32 Clarendon Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Mid-Victorian mid-terrace two-bay three-storey with attic level over basement, red brick, Georgian-style townhouse, built in1862. Rectangular on plan with projecting return to rear. Principal elevation faces south set behind a low sloping rendered painted plinth wall with capping stones and evidence of previous wrought-iron railings (now gone). Built as part of a terrace row of similar houses of this type lining the north side of Clarendon Street.

Pitched natural slate roof, black clay ridge tiles to main roof and return. Slender cement rendered chimney stack rising from the east side, centred on ridge with six clay pots and one terracotta pot. Cast iron half-round guttering on rise and fall brackets and circular downpipe to front and rear elevation.

Principal south (front) elevation is of Flemish bond brick with a single opening to the ground floor with a pair of windows to the first and second floors. All window openings are square-headed with 2/2 timber sliding sashes within painted cement rendered reveals and painted sills. Three-centred arched opening to entrance doorway with moulded architrave and entablature supported by a pair of columns of the Doric order and Adam-style fanlight above a painted timber four-panelled door. Single window to right of door with blocked up cement rendered window opening directly below to basement level and two windows to first and second floors (those to upper floors are not aligned with ground floor openings).

East and west sides are abutted by adjoining property No's 30 & 34 Clarendon Street (HB01/22/022L & HB01/22/022N respectively).

North (rear) elevation is red brick three-storey over basement with attic dormer to left and three-storey over basement return to right built at half landing height. Left bay comprises single 8/8 timber sliding sash window to ground floor with a single 6/6 timber sliding sash window to first and second floors surmounted by a dormer window (basement level not visible at time of survey). Rear return to right is surmounted by a single 6/3 timber sliding sash window. Timber sheeted door from rear return opens onto rear yard leading to a two-storey stone mews building to the north of the site.

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 sloping rendered plinth wall. To the north end of the site is a two-storey pitched roof mews building. 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
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 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 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. 32 was constructed as part of the second phase in the laying out of Clarendon Street. No. 32, together with the adjoining nos 28-36 Clarendon Street, was built in 1862 for John Allen, a wine merchant and property owner who held business premises on Linenhall Street (Ulster Town Directories). The three-storey house was originally valued at £27 and was occupied by a Mr. John Marshall in 1862. Throughout its history the occupants of Clarendon Street were of the city’s merchant and professional classes. In 1901 No. 32 Clarendon Street was occupied by William J. Ruttle, a local draper. The census of that year described Ruttle’s house as a 1st class dwelling that consisted of ten rooms. Ownership of No. 32 Clarendon Street had passed to Alexander McCormick in 1871. The McCormick estate continued to administer the property until the 1930s when the house was purchased by a Ms Emily McCandless. Between 1935 and 1956 McCandless converted the former dwelling into a medical clinic but in 1969 the building was purchased by Atcheson & Son who combined it and the adjoining No. 34 into a single building. The Second Revaluation (1956-72) notes that Nos 32-34 Clarendon Street was valued at £227 10s. And consisted of a number of residential flats, a dental surgery and space for offices.

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. 32 Clarendon Street was subsequently listed in 1979. The NIEA HB Records record that the building was utilised as offices and that all of the original Georgian glazing had been removed by 1981. Dry rot treatment was undertaken in 1999. The pair remained conjoined throughout this period (NIEA HB Records).

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). 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. 32 was occupied by the solicitor’s firm that also occupied the adjoining nos 28-30 Clarendon Street.

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. Pink Files – HB01/22/022M

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
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 over basement red brick Georgian-style townhouse, built in 1862 along with Nos. 28-30 and 34-36 Clarendon Street (HB01/22/022K,L,N&O). It has group value with Nos. 6-30 & 34-48 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