63 Claredon Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Victorian mid-terraced three-bay, three-storey over basment rendered terraced house with stucco detailing, built c.1874. Rectangular on plan with projecting return to rear with lean-to-roof and rear dormer to main pitched slated roof.

Principal elevation faces north set behind a low plinth wall with railings above. Built as part of a terrace row later, than the adjacent properties to the East and differing from the form of the majority of houses to Clarendon Street which is dominated by two bay brick houses. No. 63 is similar in expression to No.65 Clarendon Street (HB01/21/005CC) and was built at the same time.

Round arch opening to slight recessed entrance doorway with moulded embellishment supported by a pair of pilasters painted in the same colour colour. The pilasters are topped with a projecting cornice detail supported on acanthus leaf detail with a stucco grape bunch to the head of the arch formed in arched stucco architrave. The doors are paired half leaf timber two-panelled to the opening with a plain fanlight above and the entrance is three steps up from pavement.

All windows to the principal facade are 1/1 timber sliding sash with horns; two-storey canted bay with square headed openings rising from basment to first floor; first floor window directly above entrance door has square-headed opening with cornice hood. The second floor is composed of three round arched arched windows, with a single window above the main entrance door and a pair of windows above the two storey bay. A single square-headed casment window has replaced the original window within the front face of the canted bay; the window openings to the splayed walls to both sides are infilled, rendered and painted.

Additional stucco embellishments include moulded architraves around single square headed window to first floor which also has a projecting hood mould cornice supported on decorative console brackets. A projecting cornice spanning the width of the elevation divides the ground floor from the first with a similar detail to the top of the canted bay. The round-headed arched windows to second floor are embellished in a similar way to the first floor windows below and consist of a projecting string course at cill level. Stucco Quoins to NE end of elevation mirroring the detailing to adjacent building No.65 (HB01/21/005CC).

Pitched natural slate roof, black clay ridge tiles and large red-brick chimney stack rising from the East side, centred on ridge with 6 clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and painted circular downpipe to the front. Projecting eaves supported on corbel brackets.

To the West of the building is the other half of this pair of similarly designed dwellings – No. 65 Clarendon Street (HB01/21/005CC).

The south elevation is three-storey render (unpainted) with lean-to return to left with slated roof (Bangor Blues). Small flat-roofed dormer window to the rear of the main pitched slated roof, containing a fire exit door that opens on to an external steel escape stair within the yard. The fenestration pattern is irregular with glazed fire screens inserted in place of former windows and a few sliding sash windows remaining to the main building, at half-landing level. The lean-to is abutted by a later two-storey (over basement) pitched roof return with artificial roof slates, black clay ridge tiles and wet-dash render to walls; openings are generally timber casements, informally arranged. A further external steel fire stairs from the southern-most end of the later return descends from ground floor to basment level within to the yard.

The East side is adjoined to No.61 Clarendon St (HB01/21/005AA), which is lower in height to reflect the steep slope of the street. Above the abutment with the roof to the lower house, there are two square-headed casement windows at attic level within the gable; exposed wall is smooth rendered (unpainted) to either side of a red-brick chimney stack that is centred on the apex.

Materials:
Roof : Natural Slate
RWG : Cast Iron (N) / uPVC (S)
Walling: Render, smooth painted (N) / Render, smooth unpainted with wet-dash to later return (S)
Windows : Timber Sliding Sash (N) / Timber casement (S)

Setting:
Built as part of a pair of two Victorian townhouses which line the south side of Clarendon Street, No. 63-65 (HB01.22.005CC) are set in a terrace of ten which lines the south side of Clarendon Street, between Princes Street and Francis Street and located within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area. The front of the property is set behind a low rendered wall enclosing the basement level.

Historical information

Clarendon Street, characterised by its long terraces of Georgian-style townhouses, was laid out in the early-Victorian period with the construction of the first dwellings commencing in c. 1853. The laying out of similar terraced dwellings on Great James Street and Queen Street was necessitated by a period of growth in the economy and population of Londonderry that occurred in the mid-19th century. John Hume notes that during the period 1825-1850 ‘reconstruction of the city’s buildings [within the walls] took place alongside the development, for the first time, of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore’ (Hume, p. 147).

