Tullyarden Lodge, 202 Culmore Road, Londonderry, BT48 8JL

Tullyarden Lodge is a pleasing mid-Victorian cottage ornée displaying a mixture of good neo-Gothic and Classical architectural repertoire. Erected circa 1860s, the property shows some details characteristic of other houses in the Ward established by or under the Irish Society. It is a small one-and-a-half storey double pile house with natural slate roof and gables. The front pile has a central yellow brick chimney, and the rear pile has another chimney centrally positioned. The walls are smooth rendered and lined with plastered quoins, left unpainted to the south, east and north elevations but painted on the rear where rendered in roughcast. The gables of the two piles are not in line; that to the rear projects to the north, with the main entrance and porch tucked into the corner beneath a flat roof with plastered quoins. A rear porch, a storey and a half high, tucks into the opposite corner and contains the landing to the back bedroom.

The roadside east elevation is two bays wide with two triple-light sliding sash windows of two panes each. Each light is separated by three-quarter engaged wooden columns with moulded crotched capitals and squared bases and banded shafts. Each window has a moulded plaster hood with plain block stop, with the top arris of the reveal stop chamfered. Above each window sits a two-light gabled dormer, slated with decorated red clay ridge tiles, timber finial and delicately detailed decorative barges. Each dormer window has similar three-quarter columns as the windows below. The south gable of the front pile has two lights centrally placed at both ground floor and first floor levels, matching the dormer windows and featuring hood mouldings as before. The gable displays open work decorative barges with a slim moulded finial. Both gables of the north side are similarly treated, except that the windows in the porch gable and rear pile gable are plainer, without engaged columns or hood moulding. The west or rear elevation contains a single two-pane sash window in a gabled dormer, with other windows plain in a mixture of sliding sash and top-hung types. The south gable of the rear pile has neither overhand nor moulded barge.

The main fascias have exposed moulded rafter feet. The four-panelled moulded door of the entrance porch has narrow leaded-light side screens with a shallow fanlight divided into three sections. The slated roofs appear original, with both ridges displaying moulded red tiles similar to those on the dormers, though a couple are broken. The chimneys are of yellow brick, moulded, with decorative tall octagonal pots. Gutters are cast iron of ogee profile with round cast-iron downpipes.

The house is set close to the roadside, separated from it by a narrow garden with decorative cast iron railing and pedestrian gate. To the south, a walled vehicular entrance with curved walls leads into an enclosed yard formed by small outbuildings and giving access to the rear porch. To the north and west, a well-laid-out romantic garden with mature planting neatly screens the house from new development beyond. The property presently enjoys panoramic views of Lough Foyle and the Benevenagh headland and has been well cared for over the years. The house is not referred to in the Griffiths Valuation Book of 1858, confirming its later date of construction.