7 Clarendon St., Londonderry

7 Clarendon Street is a mid-terrace, two-bay, three-storey-with-attic red brick Georgian-style townhouse, built in 1861 in the city of Londonderry (Derry). It sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area on the south side of the street, forming part of a continuous terrace of twelve early to mid-Victorian townhouses. The house was originally constructed as a residential property and has since been converted to office use, currently serving as premises for a local solicitor's firm.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building is rectangular on plan with a modern projecting rear return. Its pitched roof is finished in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A large rendered chimney stack rises from the west side, centred on the ridge and fitted with seven clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and circular downpipes serve the front elevation.

The principal elevation faces north and is laid in Flemish brick bond. It is set behind a low rendered wall surmounted by painted non-original black metal railings. All windows to this elevation are six-over-six timber sliding sash windows with square-headed openings set within painted cement-rendered reveals and painted sills. The entrance doorway has a three-centred arch opening with a moulded cornice supported by columns of the Doric order to either side of a painted timber four-panelled door, with an Adam-style fanlight above. At ground floor level there is a single window to the right of the door. On the first and second floors there are two windows each, though these are not aligned with the ground floor openings.

The east and west elevations are abutted by the adjoining properties at Nos. 5 and 9 Clarendon Street respectively. The south rear elevation is rendered and three storeys with attic. To its right it is abutted by a modern three-storey pitched-roof return, built at half-landing height, which is itself further abutted by a modern three-storey pitched-roof block running parallel to the main building at the rear of the site. These modern additions have casement windows and are of no architectural interest. In the left bay of the main rear block, the ground floor has a single multi-pane replacement timber casement window, above which sit single six-over-six timber sliding sash windows to the first and second floors. The right bay of the main rear block is abutted by the modern return and the exposed section is blank.

Roof materials are natural slate. Rainwater goods are cast iron to the north and uPVC to the south. Walling is brick and render, and windows are timber throughout the original building.

The conversion to office use has resulted in some modernisation of the interior and the addition of the modern rear extension, but the original character of the building and much of its original detailing survive.

SETTING

The front of the property faces north onto Clarendon Street, bounded by the low rendered wall and black metal railings. The modern rear return and three-storey block enclose a small yard to the rear of the site. The house has group value with Nos. 5 and 9–73 Clarendon Street (excluding No. 53), a collection of early to mid-Victorian townhouses built over a twenty-one year period that together line the south side of the street.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The area now occupied by Clarendon Street was, as recorded by the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830, originally rural hinterland in the townland of Edenballymore. At that date, the city's built-up streets extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. The only significant structures north of the walls in the early 19th century were isolated institutional buildings — the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College — with little or no domestic architecture. As Robert Simpson noted in his Annals of Derry (1847), the district that would become Great James Street, William Street, Little James Street, and the surrounding lanes had originally comprised meadow ground without a house.

The development of housing in this area began in the late Georgian period and extended into the Victorian era. The laying out of Clarendon Street, Great James Street, and Queen Street followed the geometric street patterns characteristic of Georgian urban planning and represented the most ambitious town planning exercise in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619. This expansion was driven by significant growth in the economy and population of the city during the mid-19th century. John Hume records that during the period 1825 to 1850, reconstruction of buildings within the walls took place alongside the first development of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore.

The street appears on O'Hagan's 1847 plan of Londonderry under its original name, 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 second edition Ordnance Survey map confirms the name had changed to Clarendon Street by at least 1853.

Although the 1847 plan showed Clarendon Street extending from the quay up to Francis Street, only the lower section between the Strand Road and Queen Street had been laid out by 1853. Development proceeded slowly through the 1850s. In 1851, Skipton and Miller advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street, and Patrick Street to let in perpetuity. Griffith's Valuation of 1856 recorded only nine dwellings along the entire length of the street. Further leases for building ground on the northern side of the street were advertised in the same year.

Nos. 5–15 Clarendon Street, including No. 7, were constructed in 1861 as part of the second phase of the street's development. Nos. 5–9 were built for James McClure, a coachbuilder who had owned a factory on Foyle Street since 1852. McClure died in 1860 before the terrace was completed, but ownership passed to and remained with his family. Throughout its history, Clarendon Street was occupied principally by the city's merchant and professional classes.

In 1861, No. 7 was originally valued at £21 and occupied by a Miss Campbell. By 1901 it was the home of John Charles Orr, editor of the Londonderry Sentinel, one of the city's three main newspapers. The 1901 census building return described the property as a second-class dwelling containing eight rooms. Ownership of No. 7 remained with the McClure family until Edward Tinney purchased the building in 1920; Tinney had also acquired Nos. 5–9 Clarendon Street by 1935. The First General Revaluation recorded the property's value had increased to £33 by 1935, though by the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) this had fallen back to £22. By 1956 the valuer noted that the house had been partially converted into a private medical surgery for a Dr D. Doherty.

In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets 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. 7 Clarendon Street was listed in 1979.

In 1992 the building suffered light damage from a bomb blast, which shattered the glazing and destroyed the original sliding sash frames and glazing bars. The current three-storey office extension to the rear was added in 1997. In the same year the building underwent extensive renovation, including the reslating of the roof, the installation of the current Georgian-style casement windows, and the installation of the current gates and railings to the front.

The only building in the Clarendon Street area that predates the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house constructed around 1815, which Calley describes as a pleasing composition that opens a gap in the long terraces. By the late 20th century, few of the mid-Victorian townhouses along Clarendon Street remained in residential use; the majority had been converted to offices for local dentists, solicitors, and accountancy firms.