9 Clarendon St., Londonderry

No. 9 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 forms part of the south side of Clarendon Street and has group value with Nos. 5–7 and 11–73 (excluding No. 53), a row of early to mid-Victorian townhouses built over a twenty-one-year period. The building has been converted to office use, resulting in some modernisation of the interior, but its original character and much of its original detailing survives. It lies within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, and its well-preserved setting adds to its interest.

ARCHITECTURE

The house is rectangular on plan with a modern projecting rear return. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and a large brick chimney stack rises from the west side, centred on the ridge and fitted with seven clay pots. Rainwater goods are cast iron.

The principal elevation faces north and is set behind a low painted rendered wall. It is built in Flemish brick bond. All windows are six-over-six timber sliding sash within square-headed openings, set within painted cement-rendered reveals with painted sills. The entrance doorway has a three-centred arch opening with a moulded cornice supported by Doric-order columns on either side of a painted timber four-panelled door, with a plain fanlight above. At ground floor there is a single window to the right of the door — a replacement for a former bay window removed in 1982 — while two windows appear at first and second floor levels, though these upper-floor openings are not aligned with the ground-floor window. The east and west elevations are abutted by the adjoining Nos. 7 and 11 Clarendon Street respectively.

The south (rear) elevation is rendered and also three storeys with attic. It has a painted smooth-rendered rear return to the right with a door opening onto the rear courtyard, and a single-storey lean-to extension with a natural slate roof to the left. Fenestration to the rear is irregular: six-over-six sliding sash windows appear at first and second floor levels, with casement windows at ground floor and to the rear return. The left bay of the main rear block has a single four-pane replacement timber casement window at the level of the single-storey lean-to extension, surmounted by single six-over-six timber sliding sash windows at first and second floors. The right bay is abutted by a two-storey pitched-roof return, built at half-landing height, surmounted by a single one-over-one timber sliding sash window.

The rear yard is enclosed by natural rubble walls. The remains of a lean-to building survive at the south end of the yard, though its roof and front wall are missing. A mono-pitched mews building to the rear has also lost both its roof and its front wall.

INTERIOR

Conversion to office use has resulted in some modernisation of the interior. Despite this, much of the original character and detailing survives.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period, with construction of the first dwellings beginning around 1853. The development of this street, along with Great James Street and Queen 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, the period 1825–1850 saw reconstruction within the walled city alongside the first development of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore.

The first edition of the Ordnance Survey map of 1830 for the townland of Edenballymore shows the Clarendon Street area as essentially rural hinterland, with the city's street development extending no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street and William Street at that time. In the early decades of the 19th century, the only significant buildings constructed north of the walls were isolated institutional structures such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum and Foyle College, with little or no domestic architecture in the area. The only building in the vicinity predating the early Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house of around 1815, which the architectural historian Calley described as "a pleasing composition which offers a gentle rebuke to some of the exuberance of later nearby buildings … one of its pleasant features is that it opens a gap in the long terraces."

Robert Simpson, in his Annals of Derry published in 1847, recorded that the area originally covered by Great James Street, William Street, Little James Street and nearby lanes had been "meadow ground without a house." Development of housing began in the late Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era. The construction of uniform rows of three-storey townhouses created a new affluent neighbourhood that rapidly 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 town-planning project in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619.

An 1847 plan of Londonderry depicted the proposed layout of Clarendon Street at least a decade before its completion, and recorded that the street was originally known as Ponsonby Street, named after the Right Reverend Richard Ponsonby (1772–1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. By the 1850s the name had been changed to Clarendon Street in honour of the Fourth Earl of Clarendon, George Villiers (1800–1870), Lord Lieutenant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. The second edition of the Ordnance Survey map confirms the renaming had taken place 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 progressed slowly through the 1850s: in 1851 Skipton and Miller had advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street and Patrick Street to be let in perpetuity, 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 of the street were advertised in the same year.

Nos. 5–15 Clarendon Street, including No. 9, 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 owned a factory on Foyle Street in 1852. McClure died in 1860 before the terrace was completed, but ownership remained with his family after his death. In 1861 No. 9 was originally valued at £21 and occupied by a Mr Robert Grier. By 1901 the house was occupied by Warren McCandless, a travelling merchant; the census building return described his residence as a second-class dwelling consisting of eight rooms. Ownership of No. 9 remained with the McClure family until at least 1931, but by the First General Revaluation of 1935 a Mr Edward Tinney had purchased Nos. 5–9 Clarendon Street. The rateable value was increased to £28 in 1935 and further raised to £30 under the Second General Revaluation of 1956–72. The building remained in domestic use through to the end of that revaluation period in 1972.

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. 9 Clarendon Street was subsequently listed in 1979.

ALTERATIONS AND CONDITION

In 1982, the original ground-floor bay window was removed and replaced with the current Georgian-style sliding sash window. A major renovation in 1985 involved reslating of the roof and repointing of the brickwork. In 1992 the building suffered light damage as a result of a bomb explosion at the bottom of Clarendon Street; the blast shattered the glazing and destroyed the original sliding frames and glazing bars. The building was later converted to office use, which has resulted in some modernisation of the interior, though original character and detailing largely survive.

In 2013, Calley described Nos. 5–9 as "a terrace of three-and-a-half storeys (although no dormers here) … Nos. 7–9 has a single ground floor window bay while No. 5 has two smaller bays."

SETTING

The house forms part of a row of twelve early to mid-Victorian townhouses lining the south side of Clarendon Street. The front of the property faces north and is set behind a low rendered wall enclosing a small hard-surfaced area between the house and the street. There is an enclosed yard to the rear. The building sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, and its well-preserved setting contributes to its overall interest and significance. Few of the mid-Victorian townhouses along Clarendon Street are now in residential use; the majority of three-storey buildings were converted to offices for solicitors, dentists and accountancy firms during the late 20th century. No. 9 is currently in use as office premises for the legal referral organisation Law Centre NI.