41 Clarendon St., Londonderry

41 Clarendon Street is a mid-terrace, two-bay, three-storey with attic, red brick Georgian-style townhouse built in 1862. It forms part of an early-Victorian terrace and sits within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area on the south side of the street. The property has been converted to office use and internally linked with the adjoining No. 39, resulting in some modernisation, though much of the original internal detailing survives. It holds group value with Nos. 5–39 and 43–73 Clarendon Street (excluding No. 53), which together line the south side of the street and were built over a twenty-one year period.

Exterior and Plan

The house is rectangular on plan with a projecting rear return. The principal elevation faces north onto Clarendon Street and is set behind a low rendered wall with painted black decorative wrought-iron railings on a sandstone coping. The front elevation is laid in Flemish brick bond on a rendered plinth base. Window openings are square-headed throughout, and all windows on the principal elevation are six-over-six timber sliding sash — two at ground floor level, two at first floor, and two at second floor. The entrance doorway has an elliptical arched opening with a moulded cornice supported by scrolled corbel brackets with acanthus leaf detail on moulded pilasters, a painted timber door, and a plain arched fanlight above. The roof is a pitched slate roof with a single dormer to the front, black clay ridge tiles, and a large brick chimney stack rising from the east side, centred on the ridge with ten clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and circular downpipes serve the front elevation.

The east and west sides abut the adjoining Nos. 39 and 43 Clarendon Street respectively. The south elevation is also laid in Flemish brick bond and is three storeys with a rear return that has a door opening onto the rear yard. The fenestration on the rear is irregular: six-over-six timber sliding sash windows to the first and second floors, a six-over-three timber sliding sash window at attic floor level, and a replacement casement window to the second floor half-landing on the rear return. A modern cement rendered extension covers the ground and first floor levels of the rear return, and a small painted rendered single-storey extension with a slated lean-to roof sits to the east side of the rear elevation. The roof covering throughout is natural slate, with cast-iron rainwater goods to the front.

Historical Background

Clarendon Street was laid out in the early-Victorian period as part of a planned expansion of Londonderry beyond its walled core. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 recorded that the Clarendon Street area — in the townland of Edenballymore — was rural hinterland, and by that date urban development had extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street, and William Street. In the early 19th century, the only significant buildings north of the walls were isolated structures such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum, and Foyle College. The only building in the immediate area to predate the early-Victorian development was Foyle Cottage, a Regency house of around 1815, which opens a gap in the long terraces and which Calley described in 2013 as "a pleasing composition which offers a gentle rebuke to some of the exuberance of later nearby buildings."

As John Hume has noted, the period 1825–1850 saw "reconstruction of the city's buildings [within the walls] take place alongside the development, for the first time, of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore." Robert Simpson, writing in his Annals of Derry (1847), recorded that the district then covered by Great James Street, William Street, Little James Street and their surrounding lanes had originally comprised "meadow ground without a house." The development of Clarendon Street, Great James Street, and Queen Street followed a geometric street pattern characteristic of Georgian town planning, and represented the most ambitious town planning project in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city in 1613–19.

A contemporary plan of Londonderry dated 1847 — which depicted the proposed layout of Clarendon Street at least a decade before its completion — 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 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 that 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 advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street, and Patrick Street to be let in perpetuity. Griffith's Valuation of 1856 recorded only nine dwellings along the entire length of the street, and in that year additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side. Nos. 29–51 Clarendon Street were constructed in 1862 as part of the second phase of the street's development.

No. 41, along with the adjoining Nos. 43–51, was built for James Corscaden, a grain merchant with business premises on Shipquay Place, and was originally valued at £30 in 1862. Corscaden retained ownership of Nos. 41–43 until 1894, when a Mr. James Fleming took possession of the pair. By 1935 the First Revaluation recorded that No. 41 had been purchased by a Mr. Herbert Neill and its value increased to £38. In 1901 the house was occupied by Robert Neill, a local draper with premises on Shipquay Street; the census building return of that year described it as a first-class dwelling comprising ten rooms.

The building continued in residential use until 1968, when Margaret Brown — owner from 1956 — converted it into a hairdressing salon, increasing its valuation to £52. In 1978, the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street 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. 41 was listed in 1979. In 1987, Nos. 39 and 41 were combined into a single office premises; the subsequent renovation included reslating of both roofs, repointing of the brickwork, and the erection of new railings and boundary walls. At the time of the second survey, No. 41 was in use as offices by a solicitor's firm.

In 2013, Calley described Nos. 41–51 as "three-and-a-half-storey, two-bay terrace houses [which] unlike those opposite have an extra window bay on the ground floor. The principal difference is that they have roof dormers facing the street and instead of doorway Doric columns the entablatures are supported by scrolled brackets."

Setting and Significance

The house forms an integral part of a row of twelve mid-Victorian townhouses lining the south side of Clarendon Street, itself part of the broader terrace of Nos. 5–73 built over a twenty-one year period. The well-preserved setting within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area adds to its interest. Together, these terraces represent the mid-19th century expansion of Londonderry and the growth of a prosperous residential district favoured by the city's merchant and professional classes. No. 41 is a noteworthy example of the type of property built during this period of economic and population growth.