37 Clarendon St., Londonderry

No. 37 Clarendon Street is a mid-terrace, two-bay, three-storey-with-attic red brick Georgian-style townhouse, built in 1862. It was constructed as part of a group that included Nos. 29–35 and 39–51 Clarendon Street, and it has group value with the wider run of Nos. 5–35 and 39–73 (excluding No. 53), all of which line the south side of Clarendon Street and were built over a twenty-one year period. The house has since been converted to office use, which has resulted in some modernisation of the interior, though much of the original internal detailing survives. It sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

EXTERIOR

The building is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. The principal elevation faces north onto Clarendon Street and is set behind a low rendered wall surmounted by painted black replacement metal railings with painted silver finials, set into a sandstone coping.

The roof is pitched natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. There is a single pitched-roof dormer to both the front and rear. A large brick chimney stack rises from the east side, centred on the ridge, with seven clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and circular downpipes are fitted to both front and rear.

The principal north elevation is laid in Flemish brick bond with a rendered plinth. To the right is a three-centred-arch entrance doorway with a moulded surround; the opening has a recessed moulded cornice supported by columns of the Doric order to either side of a painted timber four-panelled door, surmounted by an Adam-style fanlight. All window openings are square-headed with painted cement-rendered reveals and painted sills. Unless otherwise noted, all windows are 6-over-6 timber sliding sashes. To the left of the door at ground floor is a single 8-over-8 timber sliding sash window. The first and second floors each have two windows, though these are not aligned with the ground-floor openings. A narrow pitched-roof dormer is centred on the elevation and contains a 6-over-3 timber sliding sash window. The east and west elevations are abutted by the adjoining Nos. 35 and 39 Clarendon Street respectively.

The south rear elevation is brick, three-storey with attic. The rear is complex in its arrangement. A small brick pitched-roof three-storey rear return projects to the left; this is abutted by a brick pitched-roof single-storey return (half-hipped to the north), which in turn is abutted by a brick-and-rendered corrugated mono-pitched-roof single-storey return. This single-storey return abuts a rendered mono-pitched-roof single-storey mews building that runs parallel to the main block.

In the right bay of the main rear block, there is an 8-over-8 timber sliding sash window at ground floor, with a single 6-over-6 timber sliding sash window at first and second floors, aligned over the right reveal of the ground-floor window. The left bay is abutted by the rear return; the exposed section has a 6-over-3 timber sliding sash window.

The south gable of the small three-storey rear return is abutted at ground-floor level by the single-storey return; the exposed section has a 6-over-6 timber sliding sash window at first and second floors, with a metal security grille fitted to the first-floor window. The east face of the three-storey return has a door opening at ground floor with a single diminutive 2-over-2 timber sliding sash window at first and second floors, aligned over the right reveal of the door. The west face is blank.

The single-storey brick pitched-roof return (half-hipped to the north) has a natural slate roof and is fully abutted to the north by the three-storey return. Its south face is abutted by the single-storey mono-pitched-roof return and the exposed section is blank. The east face has a single metal casement window to the far left. The west face is blank.

The single-storey mono-pitched-roof return is fully abutted to the north by the single-storey pitched-roof return and to the south by the mono-pitched-roof mews building. Its east face has a four-pane timber window to the far right and two casement windows to the left. The west face is blank.

The single-storey mews building at the rear of the site has a corrugated metal mono-pitched roof and rendered walls. Its north face is abutted to the right by the single-storey mono-pitched-roof return, and has a central timber casement window and a vertically-sheeted timber door to the far left. The east face is fully abutted by the mews building of No. 35 Clarendon Street. The west face is fully abutted by the mews building of No. 39 Clarendon Street. The south face was not viewed at the time of survey.

Materials throughout are: natural slate roof; cast-iron rainwater goods to north and south elevations; brick walling; timber windows.

SETTING

The house forms part of a row of twelve mid-Victorian townhouses lining the south side of Clarendon Street. The front of the property faces north and is set behind a low rendered wall with black painted replacement metal railings. To the rear there is a small enclosed yard bounded by the single-storey mews building to the south.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period, with construction of the first dwellings commencing around 1853. The area now occupied by Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets was originally rural hinterland. The first edition of the Ordnance Survey map of 1830 for the townland of Edenballymore records little in the way of built development, and by that date the city's streets had extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. In the early decades of the 19th century, the only major construction north of the city walls had been isolated institutional buildings — the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College — with little or no domestic architecture in the same area. The only building in the vicinity predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house constructed around 1815.

Robert Simpson, writing in his Annals of Derry (1847), recorded that all the district then covered by Great James's Street, William Street, Little James Street, and neighbouring lanes had originally comprised meadow ground without a house. The development of housing in this area began in the late Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era, with the construction of uniform rows of three-storey townhouses forming a new and fashionable quarter that quickly became the preferred 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 urban planning, and the development represented the most ambitious act of town planning in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619. A plan of Londonderry dated 1847 depicted the proposed layout of Clarendon Street at least a decade before it was completed, and recorded that the street was originally known as Ponsonby Street, named after the Right Reverend 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 between 1847 and 1852. The second edition of the Ordnance Survey map records that 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 Strand Road and Queen Street had been laid out by 1853. Development progressed slowly throughout the 1850s. In 1851 Skipton and Miller had advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street, and Patrick Street to let in perpetuity. Griffith's Valuation of 1856 recorded only nine dwellings along the entire length of the street, and in that year additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side. Nos. 29–51 Clarendon Street were constructed in 1862 as part of the second phase of the street's development.

No. 37 (along with the adjoining No. 39) was built for John Anderson, a grocer and baker with business premises on William Street. The house was originally valued at £29 in 1862. In 1901 it was occupied by the Reverend Robert McCreery, a retired Presbyterian minister; the census building return for that year described the house as a first-class dwelling consisting of ten rooms. Ownership had passed by 1895 to James Corscaden, a grain merchant with business premises on Shipquay Place. The First General Revaluation records that by 1935 the property had been purchased by Mr R. W. and Miss Annie Cunningham, with the building's valuation increased to £34. The Second General Revaluation (1956–72) noted that the property had passed to Dr Thomas McCabe and that the valuation had been further increased to £37.

In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets a Conservation Area, described as an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. No. 37 was subsequently listed in 1979.

In 1988 the building underwent an extensive renovation that included the reslating of the roof, the repointing of the front elevation, the replacement of the original sliding sash windows, and the erection of the current railings. In 2013, Calley described Nos. 29–39 Clarendon Street as terrace houses with Doric doorway columns. The building has since been converted to office use, a change shared by the majority of three-storey townhouses along the street, most of which were adapted for use by local dentists, solicitors, and accountancy firms in the late 20th century.