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

A two-bay three-storey-with-attic mid-terrace building erected in 1887, now converted to commercial use. Located on the east side of Lodge Road in Coleraine town centre, number 20 forms part of a significant terrace of sixteen houses built between approximately 1859 and 1888. The terrace represents one of the best-preserved examples of mid-to-late-nineteenth-century terraced architecture in Coleraine and makes an important contribution to the architectural character of the town centre.

The building is square on plan with a two-storey gabled return to the rear. It is constructed with painted smooth render walling, featuring a plain eaves band and continuous sill course at first-floor level. The pitched natural slate roof is finished with blue and black angled ridge tiles and has a rendered chimney stack. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods are mounted on moulded eaves.

Windows throughout are timber sash with horns set in chamfered stop-end reveals with projecting painted sills; those on the northeast elevation are 2/2 sashes, while those on other elevations are 1/1. The principal southwest-facing elevation is three openings wide at each floor. The ground-floor entrance at right is a bolection-moulded four-panel timber door with plain transom light in a moulded reveal. The entrance is flanked by panelled pilasters with carved console brackets supporting a corniced canopy, accessed via a single concrete step.

The northwest elevation is abutted by the adjoining building. The northeast elevation features a window at landing level over the two-storey gabled return and a second-floor window to the right; this elevation was only partially viewed. The southeast elevation is similarly abutted by the adjoining building.

A rendered outbuilding with slated roof stands in the rear yard. The northeast elevation of this outbuilding has a 2/2 window to the first floor on the left and a large square-headed entrance at ground level with timber-sheeted gates.

The house was built as part of a development to provide accommodation for the rising middle classes of the area. Lodge Road itself was laid out between 1833 and 1845, first appearing on O'Hagan's map of Coleraine from 1845, and takes its name from 'The Lodge', a dwelling house at its southern end, now replaced. Number 20 was one of the last houses in the terrace to be completed, entering valuation records in 1887 as a vacant, newly-built dwelling. The terrace was considered particularly desirable, situated on the sunniest side of Lodge Road and occupied largely by middle-class merchants and professionals who employed servants. The closing decades of the nineteenth century saw a building boom in Coleraine of which local people were extremely proud, said to have begun in the late 1850s when Thomas Boyd built Waterford Terrace at numbers 26 to 32.

The house was initially valued at £24 and occupied by Mrs Sarah Barr from 1889, leased from James McMullen, who was most likely the developer. At the 1911 census, the occupier was recorded as widow Sarah Jane Barr, living with her niece and employing a general domestic servant. In 1920 the house passed to Reverend Thomas Doey, and in 1924 to William Henry; the Henry family remained resident until at least the 1950s. Valuer's notes from the 1930s record the accommodation as comprising, on the ground floor, a reception room, kitchen, scullery and pantry; on the first floor, one reception room, two bedrooms, bathroom; on the second floor, two bedrooms; and on the third floor, two attic bedrooms. The house had water laid on and gas lighting at this time. In 1956 a lean-to greenhouse and coal shed were added to the rear yard. The building was listed in 1977 and by the late 1990s had been converted to office use by the Samaritans. Repairs and renovations were undertaken in 2011–12.

The building is set back from Lodge Road with a concrete yard to the front, bounded by hedges and a rendered wall with coping topped by modern metal railings and square gate piers. The rear is enclosed by the two-storey terraced outbuilding.