Salem Lodge, 33 Millburn Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT52 1QT

Salem Lodge is a detached, twin-gabled mid-Victorian house with Gothic detailing, built around 1870–1874 and situated on the east side of Millburn Road in Coleraine town centre. It was constructed in 1873–4 by Samuel Shannon of Crannagh, who leased the ground from David Baxter in January 1872. The house retains its original proportions — with the exception of a single-storey southwest extension — and much of its architectural detailing survives intact, making it an important example of Victorian Gothic domestic architecture in a town whose character was substantially shaped by Victorian-era development.

The listing covers the house itself, the coachhouse, the stone entrance steps and sculptures, and the boundary walls and piers.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house is a one-and-a-half-storey central rectangular block intersected by gabled wings with box bay projections, with a single-storey extension to the northeast and a two-storey gabled return of lower ridgeline to the rear. The roofs are steeply pitched and covered in natural slate with fish-scale banding and angled ridge tiles. Rendered chimneystacks have moulded caps and chamfered stalks. The eaves overhang and carry plain bargeboards with round finials to the gables, and cast-iron half-round rainwater goods are fixed to the overhanging timber eaves, which have exposed rafter tails. External walling is ruled-and-lined painted render on a contrasting plinth.

Windows are a variety of timber sash with horns set in splayed reveals. At first-floor level in the gables they are pointed-headed, with hood moulds, keyblocks and stops; the northwest gable has replacement six-light timber casements and the southeast has a 3/3 sash. At ground floor, the box bays have 1/1 sash windows with horns set in full splayed reveals. A gabled dormer to the attic has a plain bargeboard with a simple finial and is lit by a triplet of pointed-headed lights with replacement opaque glazing.

PRINCIPAL ELEVATION

The principal elevation faces northwest and is symmetrically arranged. The central bay features a full-span arcaded timber porch, accessed by four sandstone steps and surmounted by an ornate cast-iron balustrade supported on slender cast-iron columns. The mid-section of the porch is enclosed, opening to left and right, with a wide four-panelled timber door with a transom light having a shouldered head and etched glazing, cast-iron door furniture, and a bell-push to the right-hand door. The front of this section is lit by a fixed four-light window with pointed upper panes set in a shouldered reveal, with a painted masonry sill and recessed apron panel, surmounted by a louvred timber vent. The porch has coffered timber soffits, terracotta and black tile flooring, and windows with carved trefoil detail set into chamfered reveals with shouldered heads and low sills. The steeply projecting left and right gables have slated box bay projections at ground floor with chamfered corners.

OTHER ELEVATIONS

The northeast elevation has a mullioned and transomed six-light window with a hood mould to the gablet at first floor, above a single-storey extension detailed to match the main house, with a painted render chimneystack to the gable carrying one tall clay pot. The extension has two multi-paned timber windows opening on hinges in chamfered reveals.

The southeast elevation is abutted at its centre by the two-storey gabled return. Left and right gables each carry a window to each floor, with 6/6 sash windows at ground floor. The return has two 2/2 windows at first floor of the gable and a single-storey lean-to abutment to the northeast. The southwest face of the return has multi-paned windows at both first and ground floor — the first-floor window is metal — and replacement French doors with a transom light.

The southwest elevation has a window to the gablet at first floor matching that described at the northeast, and a replacement multi-paned timber window at ground floor.

SETTING

The house stands on a rectangular plot on the east side of Millburn Road, overlooking the Rose Gardens and Alexander Park, to the north of 29–31 Millburn Road and to the south of Millburn Terrace. It is set back from the road with a lawned and shrubbed garden to the front. Two weeping willow trees frame a central concrete pathway leading to five sandstone steps up to the entrance terrace, which is flanked by two sandstone lion sculptures. To the southwest stands a freestanding rendered gable and tall chimneystack, the remnant of the former single-storey extension.

The site is bounded to the north by a smooth rendered stone wall and hedge along the lane. A tall rendered wall with ogee moulding runs along the full extent of the raised terrace. Two rendered piers with pyramidal copings, ogee mouldings and carved stone ball finials frame the front low wall to the northwest, with a replacement metal latch gate at the centre.

The concrete rear yard contains a two-storey painted brick and rubblestone outbuilding, exposed at its southeast gable, which is thought to be the original coach house. It has a slate roof, replacement timber window openings and timber-sheeted doors, including a loading door. The first floor is accessed by a set of replacement concrete steps with a timber handrail.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Millburn Road — formerly known as Portrush Road — was laid out as a new road to Portrush and Portstewart following a suggestion by an Irish Society deputation in 1834. The road was under construction by 1840 and during this work a spring was exposed on the eastern side, giving its name to the nearby Fountain Villas. Until 1860, the Olphert estate on the north side of Coleraine could only be used for farming, but in January of that year Chancery Court permission was obtained for 99-year leases. In March 1860, sites for villas on the east side of Millburn Road were advertised, commencing at the fountain, though building does not appear to have proceeded in earnest until the launch of the Coleraine Building Society in 1864.

David Baxter, who built the adjacent Fountain Villas, leased the ground for Salem Lodge to Samuel Shannon in January 1872. The house first appears in valuation records in 1873, noted as an unfinished house built by Samuel M. Shannon, and was valued at £35 on completion in 1874. Shannon was the first occupier, and the house was advertised to let in the Belfast Newsletter of 17th March 1876. The advertisement described it as resting on a beautiful terraced lawn decked with shrubbery, with an open vestibule at the hall door roofed with glass and supported by Corinthian columns. The house was said to have a large hall with a double-railed mahogany staircase above which was a stained-glass dome (since removed), and was described as being of the most modern construction, with every accommodation for a gentleman's family, including a greenhouse, coachhouse, stable, hay loft and enclosed yard and garden.

Subsequent occupiers included Samuel Adair (1877), Samuel E. Stronge (1877), Daniel McLoughlin (1883), William Todd (1884), John Lusk (1889), Jane Lusk (1894), Samuel Kirkpatrick (1905) and David G. Christie (1925). Jane Lusk appears in the 1901 census as a widow of 84 years living with her niece and a general domestic servant in an eight-room house designated first class. The 1911 census records the occupier as Samuel Kirkpatrick, a retired farmer living with his wife and a domestic servant; three children had been born to the couple but none had survived. The house was listed in 1977 and renovations took place during the 1970s and 1980s.

The house first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1904. Its local prominence during the Victorian era was reflected in contemporary newspaper reports, which expressed the pride of Coleraine's residents in the new fashionable villas and terraces built on the outskirts of the town for the rising middle classes.