25 Clarendon St., Londonderry

25 Clarendon Street, Londonderry

This is a mid-terrace, two-bay, three-storey Georgian-style townhouse with an attic over a basement, built in red brick around 1853–56. It was constructed at the same time as No. 27 next door and forms part of a continuous row of similar early to mid-Victorian townhouses lining the south side of Clarendon Street. The listing covers the house itself together with its railings, plinth wall, and rear mews building.

The building is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. Its principal elevation faces north onto Clarendon Street, set behind a low rendered wall topped with replacement black-painted metal railings. The front entrance is reached by five steps, the bottom of which projects beyond the boundary wall onto the pavement. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A large red brick chimney stack rises from the east gable, centred on the ridge and fitted with nine terracotta pots. Cast-iron guttering supported on iron brackets runs along the front elevation; the rear elevation has cast-iron guttering and downpipes with a hopper.

The principal north elevation is laid in Flemish brick bond. The basement level has painted stone and brick dressings terminating at a string course at ground floor level. The entrance doorway has a three-centred arch and a moulded cornice supported by Doric columns to either side of a painted timber four-panelled door, surmounted by a single-pane overlight. All window openings are square-headed with painted cement-rendered reveals and painted sills. Unless otherwise noted, all windows are six-over-six timber sliding sashes. At ground floor level there are two diminished windows to the left of the door. The first and second floors each have two windows, though these are not aligned with the ground floor openings. Two windows at basement level sit directly below the ground floor windows, though they are not fully visible from the street. The east and west elevations are abutted by the adjoining buildings at Nos. 23 and 27 Clarendon Street respectively.

The south, rear elevation is cement rendered and rises three storeys over a basement. To the left, a rendered pitched-roof rear return of three storeys over basement — shared with No. 27 — is also cement rendered. In the right bay of the main block there is a basement-level opening (not fully visible) with a single one-over-one timber sliding sash window at ground, first, and second floor levels; the second floor window is not aligned with those below. Above this sits a pitched-roof rendered dormer with a single top-hung casement window. The left bay is abutted by the rear return, and the exposed section has a three-over-three timber sliding sash window. The south gable of the rear return has a single top-hung casement window at basement level to the right and a single one-over-one timber sliding sash window at ground, first, and second floors. The east face of the rear return was not visible at the time of survey. The west face is abutted by the rear return of No. 27 Clarendon Street.

The property is enclosed to the rear by a yard. The rear mews building is two storeys, constructed in stone with brick dressings and a pitched corrugated fibre-cement roof. On its north elevation there is a vertically-sheeted timber door to the left of centre, and to the right a segmental-arched coach arch that has been altered so that the opening is now square-headed. At first floor level there are two square-headed timber louvered openings. The east and west elevations of the mews are fully abutted by the mews buildings of Nos. 23 and 27 respectively. The south elevation has a segmental-arched coach arch to the left, also altered to a square-headed opening and now containing a pair of modern vertically-sheeted timber doors; a vertically-sheeted timber door to the right of centre; and a blocked-up opening to the right. At first floor level on the south elevation there is a timber louvered opening centred above the coach arch, and a vertically-sheeted timber opening directly above the door below.

The conversion of the house to office use has resulted in some modernisation of the interior, though the original character and much of the interior detailing survives.

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period as part of a significant expansion of the city outside its historic walls. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 records that the Clarendon Street area — within the townland of Edenballymore — was originally rural hinterland, and at that date the city's built streets extended 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. The only building in the vicinity predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house of around 1815. As Robert Simpson recorded in his Annals of Derry (1847), the district later covered by Great James's Street, William Street, Little James Street, and the surrounding lanes had originally been meadow ground without a house. John Hume notes that during the period 1825–1850 reconstruction within the city walls took place alongside the first development of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore.

A plan of Londonderry drawn in 1847 depicted the proposed layout of Clarendon Street at least a decade before it was completed, and records that the street was originally known as Ponsonby Street, named after the Rt. Rev. Richard Ponsonby (1772–1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. By the 1850s it had been renamed Clarendon Street in honour of George Villiers (1800–1870), the Fourth Earl of Clarendon and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1847 to 1852. The second edition Ordnance Survey map confirms the renaming had taken place by at least 1853. Although the 1847 plan showed Clarendon 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: by 1856 Griffith's Valuation recorded only nine dwellings along the entire street. In 1851, Skipton and Miller had advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street, and Patrick Street to be let in perpetuity, followed in 1856 by further leases for building ground on the northern side of the street. The geometric street pattern of Clarendon Street, Great James Street, and Queen Street was characteristic of Georgian town planning, and represented the most ambitious planning project in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city in 1613–19. Throughout its history the street was home to the city's merchant and professional classes.

Nos. 25–27 Clarendon Street were among the earliest dwellings built on the street, constructed around 1853–56. They were not depicted on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853 but appear in Griffith's Valuation of 1856, which recorded No. 25 as valued at £40 and built for Forrest Reid, a local solicitor with offices on Richmond Street. Architectural historian Calley (2013) described Nos. 23–27 as terrace houses distinguished from their neighbours by having stone steps over basement wells leading to the doors, giving them the most elegant approaches of any houses on the street. Forrest Reid retained ownership of No. 25 and many of the adjoining properties until his death in 1888, after which his holdings were administered by the executors of his will. By 1901, the house was occupied by a Mr Herbert Smith; the census building return for that year described it as a first-class dwelling of ten rooms with a stable as its sole outbuilding. By 1935, the First General Revaluation records that ownership had passed to Dr Ronald W. Cunningham, who also owned No. 27, and the rateable value was increased to £43, at which it remained through the Second General Revaluation of 1956–72.

No. 25 Clarendon Street is of particular historic significance as the birthplace of the distinguished architect William Henry Dunlevy McCormick, known as Liam McCormick, who was born here on 24 October 1916. In 1970, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society recommended that Clarendon Street be incorporated into a conservation area, and in 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets as the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, defined as an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. No. 25 was subsequently listed in 1979. Like most of the mid-Victorian townhouses on the street, it has been converted to office use — currently an orthodontic surgery — rather than remaining in residential occupation.

No. 25 has group value with Nos. 5–23 and 27–73 Clarendon Street (excluding No. 53), which were built over a twenty-one year period and together line the south side of the street. The well-preserved setting, the survival of the rear mews building, and the front railings and plinth wall all add to the interest of the property.