44 Clarendon Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Mid-Victorian mid-terrace two-bay three-storey with attic red brick Georgian-style townhouse, built in 1864. Rectangular on plan with projecting rear return. Principal elevation faces south onto Clarendon Street set behind a low red brick wall with concrete capping (part-missing); single concrete step to raised front yard. Built as part of a terrace row of similar houses of this type lining the north side of Clarendon Street.

Pitched slate roof with modern roof lights to front and rear and black clay ridge tiles. Large brick chimney stack, parallel to and rising from the centre of ridge, with ten clay pots. Cast-iron guttering and circular downpipes to front.

Principal south (front) elevation is of Flemish brick bond. All windows are 2/2 timber sliding sash with square-headed openings set within painted cement rendered reveals and painted sills. Three-centred arched opening to entrance doorway with moulded cornice supported by columns of the Doric order either side of a four-panelled painted timber door with plain fanlight above. Single window to right of door and two windows to first and second floors (those to upper floors are not aligned with ground floor openings). Second floor windows have metal framed window boxes.

East and West elevations are abutted by adjoining buildings No.42 & 46 Clarendon Street (HB01/21/005R & HB01/21/005T respectively).

North (rear) elevation is painted render three-storey with attic abutted by a three-storey pitched roof rear return to right. The fenestration pattern is irregular and all windows are timber sliding sash with door opening from the rear return onto rear yard. Rear not fully 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 red brick wall with concrete capping (part-missing). Enclosed yard ro rear.

Materials:
Roof Slated
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 which 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 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. 44 was constructed in 1864 as part of this second phase of the laying out of Clarendon Street. The three-storey house (along with the adjoining nos 38-42) was constructed for William McIlwee, a carpenter and builder who held business premises on Foyle Street (Ulster Town Directories). In 1864 the Annual Revisions valued No. 44 Clarendon Street at £21 and noted it was occupied by a Mr. John G. Ferguson. Throughout its history the occupants of Clarendon Street were of the city’s merchant and professional classes. In 1911 No. 44 Clarendon Street was occupied by Mary Ann Mott, whose daughter was employed as a local clothes designer. The census building return of 1901 described their house as a 1st class dwelling that consisted of ten rooms. Ownership of the building had passed to a Mr. Frances McPherson in 1885 but by the 1930s the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1935) noted that a Mr. John H. McCrea had taken possession of the house. McCrea’s family continued to own the house by at least the 1970s. The Second Revaluation (1956-72) noted that the value of No. 44 stood at £31 in 1982.

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. 44 Clarendon Street was subsequently listed in 1979. The NIEA HB Records note that the external façade of the building was renovated in 1988 and that the roof was reslated in 1992. The private dwelling was converted into a number of self-contained flats by at least 2004 (NIEA HB Records). A photograph of the building (dated 1978) records that the property had a modern dormer window to the front which has since been removed.

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 notes that the chimneys of nos 42-44 Clarendon Street are different to the rest of the row; the majority of the Georgian-style buildings along the north side of Clarendon Street possess ‘pitched roofs [with] large side chimneys on the ridge, expect nos 42-44, which have ridge chimneys parallel to the ridge’ (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. At the time of the Second Survey No. 44 Clarendon Street continued to be utilised as residential flats.

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 Record – HB01/22/022S

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
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 in 1864 along with Nos. 38-42 Clarendon Street (HB01/22/022P,Q&R). It has group value with Nos. 6-42 & 46-48 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