Millburn Terrace, 47 Millburn Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT52 1QT

Millburn Terrace, 47 Millburn Road is a two-bay three-storey mid-terrace Victorian townhouse, built around 1866 and located on the east side of Millburn Road in Coleraine town centre. The building is square on plan with a single-storey canted bay to the front and a two-storey return to the rear.

The proportions and detailing are typical of the mid-Victorian period and are relatively well-preserved. The pitched natural slate roof features angled ridge tiles and polychrome brick and rendered chimneystacks with tall clay pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on projecting dentilled eaves. The walling is painted roughcast render on a contrasting plinth. The principal elevation faces northwest and is two windows wide at the upper floors, with a canted bay window to the ground floor on the left. Windows throughout are 1/1 timber sash with horns in simple painted render reveals with projecting painted sills; a continuous sill course runs across the canted bay.

The focal point of the principal elevation is a classical-style doorcase at the right, comprising panelled pilasters and a frieze carved with a Greek key motif and scrolled acanthus-leaf console brackets supporting a corniced canopy. The doorcase contains a modern four-panelled timber door with glazing and transom light, accessed by two stone steps. The northeast elevation is abutted by the adjoining building. The southeast (rear) elevation is almost entirely abutted by the two-storey return. The southwest elevation is abutted by the adjoining building.

The property is situated as part of a mid-nineteenth century terrace of nine townhouses on the east side of the River Bann in Coleraine town centre, overlooking The Rose Gardens and Anderson Park. The site is slightly elevated, with a lawned and shrubbed garden and a concrete pathway leading to steps to a paved patio at the front of the house. The boundary to neighbouring properties is marked by hedges, and the boundary to the road is a rendered wall with square piers supporting a replacement cast-iron latch-gate. Steps lead up to the garden. An enclosed yard to the rear contains a two-storey slated roughcast rendered outbuilding, forming part of a terrace of outbuildings serving the entire terrace. The terrace makes a considerable contribution to the architectural quality and character of Coleraine and has group value as one of the best-preserved examples of Victorian terraced architecture in the town.

Millburn Terrace, originally named Clifton Terrace, was built in 1865 on land owned by Richard Olphert of Millburn House. The closing decades of the nineteenth century saw a building boom of terraces and villas in Coleraine. After the Coleraine Building Society was established in 1864, a search was undertaken for suitable sites for workmen's cottages. The sites advertised by the Olphert estate on Millburn Road caught the Society's attention and became their first major development: the current terrace of eight dwellings, with a ninth added around 1875. The contractor was Joseph Esdale and the terrace was named "Clifton", the family name of Lady Bruce, whose husband Sir Henry Hervey Bruce was the president of the building society. The terrace was originally built with canted bays and 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 turn of the twentieth century, residents were a mix of retired farmers, professional people and merchants, some of whom were able to employ a servant. Number 47 was initially occupied as a house, office and garden by James Moore and was leased from William Ellis, valued at £16 and 15 shillings for the garden. Subsequent occupiers included K H Stephenson (1882), John Crea (1888), Jane Haddock (1889), Carson (1893), Daniel Todd (1895), Mrs Martha Knox (1899), Joseph Hunter (1906), Ed Mitchell (1911) and Henry Mitchell (1924). Martha Jane Knox, a widow, ran the premises as a boarding house; in 1901 her two boarders were a solicitor's clerk and a bank clerk. The nine-room house was designated first class in the 1901 census. In 1911 the occupier was Henry Mitchell, Assistant County Surveyor for Londonderry County Council, who lived with his wife and baby son. Mitchell was appointed in 1902 and held the post until at least 1947. The terrace was listed in 1997 and restoration of the current dwelling took place in 2009 to 2010. The building remains in domestic use.