3 De Burgh Terrace, Academy Road, Londonderry

No. 3 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, together with the adjoining listed buildings in the terrace, carries significant group value as one of the most important groups of buildings in that area.

The house is Georgian in style despite its late-Victorian date of construction, rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. The principal, south-facing elevation is built in red brick laid in Flemish bond, with a painted rendered plinth. The roof is pitched and slated with clay ridge tiles, and there is a wall-head dormer to the front. A large brick chimney stack rises from the east side, centred on the ridge and fitted with six clay pots. The bracketed eaves and decorative bargeboard to the dormer add further ornamental detail, and cast-iron guttering with a circular downpipe runs across the front elevation.

At ground floor level, the principal elevation features a canted bay window containing square-headed painted 2/2 sliding sash windows with horizontally divided panes and ogee-shaped horns. The entrance doorway has a segmental arched opening with a moulded cornice supported by scrolled console brackets with acanthus leaf detail on pilasters, a painted four-panel timber door, and a plain fanlight above. At first floor level, the windows are segmental-headed painted 2/2 sliding sash windows; there is a pair of these above the bay and a single light above the doorcase. A continuous projecting sill course runs across the first floor. In the wall-head dormer above the bay at second floor level, there is a pair of round-headed painted 1/1 sliding sash windows.

The boundary wall to the south of the house is of rendered brick with a double cant coping, painted, and fitted with a modern metal gate. The long sloping raised garden lies between the house and this boundary.

The rear, north-facing elevation is rendered and incorporates a two-storey rear return. The upper floors of the main house to the rear have 1/1 replacement timber sliding sash windows. At ground floor level there is a glazed door opening, and modern timber side-hung casements serve the rear return. A small lean-to rendered boiler house with a corrugated metal roof is attached to the rear return. Rubble schist stone walling forms the rear boundary to the yard and the separating walls at No. 3, with a timber-sheeted door giving access from the rear lane. The east and west sides of the house abut the adjoining No. 2 and No. 4 De Burgh Terrace respectively.

Despite the loss of some original windows and doors to the rear, the exterior has retained its character, style, and proportion. The original plan form has largely survived intact. The local schist stone walling to the rear yard further enriches the quality of the setting.

The history of the terrace and its setting is of considerable interest. A town plan valuation of around 1873 records that De Burgh Terrace had been laid out in the 1870s but was as yet unnamed and unbuilt upon. The first houses were not constructed until 1889. The development of De Burgh Terrace followed the earlier establishment of Georgian-style terraces along Great James Street, Queen Street, and Clarendon Street in the 1830s to 1860s, as the city expanded northwards to house Londonderry's professional and merchant classes moving out of the Walled City. Northward expansion had been blocked by the walls of the Lunatic Asylum, which directed new development to the north-west onto picturesque hill sites overlooking the River Foyle. Crawford Square was laid out in the 1860s to 1870s, and Nos 1 to 17 De Burgh Terrace followed, developed by Ulick James Daly, a civil servant and gentleman resident at Eccles Street in Dublin. Daly originally submitted plans in 1888 for eighteen houses but only seventeen were ever built. The terrace was constructed in stages between 1889 and 1894, with Nos 1 to 8 being the first completed. The majority of houses were leased by the Daly family after completion. Annual Revisions record that Nos 1 to 8 were constructed in 1889 and each individually valued at £14. Scholarly commentary has drawn a parallel between this form of terrace development around a central garden or square and Dublin's garden squares, describing it as creating a green oasis for wealthy residents close to the city centre.

The first occupant of No. 3 was a Mr Quigley. By 1911 the house was occupied by John R. Daly (no relation to the developer), an Examining Officer at Customs and Excise. The 1911 Census Building Return described the property as a first-class dwelling of eleven rooms. John Daly had vacated No. 3 by the 1930s, when the Craig family took possession and remained there until at least the 1970s. By the time of the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72), the building was valued at £30, with the Daly family retaining ownership.

Nos 1 to 17 De Burgh Terrace were listed in 1979. The terrace had not been included within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area when it was first designated in 1978, but in 2006 the area was extended primarily 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.

Records held by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency note that No. 3 underwent renovation in 1981, which included reslating of the roof and repointing of the brickwork to the front elevation. In 1991 the roof was reslated again and the rainwater goods were overhauled.

De Burgh Terrace is located immediately to the north-west of the town centre, on the western side of the River Foyle. The terrace is 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, the latter accessed from a rear alleyway running the full length of the terrace.