29 Millburn Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT52 1QT

29 Millburn Road is a mid-Victorian semi-detached house dating from 1865, located on the east side of Millburn Road in Coleraine town centre. It forms one half of a pair with number 31 (originally known as 'Fountain Villas'), a well-preserved group of mid-Victorian townhouses that illustrate the development of the town during the nineteenth century. The building is of considerable local architectural interest and holds group value both with its paired neighbour and with other Victorian dwellings along Millburn Road.

The house is a two-storey, L-shaped structure with two bays and Gothic-style detailing. It features an L-shaped plan with a breakfront advancing to the gable and an oblique gabled entrance porch set into the re-entrant angle. A two-storey lean-to extension extends to the rear. The pitched natural slate roof is finished with angled ridge tiles and rendered chimneystacks topped with tall clay pots. Decorative timber bargeboards with finials ornament the gables. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are supported on projecting bracketed timber eaves, with cast-iron downpipes and a hopper.

The walls are painted ruled-and-lined render on a contrasting plinth, with smooth render to the rear. Windows are generally bipartite timber sashes with horizontal glazing bars set in simple painted reveals with projecting painted sills. Those on the ground floor feature painted surrounds with decorative stepped heads and a continuous corbelled sill. The principal western elevation displays a gabled bay on the left with openings set in a breakfront beneath offsets at ground floor level. An inscribed stone plaque above the first-floor window is dated 1865. The right bay contains a narrow 2/2 window at ground floor. The porch at the re-entrant angle has heavy timber bargeboards and is accessed by three concrete steps, with a replacement glazed timber door in a shouldered reveal and a glazed quatrefoil overhead. The north elevation adjoins the neighbouring building (number 31). The east elevation features a gabled wall-head dormer window on the right; a slated two-storey lean-to extension abuts the left side. The south elevation has a 4/4 timber sash window at first floor and a bipartite window at ground floor.

The house stands on a rectangular plot elevated from the road on the east side of the River Bann, overlooking The Rose Gardens and Alexander Park. It is set back from Millburn Road with a brick paviour driveway and patio planted with mature shrubs to the front, bounded by a rubblestone wall and mature hedgerow. An enclosed yard lies to the rear.

The dwelling was completed by 1865 for David Baxter (Mullin). The pair first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1904. Each house, equipped with an office, yard and garden, entered valuation records around 1866, valued at £13 and 10 shillings for the garden. Millburn Road was laid out as a new road to Portrush and Portstewart following a suggestion by an Irish Society deputation in 1834. During construction work in 1840, a spring was exposed on the eastern side of the road, and this fountain gave the pair its original name. Until 1860 the Olphert estate north of Coleraine could only be used for farming. In January 1860, Chancery Court permission was obtained for 99-year leases. In March 1860 the Olphert estate advertised villa sites on the east side of Millburn Road starting at the fountain, though building does not appear to have commenced until the launching of the Coleraine Building Society in 1864.

The first recorded occupier of number 29 was Moses McIntyre, who leased the house from David Baxter. Subsequent occupiers included Robert Taylor (1870), Hugh Anderson (1876), Daniel I Clarke (1881), Andrew Clarke (1884), John Alexander (1889), Johnston (1891), Reverend Charles Donaldson (1892), Miss Jessie Donaldson (1894), Mary G Stevenson (1907), David G Christie (1912) and Emily Christie (1927). The 1901 census records Jessie Donaldson as a teacher of languages from County Cork, living with a friend, Mary Beresford Stevenson, described as a 'lady'. The eight-room house was designated first class. The 1911 census lists David Gladstone Christie as a general merchant, living with his wife and baby daughter. The house was listed in 1981, and renovations were carried out during the 1980s.