16 Clarendon Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Early-Victorian mid-terrace two-bay three-storey with attic red brick Georgian-style townhouse, built pre-1856. Rectangular on plan with a large single storey rear return, principal elevation faces south onto Clarendon Street set behind low rendered wall surmounted by replacement cast iron railings. Built as part of a terrace row of similar houses of this type lining the north side of Clarendon Street.

Pitched slate roof with one roof light to front and black clay ridge tiles to main roof and return. Slender red brick chimney stack rising from the east side (rebuilt) centred on ridge with clay pots. Cast-iron half-round guttering on rise and fall brackets to the front.

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 radial 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).

East and West elevations are abutted by adjoining buildings No. 14 & 18 Clarendon Street (HB01/22/022E & HB01/22/022G respectively).

Rear (north) elevation is three-storey with attic dormer to left. Full width modern single storey lean-to extension to rear abutted by further modern additions with a small yard beyond. Windows to exposed section of main building are square-headed with 6/6 sliding sash windows to main floor levels and 6/3 timber sliding sash windows to half landing levels. (All windows not visible at time of survey)

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 hard surfaced area. The majority of the rear yard has been developed leaving a small yard to the far north with a laneway beyond providing access to the rest of the terrace.

Materials:
Roof Slate
RWG Cast Iron
Walling Brick
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 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 three-storey townhouses, a new affluent area was established that swiftly became the preferred 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 final 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. 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. 16 Clarendon Street was one of the earliest townhouses to be constructed along the street. The building (along with the adjoining nos 12-20 Clarendon Street – HB01/22/002D-H) was erected prior to 1856, first recorded in Griffith’s Valuation in the same year. This original terrace of five three-storey buildings was leased by the Rev. Henry Wallace (Moderator of the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster in 1839) and No. 16 Clarendon Street was individually valued at £25. Despite the Rev. Wallace’s death in 1887, nos 12-16 Clarendon Street continued to be owned by his personal estate by the end of the Annual Revisions (PRONI Wills). The 1901 census building return records that No. 16 Clarendon Street was a 1st class building that consisted of ten inhabited rooms. Throughout its history the occupants of Clarendon Street were of the city’s merchant and professional classes. In 1856 the house was the residence of the Rev. Robert Sewell of the Congregational Church on Great James Street, and from 1885 until the 1930s No. 16 Clarendon Street was occupied by a Mr. James Thompson, a local publican whose public house, James Thompson & Son, was based in Waterloo Place (Ulster Street Directories). The value of the building was decreased to £23 in 1913 at which it remained until the cancellation of the Annual Revisions in 1931. Between 1931 and 1935 the entire row of nos 6-26 was purchased outright by a Ms. Jennie Steen. No. 16 Clarendon Street continued to be owned by Steen and utilised as a private dwelling by the 1970s. Under the Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland the value of the building stood at £35.

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. 16 Clarendon Street was subsequently listed in 1979. The NIEA HB Records note that the building had been converted into office space for the Samaritans by the 1980s. Repair work was carried out in 1985 when one of the chimney stacks was rebuilt, the roof reslated, the external brickwork repointed and the defective timbers replaced. The current single-storey rear extension was added in 1992 to provide additional office floor space and in 2006 the windows of the building (to front and back) were repaired (NIEA HB Records).

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. In 2013 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). During the Second Survey No. 16 Clarendon Street continued to be occupied as office space for The Samaritans.

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. PRONI Wills Catalogue (25 Jul 1887)
11. Census of Ireland (1901 / 1911)
12. Ulster Town Directories (1843-1918)
13. First Survey Record – HB01/22/022 (No Date)
14. First Survey Image – HB01/22/022 (No Date)
15. NIEA HB Record – HB01/22/022F

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
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A mid-terrace two-bay three-storey with attic red brick Georgian-style townhouse, built pre-1856 along with Nos. 12-14 and 18-20 (HB01/22/022D,E,G,H) the earliest townhouses to be constructed along Clarendon Street. It has group value with Nos. 6-14 & 18-48 which were built over an eight year period and line the north side of the street. Its original character and much of its 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