6 Bayview Terrace, Asylum Road, Londonderry

6 Bayview Terrace, Asylum Road, Londonderry

This is a mid-Victorian mid-terraced house, built in 1870 to an unknown architect's design, forming part of Bayview Terrace — a row of seven three-and-a-half-storey houses of similar type and style lining the south side of Asylum Road (Nos 1–7 Bayview Terrace). No. 6 sits between No. 5 to its west and No. 7 to its east, on the western side of the River Foyle within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. The building is currently in use as offices.

Architectural Overview

The house is three bays wide, three storeys tall with an attic and basement, rendered throughout, and sits on a rectangular plan facing north. The ground floor of the front elevation is finished with rendered banded rustication. To the rear there is a three-storey rendered return and a two-storey outbuilding accessed from that return. The pitched natural slate roof carries two small dormers — one to the front, one to the rear — and a two-stage rendered and brick chimney stack topped with terracotta clay pots. The eaves have a timber fascia and slightly overhanging timber soffit. Rainwater is collected by moulded uPVC guttering discharging to a circular uPVC downpipe on the north elevation.

Front (North) Elevation

The ground floor is rendered with banded rustication. A continuous painted sill course runs across the full width of the elevation at first-floor level. The window openings are square-headed with moulded architrave surrounds and contain 1/1 double-hung timber sliding sash windows with moulded horns. Two window bays are positioned to the right of a recessed elliptical arched door opening, which is reached by five steps up and flanked by rendered square pilasters with an entablature above. The doorway has a plain fanlight over a pair of replacement timber single-panel round-headed doors, themselves framed by moulded square pilasters of the Doric order and a moulded entablature above. The front stone steps have painted handrails on either side. Centred on the main roof above the front elevation is a small pitched-roof dormer with slated cheeks, a segmental arched timber casement window set within a timber fascia and framing.

Rear (South) Elevation

The rear elevation is finished in smooth unpainted render. Window openings on each floor are square-headed and fitted with 1/1 timber sliding sash windows; the attic-level wall dormer has a 2/2 double-hung sliding sash. A PVC soil pipe runs the full height of the elevation to the left of the windows.

The three-storey rear return has a pitched slate roof with black ridge tiles and uPVC rainwater goods. On its west elevation, the ground floor has a door with side-light and top-light on the left-hand side, a timber casement window with metal bars on the right, and 3/3 timber sliding sash windows to the first and second floor levels on the left side. The south elevation of the return has a boarded window with a metal grille at ground floor level. The east elevation has an irregular fenestration pattern: at first-floor level there is a single 6/6 timber sliding sash window to the left and a timber casement window to the far right; at second-floor level there are three timber casement windows, one larger opening to the left and two smaller ones towards the right. The east elevation at ground-floor level was not visible at the time of survey.

Outbuilding

To the rear of the site is a stone outbuilding forming part of the stepped row of outbuildings associated with the houses of Bayview Terrace. The outbuilding's north elevation is built in stone rubble with red brick detailing and more recent rendered sections; at ground floor there is a timber flush door and three timber casement windows (one to the right of the door and two above, aligned with the openings below), with a rendered skew to the gable and an up-stand of asbestos-sheeted roof. The south elevation is of rendered painted finish; to the left at ground-floor level is a large, altered, deeply recessed rectangular blind opening with a metal door at the extreme left, and above it at first-floor level is a deeply recessed opening with vertically sheeted timber boarding; the right-hand side of this elevation is blank. The outbuilding has uPVC rainwater goods throughout.

Interior

Some historic detailing survives internally and the original plan form remains largely intact. In 1911 the property was described in the census building return as a first-class dwelling consisting of eleven rooms.

Materials

The roof is natural slate; rainwater goods are uPVC throughout. External walling is painted render. Windows on the front and rear elevations are timber sliding sashes; casement windows appear on the rear return and outbuilding.

Historical Context

Bayview Terrace was first recorded in the Annual Revisions in 1870 and first depicted on the 1873 Ordnance Survey map of Londonderry. Asylum Road itself predates 1830 and is therefore older than the surrounding streets of the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, which were laid out between around 1837 and the 1860s. The road originally formed the southern boundary of the Londonderry District Lunatic Asylum, built between 1825 and 1829. The asylum was demolished in the 1960s, but the perimeter wall of locally quarried Derry Schist still stands opposite Bayview Terrace, marking the original boundary of the institution. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853 records no buildings along Asylum Road at that date. The first houses to be built there — Nos 1–13 Asylum Road, at the top of the hill — were erected around 1860, contemporaneously with the Georgian-style terraces along Queen Street and Clarendon Street. Nos 1–7 Bayview Terrace were built approximately a decade later and display a more distinctly Victorian character than those Georgian-style neighbours. Ornate features of the terrace include door frames with Doric columns and entablatures; Nos 1, 4, and 7 Bayview Terrace also possess bay windows with entablatures bearing fretwork frieze decorations. The terrace was named Bayview on account of its proximity to the banks of the Foyle, which originally afforded the houses a scenic view over Rosses Bay; subsequent land reclamation and building development on the eastern side of the Strand Road has since removed that view.

The terrace was built on land owned by Harvey Nicholson, a local magistrate and Justice of the Peace, though the architect is not known. No. 6 was originally valued at £45, with Matthew McClelland — a local magistrate and builder — recorded as landlord. The McClelland family continued as landlord until at least the 1970s. As with the neighbouring streets, the townhouses of Bayview Terrace became residences of Londonderry's professional and merchant classes. The first recorded occupant of No. 6 was a Mr Stewart Christie. By 1901 the house had passed to William Gailey, a local stationer and newsagent with business premises on Waterloo Place. A Ms Kathleen Nerrie occupied the house from the 1930s until 1968, as recorded in the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57). By the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72) the total rateable value of the building had fallen to £40.

In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Bayview Terrace and the surrounding streets a Conservation Area, described as "an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance." No. 6 Bayview Terrace was subsequently listed in 1979.

Alterations

The building underwent extensive renovation in 1999, which included the construction of new dormer windows, re-slating of the roof, and installation of new sliding sash windows.

Setting

The house sits on the south side of Asylum Road behind a stone plinth wall. The main entrance is approached by a flight of concrete pavior steps and is set within the terrace row of seven houses of similar type and style, all facing north within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. The group value of the terrace as a whole is a significant part of the character of this building and its setting.