between 1935 and 1956 converted the former private dwelling into a number of self-contained flats. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the assessed value stood at £39.

In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets a Conservation Area, defined as "an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance." No. 55 was subsequently listed in 1979. Calley, writing in 2013, described nos. 55–61 as "rendered late-19th century terrace houses … three-bays each, the ground floors rendered with round-headed bays linked by a shoulder course which creates an arcaded feel," and noted that the group "are treated as a single terrace, but are grouped in pairs to accommodate the change in street level."

Few of the mid-Victorian townhouses on Clarendon Street are today occupied as residential dwellings; the majority were converted into offices for solicitors, dentists, and accountancy firms during the late 20th century. Despite the introduction of some casement windows and a flat-roofed dormer to the rear, the exterior of No. 55 retains much of its original architectural character.