6 Clarendon Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Mid-Victorian end-of-terrace two-bay three-storey with attic red brick Georgian-style townhouse, built c.1863. Rectangular on plan with projecting brick return to rear. Principal elevation faces south set behind a low rendered plinth wall surmounted by replacement cast iron railings. Built as part of a row of similar houses of this type which line the north side of Clarendon Street.

Pitched natural slate roof with two roof lights to front and black clay ridge tiles to main roof and return. Slender red brick chimney stack rising from the east side, centred on ridge with 6 clay pots. Cast iron half-round guttering on rise and fall brackets to front elevation; cast iron rainwater goods to rear and replacement uPVC to outbuilding.

Principal front (south) elevation is of Flemish bond brick; window openings are cut brick flat arches with 6/6 timber sliding sashes set within painted cement rendered reveals and painted sills. Three-centred arched opening with moulded surround to entrance doorway to left with moulded entablature supported by a pair of Doric columns with simple glazed fanlight above a four panelled timber door. Two diminished windows to right of door with two windows to first and second floors (those to upper floors are not aligned with ground floor openings).

West (side) elevation is abutted by adjoining building; No. 8 Clarendon Street (HB01/22/022B).

North (rear) elevation is three-storey with attic dormer to left and three-storey return to right built at half landing height. Walls are brick garden wall bond with rendered ground floor to main block and return. Windows to main block are 6/6 timber sliding sashes to ground, first and second floor with 6/3 timber sliding sashes to third floor stairwell and dormer.
Windows to return are replacement casement of various sizes. Return comprises window right of centre to first and second floor of north facade, ground floor obscured; west face blank; east face has a diminutive window to first and second floor, ground floor obscured.

East (side) gable elevation is blank. To the east side of the building is a lane which leads to the rear of the terrace. A rendered wall between the eastern gable of the house and outbuilding has a modern timber sheeted door leading to the rear yard.

Setting:
Built as part of a row of eleven similar Georgian-style, early to mid-Victorian townhouses which line the north side of Clarendon Street. The front of the property is bounded by Clarendon Street set behind a low rendered plinth wall with replacement cast iron railings enclosing a small gravelled area. Enclosed yard to rear with a two storey stone-built mews building beyond with pitched natural slate roof having a red brick gable with modern garage door and window at first floor level, now boarded up and two first floor window openings to the north elevation now blocked up; south elevation obscured. A laneway runs along the rear of the mews building providing access to the rest of the terrace.

Materials:
Roof :- Natural Slate
RWG:- Cast Iron to main house/uPVC to outbuilding
Walling:- Brick / render
Windows:- Timber

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 city 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 during the same period. The only building in the area that predates the early-Victorian development is Foyle Cottage (HB01/21/006), a Regency-style house that was 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 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 and the development signified the most ambitious project of town planning carried out in Londonderry since the original construction of the walled city the 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 Lieutenant of Ireland between 1847 and 1852. The second edition of the Ordnance Survey map records that Ponsonby 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; by 1856 Griffith’s Valuation recorded that only nine dwellings had been constructed along the entire length of the street. 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. This was followed by a second drive in 1856 when additional leases were advertised for building ground on the northern side of Clarendon Street (Mullin, p. 117).

No. 6 Clarendon Street was constructed as part of this later development; along with nos 8-10 and 22-26 Clarendon Street, No. 6 was erected in 1863 and completed the continuous terrace of 11 houses that now runs between Queen Street and Princes Street. Nos 6-10 Clarendon Street were constructed for John Allen, a wine merchant and property owner who held business premises in Linenhall Street (Ulster Town Directories). The house was originally valued at £27 and was occupied by a Ms. Margaret Miller in 1863. Throughout its history the occupants of Clarendon Street were of the city’s merchant and professional classes, for example, in 1911 No. 6 Clarendon Street was occupied by a Mr. James Lynch, a local grocer. The census of that year described Lynch’s house as a 1st class dwelling that consisted of eight main rooms. No. 6 Clarendon Street continued to be owned by the Allen family until at least the end of the Annual Revisions in 1931; by that time the building was occupied by a Mr. William Porter and had been decreased in value to £24. Between 1931 and 1935 the entire row of nos 6-26 Clarendon Street had been purchased outright by a Ms. Jennie Steen. The First Revaluation recorded that in 1935 Steen leased No. 6 Clarendon Street to a Mr. John A. Adair, however by the Second Revaluation (1956-72) ownership of the house had passed to Adair himself. In 1935 the value of the house had been increased to £42, however this was slightly reduced to £38 by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956-72).

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. 6 Clarendon Street was subsequently listed in 1979. Calley described nos 6-48 Clarendon Street as a ‘delightfully long red brick terrace of the mid-19th century … the buildings are nearly all the same, being three-and-a-half-storey, two-bay with most ground floors rather inelegantly squeezing in a doorway with two reduced scale window bays … depressed arched recessed timber-framed doorways have simple segmented fanlights and thin Doric columns supporting entablatures’ (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 dentist, solicitors and accountancy firms in the late-20th century, but No. 6 Clarendon Street continues to be utilised as a residential building. In 1998 the former private dwelling had been converted into a number of self contained apartments (NIEA HB Records).

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/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 – HB01/22/022 (No Date)
13. First Survey Image – HB01/22/022 (No Date)
14. NIEA HB Records – HB01/22/022

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: 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

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

An end-of-terrace two-bay three-storey with attic red brick Georgian-style townhouse, built in 1863 along with Nos. 8-10 and 22-26 Clarendon Street (HB01/22/022B,C,I,J &JJ). It has group value with Nos. 8-48 which were built over an eight year period and line the north side of the street. Its original character and much of its external detailing survives. Located within the Clarendon Street Conservation Area, the well preserved setting adds to its interest. The terrace represents the mid 19th century development of the city of Derry and the house is a noteworthy example of the type of property built during this period of growth in the economy and population of the city.

General comments

Additional listing criteria apply - R-Age & S-Authenticity