43 Clarendon Street, Londonderry, County Londonderry, BT48 7ER

43 Clarendon Street is an early Victorian mid-terrace townhouse built in 1862, forming part of a unified row of Georgian-style brick houses lining the south side of Clarendon Street in the Edenballymore townland of Londonderry. It was constructed alongside Nos. 29–41 and 45–51 as the second phase of development along this street, and it shares group value with the wider terrace of Nos. 5–41 and 45–73 (excluding No. 53), which were built over a twenty-one year period. The house sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, and its well-preserved setting contributes significantly to its interest.

Architectural Description

The house is two bays wide and three storeys tall with an attic, rectangular in plan with a projecting rear return. The principal elevation faces north onto Clarendon Street and is set behind a low balustraded rendered wall topped with a painted concrete coping stone. The walling to the principal elevation is in Flemish brick bond on a painted rendered plinth base. All window openings are square-headed and fitted with 6-over-6 timber sliding sash windows, with two at ground floor level and two each at first and second floor levels. The entrance doorway has an elliptical arched opening with a moulded cornice supported by scrolled corbel brackets with acanthus leaf detail, set on moulded pilasters, with a painted timber door and an Adam-style fanlight above.

The roof is a pitched slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles to the main roof and to the front dormer. There is a single dormer to the front elevation and a rooflight on each side. A large brick chimney stack rises from the east side, centred on the ridge and fitted with ten clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and a circular downpipe serve the front elevation.

The east and west sides abut the adjoining Nos. 41 and 45 Clarendon Street respectively. The south elevation is also in Flemish brick bond and rises three storeys with a rear return; it has a door opening onto the rear yard. The fenestration pattern on the rear elevation is irregular, and all rear windows have been replaced with uPVC units. A modern Velux-type window has been inserted to the rear.

Historical Context

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early Victorian period as part of an ambitious programme of planned urban expansion beyond the historic city walls, described by historians as the most significant town planning exercise in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city in 1613–19. The area now occupied by Clarendon Street and the surrounding streets had been rural hinterland as recently as 1830, when the first edition Ordnance Survey map recorded no significant domestic buildings in the townland of Edenballymore. By that date, the city's street development had extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street and William Street, and the only notable structures north of the walls were isolated public buildings such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College. The sole surviving building in the area to predate the Victorian development is Foyle Cottage, a Regency house constructed around 1815.

Robert Simpson recorded in his Annals of Derry (1847) that the district covered by Great James Street, William Street, Little James Street and the surrounding lanes had originally comprised meadow ground without a house. A plan of Londonderry produced in 1847 depicted the proposed layout of Clarendon Street — referred to at that time as Ponsonby Street, after the Rt. Rev. Richard Ponsonby (1772–1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe — at least a decade before construction was completed. By the 1850s the street 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 new name was in use by at least 1853.

Construction on Clarendon Street began slowly. In 1851 Skipton and Miller had advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street and Patrick Street to let in perpetuity. Griffith's Valuation recorded only nine dwellings along the entire length of the street by 1856, and in that year further leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side. No. 43, along with the adjoining Nos. 41–51, was built in 1862 for James Corscaden, a grain merchant with business premises on Shipquay Place, as recorded in the Ulster Town Directories. The house was originally valued at £28. Corscaden retained ownership of Nos. 41 and 43 until 1894, when a Mr James Fleming took possession of the pair. By 1935 the First Revaluation of Northern Ireland recorded that No. 43 had been purchased by a Ms Margaret Brown and that its assessed value had risen to £35.

Throughout its history the occupants of Clarendon Street were drawn from the city's merchant and professional classes. In 1901 No. 43 was occupied by Dr William Alexander Frizell, a chemist with business premises in Waterloo Place; the census building return of that year described it as a first-class dwelling consisting of ten rooms. The house continued in use as a private dwelling until 1958, when Margaret Brown converted it into a private medical surgery, resulting in a further increase in valuation to £37.

Alterations and Listing History

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. 43 was subsequently listed in 1979. In 1999 the building underwent renovation work that included the reslating of the roof, the repointing of the exterior brickwork, and the replacement of all original sliding sash window frames. The rear windows have also been replaced with uPVC units, and a modern Velux-type window has been inserted at the rear, both of which detract from the building's overall integrity.

The house is currently in use as office premises for a local firm of accountants. Few of the mid-Victorian townhouses on Clarendon Street now remain in residential use, the majority having been converted to offices for solicitors, dentists and accountancy firms during the late 20th century.