73 Clarendon St., Londonderry

73 Clarendon Street, Londonderry

This is a Georgian-style, end-of-terrace, red brick townhouse of two bays and three storeys with a dormer attic, built in 1861. The architect is unknown. The building stands on the south side of Clarendon Street at its junction with Francis Street, in the townland of Edenballymore, within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. It was originally built as a residential dwelling and has been in office use since 1991. It was built as a pair with No. 71 Clarendon Street and shares group value with that property.

Architectural Description

The plan is rectangular with a projecting return to the rear. Although constructed in the Victorian period, the building adheres to the Georgian scale and form of earlier houses built in the same coloured brick further down the street.

The principal (north) elevation faces Clarendon Street and is set behind a low painted concrete block wall, which appears to have been built on the original plinth wall. The brickwork is in Flemish bond. Windows on the ground, first and second floors are square-headed, six-over-six timber sliding sashes. The attic dormer, which projects forward with a pitched roof, has a six-over-three timber sliding sash window. The entrance doorway has a segmental arch opening with a moulded cornice supported by a pair of columns, a plain fanlight above, and a painted timber door. A single roof dormer sits above eaves level, painted to the front and clad in vertical slate to its sides, with a slated pitched roof and a six-over-three timber sliding sash window.

The west elevation faces Francis Street, which runs perpendicular to Clarendon Street. This elevation is finished in unpainted render across both the main gable and the rear return, the latter projecting slightly forward of the gable end. All windows on this elevation are timber sliding sashes. The gable end is asymmetrical, with two windows to the right: a six-over-three at attic level and a six-over-six at first floor. The return has two windows on each of the ground and first floor levels — six-over-three to the first floor and six-over-six to the ground floor. A small rectangular ventilation opening sits below the window cill level on the far right.

The east side of the building is abutted by the adjoining No. 71 Clarendon Street.

The south (rear) elevation is three storeys tall with a pitched roof rear return to the right, which begins at half-landing level. The finish is smooth render, painted on the east face, with a door opening into the rear yard. The fenestration is irregular, comprising a mix of six-over-six sliding sash windows to the ground, first and second floors, and replacement timber casement windows to the return. The return of the property is abutted by No. 61 Francis Street, a two-storey house with attic whose roofline is similar to that of the return.

The main roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles; the return has red terracotta ridge tiles. A large red brick chimney stack rises from the east side, centred on the ridge, with six clay pots. Rainwater goods are cast iron to the north elevation and uPVC to the south, west and rear. Guttering throughout is uPVC.

Interior

The original plan form survives, and much of the historic fabric inside is intact, contributing to the building's special interest. The quality and survival of the interior is noted as a key element of its architectural interest.

Setting

No. 73 forms the end unit of a terrace of ten houses lining the south side of Clarendon Street, with the building's return facing onto Francis Street. Together with No. 71, it forms a pair at the junction end of the row. The terrace sits within a wider streetscape of similar neat rows of Georgian-style townhouses that step down in a strong linear formation towards the River Foyle. To the rear, the yard is enclosed by a combination of painted render and brick walls.

Historical Background

Clarendon Street and the surrounding area were laid out in the early Victorian period. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 shows that this part of the townland of Edenballymore was still rural hinterland at that time, with the city's developed streets extending no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street and William Street. The only significant buildings north of the walls prior to this expansion were isolated institutional structures such as Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College. The sole domestic building predating the Victorian development in the area is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house built around 1815.

Writing in 1847, Robert Simpson recorded in his Annals of Derry that the district later covered by Great James Street, William Street, Little James Street and their surrounding lanes had originally been meadow ground without a single house. Development of housing in the area began in the late Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era, with uniform rows of three-storey townhouses attracting the city's merchant and professional classes. The geometric street pattern of Clarendon Street, Great James Street and Queen Street was the most ambitious exercise in town planning in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619.

The street was originally named Ponsonby Street, 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 from 1847 to 1852. The second edition Ordnance Survey map confirms the name had changed to Clarendon Street by at least 1853. Construction of the first dwellings began around 1853, though by 1856 Griffith's Valuation recorded only nine dwellings along the entire length of the street. In 1851 Skipton and Miller had advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street and Patrick Street to let in perpetuity; a second phase followed in 1856 when additional leases were offered on the northern side of the street.

No. 73 was built in 1861 as part of this second phase of development, along with the adjoining No. 71, by a Mr James McCluskey. The house was originally valued at £26. Its first recorded occupant was Matthew Philson, headmaster and resident superintendent of Gwyn's Charitable Institution, as recorded in the Ulster Town Directories of 1861. By 1911 the house was occupied by Alexander Campbell, a local grain merchant; the census of that year described it as a first-class dwelling with seven inhabited rooms. By 1929 the house and its neighbour No. 71 had passed into the ownership of the Gosselin family, and by the time of the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935 a Ms Margaret Watson had acquired it. The rateable value stood at £37 by the end of the Second Revaluation, which ran from 1956 to 1972.

In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets a Conservation Area, describing it as an area of special architectural or historic interest whose character it is desirable to preserve or enhance. No. 73 was subsequently listed in 1979. A renovation was carried out in 1984 which included the reslating of the roof, the reconstruction of the dormer window, and the replacement of the original chimney. In 2013, the architectural historian D. Calley described nos 67–73 Clarendon Street as three-and-a-half-storey brick terrace houses, essentially the same in scale and form as nos 6–48, with the dormer windows on the rooflines being the most notable distinguishing feature. No. 73 was converted to office accommodation in 1991.