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

4 Lodge Road is a mid-terraced townhouse of two bays and three storeys with an attic, built in 1879 and situated on the east side of Lodge Road in the heart of Coleraine town centre. It forms part of a notable terrace of sixteen houses (known collectively under the reference group HB03/17/003A-P), built between approximately 1859 and 1888 for Coleraine's rising middle classes. The proportions and detailing are typical of the period and the building contributes significantly to the architectural character of Coleraine town centre. Coleraine is a town largely shaped by its Victorian development, and this terrace is among the best-preserved examples of mid-to-late 19th-century terraced architecture in the town. The building is of interest primarily for its group value, its age, and its authenticity, although internal alterations in recent years — when it was refurbished as a modern dental surgery — detract somewhat from its overall integrity.

Architectural Description

The building is square on plan, with a three-storey gabled return and a modern single-storey extension to the rear. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with blue/black angled ridge tiles, and there is a rendered chimneystack. The eaves are bracketed and fitted with cast-iron ogee rainwater goods. The external walling is painted smooth render set on a chamfered plinth, with a moulded string-course forming a frieze between the ground and first floors. Windows throughout are predominantly 1/1 timber sash with horns, set in stop-end chamfered reveals with projecting painted sills. At attic level there is a tripartite timber-sheeted gabled dormer featuring round-headed window openings (1/1 to the centre) and decorative bargeboards with trefoil detailing and a finial.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is three openings wide at each floor level. At ground floor left is a bolection-moulded four-panelled timber door with a transom light and bronze door furniture, set in a stop-end chamfered reveal and accessed by a single tiled step. The entrance is flanked by pilasters surmounted by a plain entablature with an ovolo-moulded cornice. A moulded plaque positioned between the upper floors is shared with the neighbouring property at number 2 (HB03/17/003A) and reads "WOODVILLE." The northwest gable elevation is abutted by the adjoining building (HB03/17/003A). The northeast, or rear, elevation is abutted at the right by the gabled return shared with number 2; 2/2 timber sash windows appear at the upper floors; to the left of the return there is a 2/2 timber sash window at second floor level and a 1/1 window at first floor level; at ground floor this elevation is abutted by the modern single-storey extension, which contains entrance doors and is of no architectural interest. The southeast elevation is abutted by the adjoining building (HB03/17/003C).

Setting

The building is set back from the street on the east side of Lodge Road, with a front yard laid in modern paving and enclosed by a rendered wall with a painted coping. A tarmacadamed alley to the northwest leads to a rear yard and gives access to a car park to the east. To the rear there is an outbuilding forming part of a terrace, comprising a two-storey painted roughcast render building with a slated roof and rendered chimneystacks. The southwest elevation of this outbuilding has two replacement timber-framed windows at first floor level above a timber-framed window and a square-headed arch entry; the northeast elevation has two timber-framed windows at first floor level above a square-headed carriage arch entrance fitted with replacement timber-sheeted doors.

Historical Background

Numbers 2 and 4 Lodge Road were named "Woodville," as recorded on large-scale Ordnance Survey maps, in valuation records, and on the surviving plaque on the buildings themselves. The group of four houses comprising numbers 2 to 8 Lodge Road was inserted into valuation records in 1879. Lodge Road itself was laid out between 1833 and 1845, first appearing on O'Hagan's map of Coleraine dated 1845, and takes its name from "The Lodge," a dwelling house at the southern end of the road, since replaced by a hotel. The terrace was considered to occupy the best — because sunniest — side of Lodge Road and was home largely to middle-class merchants and professionals, most of whom kept at least one servant. The building boom of terraces and villas in Coleraine during the closing decades of the 19th century, of which this terrace forms a part, is said to have begun in the late 1850s when Thomas Boyd built Waterford Terrace at numbers 26 to 32 (Mullin).

The house, together with its offices, yard, and small garden, was initially valued at £24 10s. Its first recorded occupant was Joseph McCarter in 1879, and it was leased from Alexander Higgins, who was most likely the developer. Robert A. Taylor was the next resident, recorded in 1883. By the time of the 1901 census, the property was occupied by Annie Mooney, a widow living with her adult daughter; the ten-room house was designated first class. John Gilford followed in 1905, and by the 1911 census the occupant was Bridget McGilligan, a widow living with her domestic servant.

The rateable valuation was reduced to £19 around 1905 following a complaint. Valuer's notes from that period include a plan of the three-storey house with its dormer, single- and double-height returns, and the two-storey outbuilding at the rear of the yard. Valuer's notes from the 1930s record the accommodation as follows: at ground floor, a reception room, kitchen, scullery, and pantry; at first floor, a reception room and two bedrooms; at second floor, two bedrooms and a bathroom; and at third floor, two attic bedrooms. At this time the house had water laid on and gas lighting, and a plan is given showing the house, its single-storey and double-height returns, a coal house and closet in the rear yard, and the outbuilding at the bottom of the yard, which survives to the present day.

The house passed to David L. Steele in 1930, to John W. Brown in 1937, and was occupied by the Millar family from 1940 until at least the 1950s. Valuer's notes record that the building was occupied by the military in 1940, although the specific purpose is not stated. The building was listed in 1977, and renovations took place during the 1980s including repairs to guttering and plasterwork. In more recent years it has been amalgamated with the neighbouring property at number 6 and converted for use as a dental surgery.