14 Princes Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

End-of-terrace three-storey two-bay red-brick Victorian townhouse. Built 1880 with a three-storey rendered projecting rear return. Rectangular on plan, principal elevation faces west, and is one eight similar street-fronted townhouses lining the east side of Princes Street gently stepping from two to three storeys high. No.14 was built some 20 years after the adjoining No's 10-12 (HB01/21/036-37) which were constructed almost two decades earlier, c.1860.

Pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and grey brick chimney stack (rebuilt) with eight circular buff clay pots rising from the North side; half-round cast-iron guttering on iron rise-and-fall brackets terminating to a circular cast-iron downpipe to front elevation.

Principal elevation (NW) of hand-made red brick laid in 'English Garden Wall' bond with cement pointing; all window openings are square-headed on painted masonry sills with painted plaster band to reveals; bays on ground floor are not aligned with window bays on floors above; single window to ground floor left of entrance doorway has a 1/1 timber sliding sash window; segmental arched door opening to right, slightly recessed, has decorative scroll console brackets on panelled pilasters to either side of a raised-and-fielded four panel painted timber door with projecting cornice above and a modest glazed fanlight over, door opens onto threshold up two concrete steps from the pavement; 1/1 timber sliding sashes (with horns) on first and second floor levels. On the left side of the front door, remnants remain of a cast iron bootscraper.

North-east elevation, gable-end, is of red-brick to eaves level with rendered unpainted finish above topped by a large brick chimney stack.

South-west elevation is adjoined to neighbouring property No.12 Princes Street (HB01/21/037).

South-east elevation to the rear is of three-storeys with smooth plain rendered unpainted finish, as is the three-storey rear return which is built at half-landing height and has a slated pitched roof. Square-headed window openings on painted masonry sills. The fenestration pattern is irregular with replacement 6/6 timber sliding sash windows to rear elevation (where seen); uPVC rainwater goods to rear elevation.

Roof Natural Slate
RWG Cast-iron (NW) / uPVC (SE)
Walling Red brick/ unpainted render
Windows Timber sliding sash

Setting:
End-of-terrace Georgian-style Victorian townhouse, forming part of a terrace of eight houses lining the South East side of Princes Street fronting directly onto the pavement. Long narrow rear yard with garden enclosed by rendered wall with a three-storey plain rendered unpainted rear return. Set within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area

Historical information

Princes Street, a narrow street extending between Great James Street and Asylum Road, was developed between the 1840s and 1860s. The street was originally part of the Lower Road which was recorded on maps dating from as early as 1689. In the 18th century the Lower Road extended from the Walled City to Pennyburn Mills. The road was first recorded as ‘Lower Road’ from 1847 but the section between Great James Street and Asylum Road was renamed ‘Prince’s Street’ in 1862 following the death of Queen Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert, on 14th December 1861 (Calley, p. 308).

The laying out of Great James Street, as well as the adjoining Queen Street and Clarendon Street, was neccesitated by a period of growth in the economy and population of Londonderry that occurred in the mid-nineteenth century. John Hume notes that during the period 1825-1850 ‘reconstruction of the city’s buildings [within the city walls] took place alongside the development for the first time of housing outside the walls at Bogside and Edenballymore’ (Hume, p. 147). Lower Road predated the laying out of these streets but the construction of housing in the area was slow to develop. The first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1830) for the townland of Edenballymore records that the 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 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).

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 Clarendon Street Conservation Area that predates the early-Victorian development is Foyle Cottage (HB01/21/006), a Regency-style house that was constructed c. 1815. 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 preferred residence of the city’s merchant and professional classes.

No. 14 Princes Street, a three-storey two-bay red brick Georgian-style dwelling, was constructed in 1880, almost two decades after the adjoining nos 10-12 (see HB01/21/036-037). The house was constructed for Thomas McCready, a local pawn broker and piano dealer who also took over ownership of nos 10-12 Princes Street in 1881-82. The Annual Revisions note that No. 14 Princes Street was originally valued at £17 and 10 shillings. A plan of the building was depicted on the c. 1873-1910 Annual Revisions Town Plan which shows that the current layout of the building has not been altered since the late-19th century (the three-storey rear return is original). Thomas McCready continued to reside at No. 14 Princes Street until his death in 1895 at which point the property passed to his son Thomas Roulston Vaughan McCready. By 1911 the house was occupied by Samuel Alexander, a retired farmer who leased the property from the new owner, a Mr. W. J. Forsythe. In that year the census building return described No. 14 Princes Street as a 2nd class building that consisted of six rooms and possessed a shed as its sole outbuilding. By the 1930s ownership of nos 10-14 Princes Street had passed to a Mr. John J. Madden, a merchant who resided in the adjoining No. 16. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57) the value of No. 14 Princes Street had been increased to £24. A Mr. Andrew Steele resided at the house from the 1930s until at least the end of the Second Revaluation (1956-72) when the value of the building stood at £25.

In 1978 Princes Street was included in the Clarendon Street 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).

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 Ordnance Survey Map (1853)
3. PRONI VAL/12/E/157/1/7 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (c. 1873-1910)
4. PRONI VAL/2/B/5/16G – Griffith’s Valuation (1856)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/32/11B-ZA – Annual Revisions (1862-1897)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/33/2C-2F – Annual Revisions (1898-1931)
7. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/10 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57))
8. PRONI VAL/4/B/5/14 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
9. Ulster Town Directories (1843-1918)
10. PRONI Wills Catalogue (21 Apr 1895)
11. Census of Ireland (1901; 1911)

Secondary Sources
1. Calley, D., ‘City of Derry: An historical gazetteer to the buildings of Londonderry’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2013 (including 17th and 18th century maps of Lower Road).
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: Coleraine 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

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Victorian end-terrace three-storey redbrick townhouse, built 1880 in Georgian-style and one of eight houses that line the east side of Princes Street which links Clarendon Street and Great James Street on the west side of the River Foyle. No. 14 was constructed approximately two decades after its neighbours Nos 10 & 12 Princes Street (HB01/21/036 & 037) and it therefore does not have group value with them. No.14 is not one of the best examples of its type and therefore does not meet the statutory test as a building of special architectural or historic interest. Despite this, it is a significant feature in the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, this being a more appropriate level of protection.