Millburn Terrace, 43 Millburn Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT52 1QT

Millburn Terrace at 43 Millburn Road is a two-bay three-storey mid-terrace Victorian townhouse built around 1866, located on the east side of Millburn Road near Coleraine town centre. It forms part of an important terrace of eight dwellings (with a ninth added around 1875) that represents one of the best preserved examples of mid-nineteenth century terraced architecture in the town.

The house is square on plan with a single-storey canted bay to the front and two-storey returns to the rear. The pitched natural slate roof features angled ridge tiles and a polychrome chimneystack with tall clay pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are set on projecting dentilled eaves. The walling is painted roughcast render on a contrasting plinth. Windows are replacement uPVC in simple painted render reveals with projecting painted sills. The principal elevation faces northwest and is two openings wide at each floor. The ground floor left has a canted bay window. At the right is a classical-style doorcase comprising panelled pilasters and a frieze carved with a Greek key motif, with scrolled acanthus-leaf console brackets supporting a corniced canopy. The doorcase contains a replacement panelled-and-glazed timber door with a transom light, accessed by two stone steps. The northeast elevation is abutted by an adjoining building. The southeast rear elevation adjoins the two-storey returns. The southwest elevation is abutted by another adjoining building.

The site is slightly elevated on a lawned and shrubbed plot with a gravelled pathway leading to a paved patio at the front. It is bounded to the road by a mature hedge and rubblestone wall topped with sandstone coping. Square rendered piers with pointed caps support a replacement timber gate and have two stone steps. An enclosed yard to the rear contains a two-storey slated roughcast rendered outbuilding which has been modernised, forming a terrace with outbuildings of the rest of the terrace.

Historically, the terrace was originally named Clifton Terrace and was built on land owned by Richard Olphert of Millburn House. Following the establishment of the Coleraine Building Society in 1864, the Society sought sites for workmen's cottages and selected the land advertised by the Olphert estate on Millburn Road for their first major development. The contractor was Joseph Esdale. The terrace was named Clifton, the family name of Lady Bruce, wife of Sir Henry Hervey Bruce, president of the building society. The original eight dwellings were all constructed with canted bays, railings to the front, and a row of outbuildings to the rear.

Well-known Coleraine merchants such as Hugh Cheyne and James Brookes were the first occupiers. By the early twentieth century, residents comprised retired farmers, professional people, and merchants, some of whom employed servants. Number 43 was initially occupied as a house, office and garden by James Brooks, who leased it from Richard Olphert; the house was valued at £16 and 15 shillings for the garden. Subsequent occupiers included Adair (1876), Reverend W I McGarrigan (1878), John McCandless (1879), Daniel Boyd (1887), William Smith (1892), William J Smith (1893), Archibald Irwin (1904), Mrs Rankin (1913), Thomas Nevin (1922), Annie Nevin (1928), and John A Nevin (1930). William James Smith was a solicitor who lived with his wife, two young children, and his sister-in-law, employing a nurse to care for the children; the nine-room house was designated first class in the 1901 census. By 1911, retired farmer Archibald Irwin occupied the house as a widower living with three adult daughters, two employed as drapery assistants; the family kept a boarder, eighteen-year-old Herbert Shanks, a bank clerk.

The terrace was listed in 1997 and number 43 remains in domestic use. The building makes a considerable contribution to the architectural quality and character of Coleraine as part of this mid-nineteenth century terrace, prominently sited on the east side of the River Bann overlooking The Rose Gardens and Anderson Park.