14 Queen'S St., Londonderry

14 Queen Street, Londonderry

This is a mid-terrace, three-storey, three-bay over-basement Georgian-style red brick former townhouse, built around 1856. It forms one of a terrace of four closely matched houses lining the west side of Queen Street, and the group has considerable collective architectural value. The building sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, where it makes a significant contribution to the historic character of the streetscape. The listing covers the former house and the railings to the front.

Exterior

The principal elevation faces east onto Queen Street and is constructed in red brick laid in Flemish bond with cement pointing. It sits behind a low rendered plinth wall with a sandstone coping and decorative painted cast iron railings. All window openings have square-headed flat-cut brick arches set on painted masonry sills. On the ground floor, the bay to the right of the entrance doorway contains a 6-over-6 timber sliding sash window; the first and second floors also have 6-over-6 timber sliding sash windows. A continuous sandstone string course runs along the ground floor level.

The entrance doorway is the most distinguished feature of the façade. It is slightly recessed, with an elliptical arch head, engaged fluted columns of the Doric order on either side, and a raised-and-fielded four-panel painted timber door. Above the door is a projecting entablature and an elliptical fanlight with timber glazing bars. The door is reached by six steps up from the pavement.

The basement is finished in smooth painted render, with steps down to the left of the main door, replacement timber casement windows, and a modern timber door. A large central roof dormer sits above the main elevation, with a timber front, slated sides, a slated pitched roof, and a 6-over-3 replacement uPVC window. A painted render flat band runs at eaves level.

The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A red brick chimney stack with clay pots rises from the south side at the front. Cast iron half-round guttering on iron drive-through brackets terminates at a cast iron hopper and a circular downpipe to the front elevation.

Rear Elevation and Return

The west elevation to the rear is three storeys, built in hand-made red brick laid in English Garden Wall bond with cement pointing. The rear return is finished with a 6-over-6 timber sliding sash window at first floor level and a replacement uPVC window at second floor level. The return has a slated pitched roof and was built at half-landing height. Window openings at the rear are square-headed with plaster reveals on painted masonry sills. There is a single 6-over-6 timber sliding sash window at ground floor level and a replacement timber casement window at basement level. The rear roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and a large red brick chimney stack with ten terracotta clay pots rises from the south side. Cast iron guttering is carried on iron drive-through brackets.

The north and south sides of the building are abutted by No. 13 and No. 15 Queen Street respectively.

Setting

The house fronts directly onto the pavement on the west side of Queen Street. To the rear is a small yard enclosed by a schist wall, along with a large two-storey rear return. The building sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

Historical Background

Queen Street was originally laid out around 1840, with the first buildings in place by at least 1847. Its development, along with that of the adjoining Great James Street and Clarendon Street, was driven by a period of significant economic and population growth in Londonderry during the mid-19th century. As the historian John Hume has noted, between 1825 and 1850 reconstruction within the city walls took place alongside the first development of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 for the townland of Edenballymore shows that the Queen Street area was rural hinterland at that time, with the city's built extent reaching no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. The only significant structures in the area north of the walls in the early 19th century were isolated institutional buildings — the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College — with virtually no domestic architecture. The sole residential building predating the early Victorian development in the immediate area is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house built around 1815.

In his Annals of Derry, published in 1847, Robert Simpson recorded that all the land later covered by Great James Street, William Street, Little James Street, and the surrounding lanes had originally been open meadow ground without a single house. Development of the area began in the late Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era, with uniform rows of three-storey townhouses establishing a new and fashionable district that quickly became home to 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 townscape project in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619.

O'Hagan's contemporary plan of Londonderry (1847) recorded the street as "Queen's Street" and noted that at least twelve houses had been built along it by that date. Nos. 1–8 and nos. 9–12 Queen Street are among the earliest terraced dwellings in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, having been built by at least 1847. Queen Street was the second major new street in the area, following Great James Street, which had been laid out around 1833.

The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853 did not yet show the terrace of nos. 13–16 Queen Street, but construction followed almost immediately. No. 14 was built between 1853 and 1856, when it first appeared in Griffith's Valuation. The adjoining No. 13 had been completed by the same time, though Nos. 15 and 16 were not built until roughly a decade later. Griffith's Valuation records that No. 14 was built on land owned by Henry Ridley, manager of the Londonderry Gas Works, and was originally valued at £48. The first recorded occupant was John Hunter, a local wool merchant, as noted in the Ulster Town Directories.

The households of Queen Street throughout its history were drawn from the city's merchant and professional classes. By the time of the 1911 census, No. 14 was occupied by Alexander Craig, a mechanical engineer. The census building return described it as a first-class dwelling with twelve rooms and a stable or coach house as its sole outbuilding. The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1935) records ownership by a Mr. Joseph Stevenson, who also owned No. 13. The house was valued at £49 in 1935, subsequently reduced to £42 by the end of the Second Revaluation period of 1956–72.

In 1970, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's guide to Derry described nos. 13–16 Queen Street as "a fine dignified Georgian terrace of four three-storey houses with attics … each entrance approached by a flight of steps spanning a basement area … the whole is finished with a neat trim railing." In 1978, the Department of the Environment designated the mid-19th century streets and terraces of Queen Street, Great James Street, and Clarendon Street as a Conservation Area, and nos. 13–16 Queen Street were listed the following year in 1979.

Writing in 2013, Calley described the terrace as one that "vies with nos. 20–23 Crawford Square and nos. 56–60 Northland Road as the finest in the city," noting that the houses are "a little later than nos. 9–12 and are somewhat grander versions of them. Each is three-and-a-half-storey over basement, three-bay of dark brick. The wide doorways are reached up stone steps which span over basement wells edged with period fleur-de-lys topped railings. They have good timber panel doors … nos. 13–14 have Tuscan columns whilst the others have Ionic columns [and] each have a single gabled dormer."

Renovation work was carried out by 1998, when the roof was reslated, the rainwater goods replaced, the chimney brickwork repointed, and the glazing and entrance door replaced. Few of the mid-19th century townhouses along Queen Street remain in residential use today; the majority of the three-storey buildings were converted into offices for dentists, solicitors, and accountancy firms during the late 20th century.