13 Queen'S St., Londonderry

13 Queen Street, Londonderry

This is a Grade B1 listed former townhouse, built between 1853 and 1856, forming the end-of-terrace unit of a row of four similar Georgian-style properties lining the west side of Queen Street. It stands at the junction of Queen Street and Clarendon Street, with its principal facade facing east onto Queen Street. The building has group value as part of this terrace and makes a significant contribution to the character of the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, which it sits within. The listing extends to the building itself, the decorative cast iron railings to the front, and a bootscraper.

Architectural Description

The building is Victorian in date but Georgian in style: a three-storey, three-bay structure over a basement, with an attic. It is rectangular on plan and has a three-storey projecting rear return. The roof is pitched natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. A red brick chimney stack with clay pots rises from the south side, and cast iron half-round guttering is carried on iron drive-through brackets.

The principal east-facing elevation is built in red brick laid in Flemish bond with cement pointing, set behind a low rendered plinth wall with a sandstone coping and painted decorative cast iron railings. All window openings have square-headed flat-cut brick arches on painted masonry sills. On the ground floor, the window bays are aligned with those above and are glazed with six-over-six timber sliding sash windows. The entrance doorway has an elliptical arch head, is slightly recessed, and is flanked by engaged fluted columns of the Doric order on either side. It features a raised-and-fielded four-panel painted timber door with a projecting entablature and an elliptical fanlight with timber glazing bars above. The door is reached by six steps up from the pavement. First and second floor windows are six-over-six timber sliding sashes. A continuous sandstone string course runs at ground floor level, and a painted render flat band sits at eaves level. A large central roof dormer with a timber front, slated cheeks, a slated pitched roof, and a six-over-three timber sliding sash window sits above.

The basement level is finished in smooth painted render, with steps down to the left of the front door, and has a replacement timber casement window and a door with a glazed sidelight panel.

The south elevation faces Clarendon Street, set back slightly from the pavement behind a narrow grass strip. It is finished in smooth unpainted render and has three six-over-six timber sliding sash windows at first floor level and two six-over-six timber sliding sash windows at second floor level. The north side abuts No. 14 Queen Street.

The rear west elevation is three storeys high, with handmade red brick walling laid in English Garden Wall bond with cement pointing. The window openings are square-headed with plaster reveals on unpainted masonry sills. There is a single six-over-six timber sliding sash window at ground floor level and a replacement timber casement window at basement level. The three-storey red brick rear return stands behind a schist stone boundary wall and has a symmetrical window pattern of six-over-six, six-over-three, and four-over-four timber sliding sash windows, with replacement timber casement windows at basement level and a replacement timber access door. Concrete steps rise from the basement yard to the left. A large red brick chimney at the top of the gable carries ten terracotta clay vented pots. Cast iron half-round guttering is fitted with both cast iron and uPVC downpipes.

The rear return roof is a slated pitched roof built at half-landing height, with no fenestration on the return's red brick rear face. The front elevation's cast iron guttering terminates at a cast iron hopper and a circular downpipe.

The setting includes a small rear yard enclosed by a schist stone wall, a modern masonry shed with a felt-covered flat concrete roof, and the large two-storey rear return.

Interior and Historic Detailing

Much of the original interior and exterior historic detailing has been retained. Of particular note is the fine doorcase with its projecting entablature and elliptical fanlight, as described above. The building retains sufficient original fabric to be considered among the finest examples of its type within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.

Historical Context

Queen Street was laid out around 1840, with the first houses built by at least 1847, as development expanded beyond the city walls during a period of significant economic and population growth in Londonderry during the mid-19th century. Robert Simpson recorded in his Annals of Derry (1847) that the entire district comprising Great James Street, William Street, Little James Street and their surrounding lanes had originally been meadow ground without a single house. The laying out of Queen Street, Great James Street, and Clarendon Street followed a geometric street pattern characteristic of Georgian town planning, and represented the most ambitious planning project in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city between 1613 and 1619. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 confirms that the Queen Street area was at that time rural hinterland, with urban development extending no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. The only notable building in the area predating early Victorian development was Foyle Cottage, a Regency house constructed around 1815.

The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853 did not yet show the terrace of Nos. 13 to 16 Queen Street, but construction commenced almost immediately afterwards. No. 13 was built between 1853 and 1856, and was first recorded in Griffith's Valuation of 1856, at which time it was valued at £50. The land on which it was built was owned by the Reverend Henry Wallace, Moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster in 1839. The first recorded occupant was David Cluff, manager of the nearby Londonderry Lunatic Asylum, as noted in contemporary Ulster Town Directories. Following Reverend Wallace's death in 1887, the property continued to be administered by his representatives until at least the 1930s. By 1911 the house was occupied by Robert J. Stevenson, a local rate collector and agent for the corporation, whose family remained in residence until at least the 1970s. The 1911 census building return described the property as a first-class dwelling of fourteen rooms with a stable as its sole outbuilding. Nos. 13 to 16 Queen Street were praised in the 1970 Ulster Architectural Heritage Society guide as "a fine dignified Georgian terrace of four three-storey houses with attics… each entrance approached by a flight of steps spanning a basement area… the whole finished with a neat trim railing." In 2013, Calley described the terrace as one that "vies with nos 20-23 Crawford Square and nos 56-60 Northland Road as the finest in the city," noting that Nos. 13 and 14 have Tuscan columns to their doorways while the others have Ionic columns, and that each house has a single gabled dormer.

Alterations

The First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in 1935 increased the rateable value of the house to £54, though the Second Revaluation of 1956 to 1972 reduced this to £41. Between 1935 and 1956 the building was partly converted into a private medical surgery for Dr. A. Kinsella. In 1979 the building was fully converted into office premises for the Lombard and Ulster Banking Company. Further alterations were carried out in 1986, when the building was treated for dry rot, new floors were installed throughout, and a new entrance door was fitted. The building is currently in use as office space for a local architects firm. Some alterations are noted as detracting from the building's character.

The Clarendon Street Conservation Area, within which this building sits, was designated by the Department of the Environment in 1978 as an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance. Nos. 13 to 16 Queen Street were listed in 1979.