16 Crawford Square, Londonderry

16 Crawford Square is a three-storey, two-bay rendered terraced house built in 1874–75, most likely to designs by Robert Collins, though his involvement at this stage of the terrace's construction has not been confirmed. It forms part of an impressive continuous terrace of sixteen Italianate-style houses on a sloping site on the south-west side of Crawford Square, a tree-lined, grassed park in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area in Londonderry. The house is largely intact and shares group value with numbers 3–15 and 17–18 of the square. A cast iron boot scraper survives adjacent to the front entrance, adding to the quality of the setting.

The house has a rectangular plan facing north-east, with a three-storey rendered return to the rear, an attached single-storey outshot, and a two-storey outbuilding accessed from the rear. It is paired symmetrically with the adjacent number 15, and the pitched natural slate roof runs continuously across both properties. A large rendered chimney stack with buff clay pots is shared with number 17. The eaves have timber fascia boards and a moulded soffit with paired block modillions, and half-round cast iron guttering discharges to a circular cast iron downpipe on number 15.

The front elevation features a two-storey, three-sided canted bay window with a parapet, recessed panels between the first and second storeys, and moulded cills and string courses. Window openings have segmental arched heads and one-over-one double-hung timber sash windows with moulded horns. The first-floor window above the main entrance door has a moulded architrave with stop blocks, and its moulded cill is shared with number 15.

The entrance doorcase has a semi-circular arch with a hood mould and keystone, decorative console brackets, and is recessed with a moulded soffit. It has a glazed fanlight, a tiled step, and a pair of panelled outer doors. Inside the entrance, a glazed inner door is flanked by slender timber columns with decorative capitals, and has a rectangular fanlight above. The original timber door beyond has a glazed top panel and a single moulded bottom panel. The space between the outer and inner doors has a flat ceiling with a cornice.

The rear elevation and return are rendered, with square-headed window openings fitted with six-over-six double-hung sliding sash windows where visible. The three-storey return has a hipped natural slate roof with blue-black hip and ridge tiles, and a buff brick chimney with a moulded corbel, shared with the return of number 15. An attached single-storey rendered outshot does not extend the full width of the return; it has a gabled mono-pitch natural slate roof and a timber top-hung casement to the gable end at high level. A low mono-pitched structure with an artificial slate roof is attached to this outshot. To the rear yard stands a stone-built outbuilding, now rendered on the yard side, which forms part of the stepped row of outbuildings associated with the Crawford Square houses that front onto Academy Road. The Academy Road elevation of this outbuilding has been partially rebuilt in concrete brick and is partially cement rendered. The roof structure is exposed, consisting of sawn rafters with collar ties and surviving slating battens, though no roof covering remains.

To the front, the house is set back slightly from the footpath and elevated above it. It is approached by a shared path and a short flight of concrete steps. The modest front garden has a concrete surface finish and is enclosed by a dwarf wall, with the cast iron boot scraper positioned adjacent to the doorway.

Crawford Square has its origins in a layout prepared in 1861 by Fitzgibbon Louch (1826–1911), a civil engineer and architect who established an independent practice in Londonderry in 1859. The Dublin Builder records that the square was named after Samuel Law Crawford, a local solicitor who owned the land. Louch was responsible during his early career for several notable works in the city, including the entrance to the City Cemetery and the design of the Magazine Gate entrance to the city walls. The square was part of the continued northward expansion of Londonderry following the establishment of Georgian-style terraces along Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street in the 1830s to 1860s, and was designed for the city's professional classes. As one historian has noted, Crawford Square, along with Templemore and Victoria Parks, can be seen as the city's delayed response to Dublin's garden squares, creating near to the city centre a green oasis for its wealthier residents, with an enclosed central garden bounded on three sides by the square.

Numbers 1–2 Crawford Square were the first houses to be built, erected in 1865 for Samuel Knox, a building contractor, while the majority of the adjoining terrace was built for John McAdoo, a local seed merchant and landowner. Numbers 3–10 were designed by Robert Collins, Londonderry's Consulting Engineer from 1866 to 1874, and constructed by the building firm of G. & R. Ferguson, as recorded in the Irish Builder. Number 16, along with the adjoining numbers 13–15, was constructed in 1874–75. Although it is not known whether Collins was personally involved at this later stage, his original design was evidently followed closely: numbers 11–16 are almost identical to the earlier part of the terrace. On completion, number 16 was assigned a rateable value of £36.

Census of Ireland records indicate that the property was at some point acquired by Victoria High School, whose main building and boarding house were located at number 19 Crawford Square; it is likely that number 16 was used for additional classroom accommodation. The house had returned to domestic use by 1937, when William Russell Abernethy, the Medical Officer of Health for Londonderry Borough, occupied it as his private dwelling. Its rateable value remained at £36 at the close of the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland, completed in 1956–72.

Crawford Square was included in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area in 1978 as an area of special architectural or historic interest, and numbers 1–23 were subsequently listed in 1979. A 1970 Ulster Architectural Heritage Society guide described the terrace as "a fine terrace of three-storey rendered buildings on a sloping surface overlooking a tree-lined grassy square" with "well-modelled" houses featuring "two-storey height bay windows." Minor recorded alterations include sash window repairs and reslating of the rear return roof in 1988, followed by reslating of the main roof and the addition of new cast iron rainwater goods in 1993.