5 Clarendon St., Londonderry

No. 5 Clarendon Street is a mid-Victorian end-of-terrace townhouse of two bays and three storeys with an attic, built in red brick in a Georgian style in 1861. It stands at the junction of Clarendon Street and North Edward Street, on the south side of the street, within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area in Londonderry. The house was built as part of a group — Nos. 5–15 Clarendon Street — constructed in the same year as the second phase of the street's development. It has group value with Nos. 7–73 Clarendon Street (excluding No. 53), a row of early to mid-Victorian townhouses of similar character built over a twenty-one year period that line the entire south side of the street. Although a number of the windows are replacements, the building retains its original character and much of its external detailing.

The building is rectangular on plan with an extended rear return. Its principal elevation faces north and is set behind a low rendered wall enclosing a small hard-surfaced area.

The roof is pitched natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A large cement-rendered chimney stack rises from the east gable, centred on the ridge and fitted with seven clay pots. uPVC guttering serves the front and rear elevations.

The principal north elevation is laid in Flemish brick bond with painted chamfered corner quoin stones to the left. The entrance doorway has a three-centred arch opening with a moulded cornice supported by Doric-order columns to either side. The door itself is a painted timber four-panelled door with a plain fanlight above. All window openings are square-headed with painted cement-rendered reveals and painted sills. To the left of the door at ground floor level are paired diminished 1/1 timber sliding sash windows — the top sashes are diminished — set with a shared sill. To the first and second floors there are two 6/6 timber sliding sash windows at each level; these upper-floor openings are not aligned with the ground-floor openings below.

The east gable elevation, which faces onto North Edward Street, is finished in roughcast render with painted chamfered corner quoin stones to the right. At ground floor level, far left, there is a diminutive uPVC casement window, and off-centre to the left a 6/6 timber sliding sash window. At first floor level, far left, there is a 2/2 timber sliding sash window, with a uPVC casement window directly above it at second floor level. A diminutive window sits at attic level, far right. The west elevation is abutted by the adjoining No. 7 Clarendon Street.

The south rear elevation is three storeys with an attic. The left bay is brick, with a small single-storey lean-to extension at ground level; the right bay is finished in painted smooth render and is abutted by a large pitched-roof three-storey return that joins at half-landing height. In the left bay, the first floor has a single 6/6 timber sliding sash window and the second floor has a single diminutive 1/1 timber sliding sash window; the ground floor was not visible at the time of survey. The exposed section of the right bay is blank. The east face of the rear return has a flush door to the far right, a square-headed opening with a modern steel gate to the far left, and three irregularly spaced casement windows with grills between them. The first and second floors of this face have five evenly spaced uPVC casement windows. The west face of the rear return similarly has five evenly spaced uPVC casement windows to the first and second floors, with the ground floor not visible at the time of survey. The south gable retains the remnants of a two-storey extension that has been mostly demolished; a blocked-up door opening survives at first floor left of centre, and a further blocked-up and rendered opening survives at third floor left.

The house was built in 1861 as part of a terrace of five properties — Nos. 5–9 Clarendon Street — constructed for James McClure, a coach builder who owned a factory on Foyle Street and is recorded in the Ulster Town Directory of 1852. McClure died in 1860 before the terrace was completed, but ownership remained with his family after his death. No. 5 was valued at £35 in 1861, considerably higher than the adjoining buildings, reflecting its greater size: its larger rear return gave it more floor space, and the side elevation follows the line of North Edward Street, which meets Clarendon Street at an angle.

Clarendon 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 renaming is confirmed by the second edition of the Ordnance Survey map, which records the street under its new name by at least 1853.

The street was laid out as part of a broader mid-19th century expansion of the city driven by growth in the economy and population of Londonderry. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 shows the Clarendon Street area as rural hinterland in the townland of Edenballymore, with urban development at that date extending no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. The only significant buildings north of the walls in the early 19th century were isolated institutions such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College, with little domestic architecture in the vicinity. The sole building in the area predating the Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house of around 1815. Writing in The Annals of Derry (1847), Robert Simpson recorded that the district now covered by Great James Street, William Street, and the surrounding lanes had originally been meadow ground without a house. The initial development of housing in this area began in the late Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era, with uniform rows of three-storey townhouses establishing a new, affluent quarter that 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 represented the most ambitious programme of town planning in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619.

A plan of Londonderry published in 1847 showed Clarendon Street extending from the quay up to Francis Street, but only the lower section between the Strand Road and Queen Street had been laid out by 1853. Development progressed slowly during the 1850s: in 1851 building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street, and Patrick Street was advertised to let in perpetuity by Skipton and Miller, and Griffith's Valuation of 1856 recorded only nine dwellings along the entire length of the street. Additional leases for building ground on the northern side were advertised in 1856, leading to the second phase of construction, of which No. 5 forms a part.

Throughout its history the occupants of Clarendon Street were drawn from the merchant and professional classes. In 1901 No. 5 was occupied by Robert Spiers, a local shirt factory manager; the census building return described it as a second-class dwelling of six rooms. Ownership remained with the McClure family until Edward Tinney purchased the building in 1920, subsequently acquiring Nos. 7–9 by 1935. The First General Revaluation recorded the value of No. 5 at £31 in 1935. Between 1935 and 1956 the former dwelling was partially converted into a surgery for Dr. J. Mitchell and Dr. H. Lindsay, who also resided at the property. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the total value of the property had risen to £47. In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets as a Conservation Area, defined as an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. No. 5 was subsequently listed in 1979.

In 1992 the building suffered light damage from a bomb explosion, which shattered the glazing and destroyed the original sliding sash frames and glazing bars. The building was repaired that year and the current Georgian-style windows were installed at that time. The building, which is currently in use as office premises, is one of relatively few properties on Clarendon Street not to have been converted for professional office use in the late 20th century — though it too has undergone that change. Most of the mid-Victorian townhouses on the street now serve local dentists, solicitors, and accountancy firms.