18 Lodge Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT52 1NB

18 Lodge Road, Coleraine, is a two-bay, three-storey-with-attic mid-terrace building built around 1888. Originally a private dwelling, it is now used as a dental surgery. Located on the east side of Lodge Road in Coleraine town centre, it forms part of an important terrace of sixteen houses built between around 1859 and 1888 for the town's rising middle classes, and is among the best-preserved examples of mid-to-late-nineteenth-century terraced architecture in Coleraine.

The building is substantially intact with largely surviving Victorian architectural detailing. It is square on plan with a three-storey gabled return to the rear and a modern single-storey flat-roof extension. The pitched natural slate roof is dressed with blue and black angled ridge tiles, and has rendered chimneytstacks with moulded caps and terracotta pots; a second rendered chimneystack sits on the gable of the rear return.

The walling is painted smooth render on a moulded plinth, with a moulded string course and drip mould between floors, a corniced entablature over the first floor, and a continuous sill course at all floors. The rear elevation is in painted roughcast render. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on projecting bracketed eaves.

Windows throughout are 1/1 timber sash with horns. Those on the ground and first floors are set in lugged and moulded surrounds; the second-floor windows are lugged only, with projecting moulded sills on console brackets with panelled aprons. The principal southwest-facing elevation is three openings wide at each floor, with paired windows to the right bay and simple windows over the entrance.

The entrance to the ground floor left comprises a raised-and-fielded six-panel timber door with brass door furniture, set within a round-headed reveal with a round-headed transom light above. The doorway features spandrel panels and is flanked by half-fluted pilasters, surmounted by a pedimented entablature. Access is via a single concrete step. The northeast rear elevation includes a 2/2 sash window at second-floor level and one at first-floor right; a modern uPVC window has been installed at first-floor left. The northwest and southeast elevations abut adjoining buildings.

The building was the last to be built in the terrace, appearing in valuation records around 1888. It was initially valued at £30 and occupied by Reverend Francis S Gardiner, with the lease held by James McMullen, likely the developer. Subsequent occupiers included James Hay from 1891 and John H Bamford from 1892, a wholesale grocer who was resident with his family and a general domestic servant at the time of the 1901 census. In 1916 the house was taken over by Charles L Doddie, followed by Dr Godfrey Bateman in 1926 and Dr Green in 1931. Valuer's notes from the 1930s record accommodation comprising, on the ground floor, a waiting room, surgery, dispensary, kitchen, scullery and pantry; on the first floor, one reception room, one bedroom, bathroom, WC and linen room; on the second floor, three bedrooms; and on the third floor, two attic bedrooms. The house had water laid on and gas lighting at this time. The building was listed in 1977 and was converted from offices to a dental surgery in 2008.

The building is set back from Lodge Road with paving to the front, bounded by hedges and a painted render wall with coping stones topped by modern metal railing. Square gate piers with caps mark the entrance. Tarmacadamed alleys to the southeast and northwest of the terrace provide access to a car park to the east. A small yard to the rear is enclosed to the northeast by a two-storey roughcast rendered outbuilding. This outbuilding features a large open square-headed carriage-arch entrance and a variety of window openings, including a small 1/1 sash window to the ground floor at the southwest elevation and a 2/2 window at first-floor level to the northeast elevation. The outbuilding is still present and shown on 1930s plans, where it is described as a shed.

Lodge Road was laid out between 1833 and 1845, first appearing on O'Hagan's map of Coleraine dating from 1845, and is named after 'The Lodge', a dwelling house at the southern end now replaced by a hotel. The terrace is first shown in its complete form on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1904. The closing decades of the nineteenth century saw a building boom in terraces and villas in Coleraine, of which local people were extremely proud. The boom is said to have begun in the late 1850s when Thomas Boyd built Waterford Terrace at numbers 26 to 32. The terrace was considered to occupy the best and sunniest side of Lodge Road and was occupied largely by middle-class merchants and professionals who kept at least one servant, reflecting Coleraine's development during the Victorian era.