9 De Burgh Terrace, Academy Road, Londonderry

9 De Burgh Terrace is a Late Victorian mid-terraced house built around 1889, forming part of a uniform row of seventeen similar houses set on the north side of De Burgh Terrace, Londonderry. The terrace occupies an elevated position on the western side of the River Foyle, to the north-west of the town centre, and is 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. The houses face south onto long, sloping raised front gardens, with small rear yards accessed from a shared lane running the full length of the terrace.

The house is two-bay, two-storey with a dormer attic, built in red brick in a Georgian style. It is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. The roof is a pitched slate covering with a wall-head dormer to the front, terracotta ridge tiles, and a large brick chimney stack rising from the east side, centred on the ridge and fitted with six clay pots. Bracketed eaves run beneath the main roof, and the dormer features a decorative bargeboard. Cast-iron guttering and a circular downpipe serve the front elevation.

The principal south-facing elevation is laid in Flemish bond brick with a painted rendered plinth. At ground floor level there is a canted bay fitted with square-headed painted 2/2 sliding sash windows with horizontally divided panes and ogee horns. The entrance doorway sits within a segmental arched opening beneath a moulded cornice supported by scrolled console brackets with acanthus leaf detail on pilasters. The door itself is a painted timber four-panelled design with a plain fanlight above. At first floor level the windows are segmental-headed painted 2/2 sliding sash, with coupled lights above the bay and a single light above the doorcase. A continuous projecting sill course runs across the first floor. The second-floor dormer, positioned above the bay, contains a pair of round-headed painted 1/1 sliding sash windows. The north elevation is rendered, with a three-storey rear return. The rear windows are 2/2 timber sliding sash at ground and first floor levels and 1/1 timber sliding sash at second floor and in the rear return, along with a small attic dormer to the east side. The north boundary of the yard is defined by a concrete blockwork wall with an up-and-over garage door spanning almost the full width. The street boundary to the south is formed by a rendered masonry wall with a precast concrete coping and a timber fence with a timber gate, with steps rising to garden level. No. 9 is flanked on each side by its listed neighbours, Nos 8 and 10 De Burgh Terrace.

Despite the replacement boundary wall and boarded timber fencing at the main entrance, the exterior has retained its character, style, and proportion. The plan form is largely intact and much of the original interior fabric survives. In 1987 the house underwent a renovation that included the reslating of the roof.

The historical background to the terrace is well documented. A town plan of around 1873 records that De Burgh Terrace was originally laid out in the 1870s, though the street was then unnamed and had no buildings. Construction did not begin until 1889. The terrace formed part of the northward expansion of Londonderry, following the earlier establishment of Georgian-style terraces along Great James Street, Queen Street, and Clarendon Street during the 1830s to 1860s. That northward expansion was constrained by the walls of the Lunatic Asylum, which pushed new development to the north-west onto picturesque hill sites overlooking the Foyle, including Crawford Square, laid out in the 1860s to 1870s. Nos 1–17 De Burgh Terrace were developed by Ulick James Daly, a civil servant and gentleman who resided at Eccles Street in Dublin. He originally submitted plans in 1888 for eighteen houses but only seventeen were ever built. The terrace was constructed in stages between 1889 and 1894, with Nos 1–8 being the first completed. Annual Revision records confirm that Nos 9 and 10 were constructed in 1891 and were each valued at £15 — one pound higher than Nos 1–8, on account of their possessing an additional room. The majority of the completed houses were leased by the Daly family, and records show that ownership of No. 9 remained with them until at least 1972, by which point the house's assessed value had risen to £35. The houses were intended as residences for the city's professional and merchant classes. The first recorded occupant of No. 9 was David Thompson, a local corn merchant, whose house was described in the 1911 census building return as a first-class dwelling.

Nos 1–17 De Burgh Terrace were listed in 1979. De Burgh Terrace was not included within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area when it was originally designated in 1978, but the area was extended in 2006 primarily to incorporate the terrace. It is now designated as an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. No. 9, together with the adjoining listed buildings in De Burgh Terrace, carries group value and is considered among the most important buildings within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.