55 Claredon Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Victorian end-of-terrace three-bay three-storey, painted render and brick townhouse, with rear return at half-landing level, built c.1872. Rectangular on plan with principal elevation facing north set back from pavement by low level painted rendered boundary wall and painted wrought-iron railings above; with entrance accessed via five concrete steps. Built as a pair of terraced houses located within a row of ten similarly scaled townhouses, lining the south side of Clarendon Street; No.55 is at the junction with Princes St.

Principal elevation (N) is painted render to ground floor, Flemish brick bond above to upper floors; round-arch stepped reveal to entrance doorway and windows at ground floor level (the latter also have bull-nosed cills and a moulded apron panel below); moulded shoulder-course between each window, hood mould and flying keystone; painted timber four-panelled door with plain fanlight above. All windows are timber sliding sash with 1/1 panes. Square-headed windows to first floor and segmental-arched windows to second floor level. Sill-course to first floor windows. Two modern rooflights present to roof.

East elevation is asymmetrical, cement rendered with the gable end to Claredon Street at the right side containing a single square-headed 2/2 timber sliding sash window to ground, first and second floors (to the left) and two small round-arched 1/1 timber sliding sash windows placed either side of a central red-brick chimney stack to attic level. The gable end is abutted by a three-storey lower return, also rendered, with single (boarded up) window and side entrance door to ground; a pair of 2/2 timber sliding sash timber windows to first; and a smaller pair of 2/2 timber sliding sash windows to second floor. Rendered chimney stack with 5 clay pots centred on ridge-line to south end, which is adjoined to No.25 Princes St.

West side is abutted by adjoining buildings No.57 Clarendon Street (HB01/21/005Y).

The South elevation is three-storeys, cement rendered, with three-storey rear return. Projecting gabled bay to left side of main building, with square -headed casement windows to upper floors and clipped eaves. Lower return has irregular fenestration with a mix of 1/1 and 2/2 timber sliding sashes, some with security bars and uPVC guttering and downpipes. A flat-roofed dormer, with horizontal timber cladding and timber casement windows, projects above eaves height to the return. All walls are smooth rendered, unpainted.

Pitched slate roof, black clay ridge tiles and large red-brick chimney stack which has been rebuilt, rising from the East side, centred on ridge with eight clay pots. Two skylights to front (N) facing roof slope and one to rear (south). Painted brick to eaves, cast-iron guttering returns to East elevation, supported on paired corbel brackets to North and discharges to cast-iron downpipe to East elevation.

Materials:
Roof : Slate
RWG : Cast Iron (N) uPVC (S)
Walling: Red brick and painted render (N) Smooth render, unpainted (S)
Windows: Timber Sliding Sash (N, E and W face of rear return) Casements (S)

Setting:
Built as part of a row of four mid-Victorian townhouses which line the south side of Clarendon Street, No. 55-61 (HB01.22.005 AA, Y, Z and XX). Located within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area at the junction of Clarendon Street/Princes Street, the front of the property faces north and is set behind a low rendered wall enclosing a small hard surfaced area.

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. 55 Clarendon Street, along with the adjoining nos 57-61, was constructed in 1872, almost a decade after the majority of the Georgian-style dwellings on the street had been completed. Nos 55-57 Clarendon Street were constructed for Captain Samuel Hatrick and in 1872 No. 55 was individually valued at £29. Throughout its history the occupants of Clarendon Street were of the city’s merchant and professional classes. In 1901 No. 55 was occupied by Charles M. MacLellan, a local coal merchant and Consul between Londonderry Corporation and Turkey (Ulster Town Directories). The census of that year described MacLellan’s house as a 1st class dwelling that consisted of ten rooms. Nos 55-57 Clarendon Street remained with Samuel Hatrick’s family until 1901 when William Wallace, a retired Ironmonger, took possession of the pair. The First Revaluation records that the value of the property was increased to £38 in 1935. By that year a Ms. Elizabeth McCrea had taken over ownership of No. 55 from William Wallace (she continued to hold the property until the 1970s). Between 1935 and 1956 McCrea converted the former private dwelling into a number of self contained flats and by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956-72) the value of the building stood at £39.

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. 55 Clarendon Street was subsequently listed in 1979.

In 2013 Calley simply described nos 55-61 Clarendon Street as ‘rendered late-19th century terrace houses … three-bays each, the ground floors rendered with round-headed bays linked by a shoulder course which creates an arcaded feel,’ noting that nos 55-61 Clarendon Street ‘are treated as a single terrace, but are grouped in pairs to accommodate the change is street level’ (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.

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. PRONI Wills Catalogue (18 Jul 1879; 11 May 1901)
11. Census of Ireland (1901 / 1911)
12. Ulster Town Directories (1843-1918)
13. First Survey Record – HB01/21/005 (1970)
14. First Survey Image – HB01/21/005 (No Date)
15. NIEA HB Record – HB01/21/005XX (Missing)

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
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest
R. Age

Evaluation

An end-of-terrace house, built 1872 and located on the South side of Clarendon Street, at the junction with Princes St; the name of the architect is unknown. No.55 was built as one of four terraced houses, together with No. 57-61 (HB01.22.005 AA, Y & Z) as part of of the outward expansion of the city; it shares group value with these adjoining properties. 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, with a few details such as the round-arched windows, plasterwork and paired corbelled eaves brackets that distinguish it as Victorian. Despite some casement windows and a flat roofed dormer to the rear, the exterior retains much of its original architectural character and the intact terrace, set amongst several similar rows of neat townhouses that step down in a strong linear formation towards the River Foyle, is of special interest due to the unique quality it contributes to the Clarendon Street Conservation Area.