The first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1830) for the townland of Edenballymore records that the Clarendon Street area was originally rural hinterland with few significant structures. In 1830 the development of the city’s streets had extended no further than Waterloo Place, Abbey Street and William Street. In the first decades of the 19th century the only major construction north of the walls had been isolated buildings such as the Londonderry Infirmary, the Lunatic Asylum and Foyle College (HB01/22/016) with little or no domestic architecture being erected in the same period. The only building in the area that predates the early-Victorian development is Foyle Cottage (HB01/21/006), a Regency house constructed c. 1815 and which, according to Calley, is ‘a pleasing composition which offers a gentle rebuke to some of the exuberance of later nearby buildings … one of it’s pleasant features is that it opens a gap in the long terraces’ (Calley, p. 116).

In The Annals of Derry, a survey of the city compiled by Robert Simpson and published in 1847, Simpson recorded that ‘all the district now covered by Great James’s Street, William Street, Little James Street … and the numerous lanes in that vicinity [originally comprised] meadow ground without a house’ (Simpson, p. 213). The initial development of housing in this area began in the late-Georgian period and continued into the Victorian era. With the construction of uniform rows of neat and charming three-storey townhouses, a new affluent area was established that swiftly became the residence of the city’s merchant and professional classes. The laying out of Clarendon Street, Great James Street and Queen Street followed a geometric street pattern which was characteristic of Georgian street development; the development signified the most ambitious project of town planning carried out in Londonderry since the construction of the walled city in the years 1613-19.

The contemporary 1847 plan of Londonderry, which depicted the proposed layout of Clarendon Street at least a decade before it was actually completed, recorded that the street was originally known as Ponsonby Street. The street was named after the Rt. Rev. Richard Ponsonby (1772-1853), Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, however by the 1850s the street had been renamed Clarendon Street in honour of the Fourth Earl of Clarendon, George Villiers (1800-1870), Lord Lieutentant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. The second edtion of the Ordnance Survey map records that Ponsoby Street had been renamed Clarendon Street by at least 1853. Although the 1847 plan of Londonderry depicted that Clarendon Street extended from the quay up to Francis Street, only the bottom section of Clarendon Street (between the Strand Road and Queen Street) had been laid out by 1853.

The development of Clarendon Street progressed slowly throughout the 1850s. Mullin records that development of the remainder of the street did not recommence until the mid-1850s. In 1851 Skipton & Miller had advertised building ground on Clarendon Street, Queen Street and Patrick Street to be let in perpetuity. Griffith’s Valuation recorded that only nine dwellings had been constructed along the entire length of the street by 1856. In that year additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side of Clarendon Street (Mullin, p. 117).

No. 63 Clarendon Street, along with the adjoining No 65, was constructed in 1874, approximately a decade after the majority of the Georgian-style dwellings on the street had been completed. Clarendon Street possesses a strong Georgian character despite its earliest buildings being erected in the early-Victorian period. The incorporation of bay windows and decorative corbels into the façades of nos 63-65, indicates a tentative shift away from this conservatism towards a more contemporary Victorian design (also seen on Bayview Terrace – HB01/22/017A-G). Nos 63-65 Clarendon Street were constructed for Alexander McElwee, a local magistrate and timber merchant who held business premises on the Strand Road (Ulster Town Directories). No. 63 Clarendon Street was originally valued at £38 in 1874. Throughout its history the occupants of Clarendon Street were of the city’s merchant and professional classes. In 1901 No. 63 was occupied by William Phillips, a local shipowner and steamboat agent with A. A. Laird & Co. (Ulster Town Directories); the census of that year described Phillip’s house as a 1st class dwelling that consisted of thirteen rooms. Alexander McElwee continued to own No. 63 Clarendon Street until 1910 when the building was aquired by the trustees of Carlisle Road Methodist Church (HB01/19/063) as the manse for their minister, the Rev. Thomas Dalton. The building was only briefly utilised as the church manse and returned to private use by 1929. The First Revaluation records that No. 63 Clarendon Street had been purchased by Elizabeth and John Colhoun by 1935; in that year the value of the dwelling was raised to £44. The Colhoun’s continued to own No. 63 by the Second Revaluation (1956-1972) but changed the use of the building to a boarding house in 1970. By the end of the revaluation the value of the building had been increased to £92.

