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

14 Princes Street is a Victorian end-of-terrace three-storey, two-bay red brick townhouse built in 1880 in a Georgian style. It forms part of a terrace of eight similar street-fronted townhouses 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, within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. Though built approximately twenty years after its immediate neighbours, Nos. 10 and 12 Princes Street, and not considered one of the best examples of its type, it is regarded as a significant feature within the conservation area.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building is rectangular on plan, with its principal elevation facing north-west onto Princes Street, directly onto the pavement. It has a three-storey rendered projecting rear return, built at half-landing height with a slated pitched roof. The roof is finished in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and a grey brick chimney stack — which has been rebuilt — rises from the north side carrying eight circular buff clay pots. Half-round cast-iron guttering on iron rise-and-fall brackets runs along the front elevation, terminating in a circular cast-iron downpipe.

The principal (north-west) elevation is 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 bays are not aligned with the window bays on the floors above. To the left of the entrance doorway is a single ground-floor window fitted with a one-over-one timber sliding sash. To the right is a segmental arched door opening, slightly recessed, with decorative scroll console brackets on panelled pilasters to either side. The door itself is a raised-and-fielded four-panel painted timber door with a projecting cornice above and a modest glazed fanlight over. It opens onto a threshold reached by two concrete steps up from the pavement. On the first and second floors, one-over-one timber sliding sash windows with horns are provided. To the left of the front door, remnants of a cast-iron bootscraper survive.

The north-east gable-end elevation is of red brick to eaves level, with an unpainted rendered finish above, topped by a large brick chimney stack. The south-west elevation is shared with the adjoining No. 12 Princes Street. The south-east rear elevation is three storeys in height with a smooth plain unpainted rendered finish, as is the three-storey rear return. Window openings to the rear are square-headed on painted masonry sills, with an irregular fenestration pattern. Replacement six-over-six timber sliding sash windows are fitted to the rear elevation where visible. Rainwater goods to the rear are uPVC.

SETTING

The house sits at the end of a terrace of eight Georgian-style Victorian townhouses fronting directly onto Princes Street. To the rear is a long, narrow yard with a garden enclosed by a rendered wall, alongside the three-storey plain unpainted rendered rear return.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Princes Street developed between the 1840s and 1860s, though its route follows the line of the Lower Road, which appeared on maps as early as 1689. In the 18th century, the Lower Road extended from the Walled City to Pennyburn Mills. The road was first recorded under that name in 1847, but the section between Great James Street and Asylum Road was renamed Prince's Street in 1862, following the death of Queen Victoria's consort Prince Albert on 14th December 1861.

The laying out of Great James Street, Queen Street, and Clarendon Street was driven by a period of economic and population growth in Londonderry during the mid-19th century. As John Hume has noted, between 1825 and 1850 reconstruction within the city walls occurred alongside the first development of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore. The First Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 records the townland of Edenballymore — in which Princes Street sits — as rural hinterland with few significant structures. By that date, the city's street development had extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street and William Street. Writing in 1847, Robert Simpson recorded in The Annals of Derry that the area now covered by Great James Street, William Street, Little James Street and surrounding lanes had originally been meadow ground without a house. In the early 19th century, the only major construction north of the walls had been isolated institutional buildings: the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College. The only building in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area that predates the early-Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency-style house constructed around 1815.

Housing development in the area began in the late-Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era. The construction of uniform rows of neat three-storey townhouses established a new affluent quarter that became the preferred residence of the city's merchant and professional classes.

No. 14 Princes Street was constructed in 1880, almost two decades after the adjoining Nos. 10 and 12. It was built for Thomas McCready, a local pawnbroker and piano dealer who also took over ownership of Nos. 10 and 12 Princes Street in 1881–82. The property was originally valued at £17 and 10 shillings. An Annual Revisions Town Plan dating from around 1873–1910 shows that the current layout of the building, including the three-storey rear return, has not been altered since the late 19th century. Thomas McCready continued to live at No. 14 until his death in 1895, after which the property passed to his son, Thomas Roulston Vaughan McCready.

By 1911 the house was occupied by Samuel Alexander, a retired farmer who leased the property from a new owner, a Mr W. J. Forsythe. The census building return for that year described No. 14 as a second-class building comprising six rooms, with a shed as its sole outbuilding. By the 1930s, ownership of Nos. 10 to 14 Princes Street had passed to a Mr John J. Madden, a merchant who resided in the adjoining No. 16. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the value of No. 14 had risen to £24. A Mr Andrew Steele lived at the house from the 1930s until at least the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72), by which point the building's value stood at £25.

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.