CLARENDON STREET - Derry City Council

3.5.4 Elsewhere within the Conservation Area character is largely defined by the listedterraces, which dominate:- Clarendon Street – three storey terraces on both sides of the street, stepping upthe slope. The terraces are generally uniform each with a small area of openspace to the front enclosed by a low wall and railings. Materials include earthcolouredbrick, slate roof, sliding sash timber windows and panelled doors.- Crawford Square – a row of nineteen three-storey, detailed, rendered propertieswhich were to form one side of Crawford Square. The first two properties are apair of semi-detached dwellings, while the rest of the properties are terraced. Theterraced properties are built in pairs all with two storey sliding sash bay windowsand panelled doors.- De Burgh Terrace – a terrace of seventeen red brick, two storey properties setto the rear of large gardens which rise towards the houses. These propertiesare ornate with bay window on the ground floor. Their large front gardens, inwhat is an otherwise tightly-packed area make them unique in Clarendon StreetConservation Area.3.5.5 There are many fine unlisted buildings within the Conservation Area not least atAsylum Road. This terrace of three and a half storey Victorian townhouses is quite run-downbut elegant nonetheless. This street has no semi-private, front garden spaces and the tenmetre-wide space between its frontage and the old Asylum wall opposite means that it isconsiderably less spacious and grand than the twenty metre-wide Clarendon Street withits front garden spaces. Notwithstanding this the architectural quality of Asylum Road’sVictorian facades is of its own time and on a par with the fine Georgian style architecture ofClarendon Street.3.5.6 The controls provided by Conservation Area designation are needed to protectmany of these buildings which do not benefit from the controls associated with ListedBuildings. Streets such as Asylum Road, Upper Great James Street and Crawford Squareare undergoing considerable change showing various signs of decline. Much of this is dueto pressures for on street-parking between different groups of users (eg residents and nonresidents)and tenure change of more and more houses (some of them listed) from privateownership into the rented sector and change of use to offices and houses for multipleoccupation.3.5.7 Designers are also faced with new challenges as a result of changes to the BuildingRegulations both in terms of means to escape and disabled access. It is important that thecharacter of the properties is not lost due to the removal of original timber sliding sash inexchange of inappropriately designed escape windows.9. Clarendon Street19