In 1978 the Department of the Environment designated Clarendon Street (and the surrounding streets) a Conservation Area ‘being an area of special architectural or historic interest, the character of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance’ (Londonderry Clarendon Street Conservation Area Booklet). No. 63 Clarendon Street was subsequently listed in 1979. The NIEA HB Records note that the roof of No. 63 was replaced using natural slate in 1988 whilst internal alterations were carried out in the 1990s when the building was converted into sheltered accomodation (NIEA HB Records).

In 2013 Calley described nos 63-65 Clarendon Street as ‘rendered late-19th century terrace houses with canted bays running through ground and first floors, with paired bracketed heavy cornice and heavy mouldings’ (Calley, p. 114). Few of the mid-Victorian townhouses along Clarendon Street are now occupied as residential dwellings. The majority of the three-storey buildings were converted into offices for local dentists, solicitors and accountancy firms in the late-20th century. During the Second Survey No. 63 Clarendon Street continued to be utilised as a shelter for the homeless and was known as the ‘Clarendon Shelter.’

References

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/5/20/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1830)
2. PRONI OS/6/5/20/2 – Second Edition Ordnanec Survey Map (1853)
3. PRONI VAL/2/B/5/16G – Griffith’s Valuation (1856)
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/32/11B-ZA – Annual Revisions (1862-1897)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/33/2C-2F – Annual Revisions (1898-1931)
6. PRONI VAL/3/B/6/4 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1935)
7. PRONI VAL/4/B/5/13 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
8. Robert Simpson’s ‘Annals of Derry’ (1847)
9. O’Hagan’s plan of Londonderry (1847)
10. Census of Ireland (1901 / 1911)
11. Ulster Town Directories (1843-1918)
12. First Survey Record – HB01/21/005 (1970)
13. First Survey Image – HB01/21/005 (No Date)
14. NIEA HB Record – HB01/21/005BB

Secondary Sources
1. Calley, D., ‘City of Derry: An historical gazetteer to the buildings of Londonderry’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2013.
2. Ferguson, W. S; Rowan, A. J; Tracey, J. J., ‘List of historic buildings, groups of buildings, areas of architectural importance in and near the city of Derry’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1970.
3. Hume, J., ‘Derry beyond the walls: Social and economic aspects of the growth of Derry 1825-1850’ Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2002.
4. Mullin, T. H., Ulster’s Historic City: Derry – Londonderry’ Coleraine: Coleriane Bookshop, 1986.
5. Rowan, A. J., ‘The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster’ London: Yale University Press, 2003.
6. ‘Londonderry Clarendon Street Conservation Area Booklet’ Department of the Environment, 1978.
7. ‘Design Guide for Clarendon Street Conservation Area’ Department of the Environment, 2012.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest
R. Age
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Mid-terrace three storey (over basement) three-bay former house, built 1874 and located on the South side of Clarendon Street; the name of the architect is unknown. No.63 was built together with No. 65 (HB01.22.005 CC) and it shares group value with this property. Although later, it reflects the rhythm and proportion of the terraces built earlier towards the lower end of the street, which are more Georgian in style and predominantly brick, with a few details such as the canted bay and round-arched windows with stucco embellishment, deep mouldings and decorative corbels that make it distinctly Victorian. Despite some loss of original fabric inside, many fine features survive and the exterior frontage retains much of its original style. Historically it is of social importance as a former manse and as a homeless shelter; the latter use has resulted in alterations to the plan form and appearance, at the rear only, which detract somewhat from its character. The intact pair of No 63 & No.65, set amongst several similar rows of neat townhouses that step down in a strong linear formation towards the River Foyle, is of special architectural interest due to the unique quality it contributes to the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.