16 De Burgh Terrace, Academy Road, Londonderry

No. 16 De Burgh Terrace is a late-Victorian mid-terraced townhouse built around 1889, situated on the north side of De Burgh Terrace within a uniform elevated row of seventeen similar houses. The principal elevation faces south onto a long sloping raised garden. Together with the adjoining listed buildings in De Burgh Terrace, it has group value and is considered among the most important buildings within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. Despite some modification to the internal layout, many original features remain intact and the exterior has largely retained its character, style and proportion, making it a fine example of its period.

The house is two-bay and two-storey with a dormer attic, Georgian in style, and rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. It is built in red brick.

The principal south-facing elevation is laid in Flemish bond brick with a painted rendered plinth. The ground floor features a canted bay with square-headed painted 2/2 sliding sash windows with horizontally divided panes and ogee horns. The entrance doorway has a segmental arched opening with a moulded cornice supported by scrolled console brackets with acanthus leaf detail on pilasters, painted two-panel timber double-leaf doors, and a plain fanlight above. At first floor level the windows are segmental-headed painted 2/2 sliding sash, with coupled windows above the bay and a single light above the doorcase. A continuous projecting sill course runs across the first floor. The second-floor dormer, situated above the bay, contains a pair of round-headed painted 1/1 sliding sash windows and is finished with a decorative bargeboard. The main roof has bracketed eaves. The roof is pitched and slated with clay ridge tiles, and a large brick chimney stack rises from the east side, centred on the ridge and fitted with six clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and a circular downpipe serve the front elevation, with uPVC rainwater goods to the rear.

The north elevation is rendered and painted, with a two-storey rear return and a small attic dormer to the east side. Ground floor windows are 6/6 sliding sash; upper floors and the return are fitted with 2/2 timber sliding sash windows, except for uPVC casements to the north face at first floor level.

The east and west sides abut the adjoining properties No. 15 and No. 17 De Burgh Terrace respectively. Access to the rear yard is from a shared lane. The western boundary is defined by a random schist stone wall, which is incorporated into a single-storey mono-pitched slate-roofed outhouse within the yard. The eastern boundary is a smooth rendered wall with concrete coping and a sheeted timber gate. The southern boundary wall is smooth rendered with a concrete coping and a painted metal gate of modern date.

The house underwent extensive repairs in 1985, including the re-slating of the roof in European slate, the reconstruction of the red brick chimney, the repointing of the exterior brickwork, and the replacement of the original entrance door.

De Burgh Terrace was laid out in the 1870s, as recorded on the valuation town plan of around 1873, though the street was unnamed and had no buildings at that time. The first houses were not built until 1889. The terrace formed part of Londonderry's northward expansion during the 19th century, following the establishment of Georgian-style terraces along Great James Street, Queen Street and Clarendon Street in the 1830s to 1860s. Further northward expansion was blocked by the walls of the Lunatic Asylum, so new terraces — including Crawford Square and De Burgh Terrace — were erected to the north-west, on picturesque hill sites overlooking the River Foyle. The development of large terraces around a central garden or square has been described as the city's delayed response to Dublin's garden squares, creating a green oasis for wealthy residents near the city centre.

Nos. 1–17 De Burgh Terrace, a row of uniform two-and-a-half-storey two-bay late-Victorian houses, was developed by Ulick James Daly, a civil servant and gentleman who resided at Eccles Street in Dublin. Daly originally submitted plans for eighteen houses in 1888, but only seventeen were ever built. The terrace was constructed in stages between 1889 and 1894, with Nos. 1–8 being the first completed. The majority of houses were leased by the Daly family following completion. Nos. 15–17 were constructed in 1894 and were valued at £15 each — £1 more than most of the adjoining terrace, as they possessed an additional room. The houses were designed as residences for the city's professional and merchant classes.

The first recorded occupant of No. 16 was a Mrs Davidson. By 1911 the house had passed to George Alexander Robinson, a local accountant. The 1911 Census Building Return described No. 16 as a first-class dwelling consisting of eleven rooms. The Daly family retained ownership until 1945, when the Londonderry Temperance Council purchased the lease; William J. Stirling, the council secretary, resided at No. 16 until his death in the 1950s. By the end of the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956–72), the rateable value of the house had risen to £33. Nos. 1–17 De Burgh Terrace were listed in 1979. De Burgh Terrace was not included in 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.

De Burgh Terrace is located immediately north-west of the town centre on the western side of the River Foyle, 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 of the terrace. 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.