70 Dunedin Terrace

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-bay two-storey-with-attic end-terrace townhouse; built c.1880 to designs by J & W Kirkpatrick and located to the north side of Lodge Road in Coleraine town centre. Square on plan with two-storey canted bay and two-and-a-half-storey return to rear.

Mansard natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles and fish-scale tiles; slate roof with leaded hips and ridges to canted bay; red-brick and rendered chimneystack. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on projecting eaves course. Walling is painted smooth render on a contrasting plinth with platband between floors; moulded eaves cornice. Windows are segmental-headed 1/1 timber sash with horns, having projecting painted sills; square-headed with continuous sill course at ground floor of canted bay; two gabled dormers to attic having 1/1 round-headed windows in a timber frame with carved timber brackets under eaves.

The principal elevation faces southwest; two-storey canted bay at left with window to each facet; entrance door to ground floor right with window over at first floor. Bolection-moulded four-panelled timber door having lion-head knocker, in a segmental-headed doorcase with panelled sidelights and plain transom light; door accessed via single stone step.

The northwest elevation is abutted by adjoining building (HB03/17/005F).

The northeast (rear) elevation was only partially viewed. Two-and-a-half-storey gabled return at left has projecting chimneybreast to centre of gable, flanked by a 1/1 window at upper floors; lean-to extension at ground floor; left cheek has uPVC window at first floor left and timber window opening on a hinge at ground floor left.

The southeast gable has uPVC window at attic at right.

Setting:
Situated to the north side of Lodge Road in a residential area on the approach to the town centre. Set back from the road; lawned garden to front with bitmac pathway to entrance door. Garden is bounded by mature hedges and modern timber fencing; painted smooth rendered wall to front with saddleback coping and square pier having pointed cap. Rear yard enclosed by roughcast rendered wall to southeast and two-storey roughcast rendered slated outbuilding to northeast. Timber window opening at first floor right over large square-headed opening with modern timber door. Concrete communal yard to northeast has gravelled parking area.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Painted smooth render
Windows: 1/1 timber sash with horns
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

The current dwelling dates from 1880 and forms part of a terrace of seven houses, the only known work by local architects and brothers, J & W Kirkpatrick of Blindgate Street, Coleraine (Girvan, ww.dia.ie). The terrace was considered to be on the best, because sunniest, side of Lodge Road and was occupied largely by middle-class merchants and professionals who kept at least one servant. Lodge Road was laid out between 1833 and 1845, being first shown on O’Hagan’s map of Coleraine dating from 1845 and is named after ‘The Lodge’, a dwelling house at the southern end (now replaced by a hotel). The closing decades of the nineteenth century saw a building boom of terraces and villas in Coleraine of which local people were extremely proud. The boom is said to have begun in the late 1850s when Thomas Boyd built Waterford Terrace at the Coleraine end of Lodge Road (Mullin).

The terrace is entered into valuation records in 1880, given the name ‘Dunedin’ in 1881 and is first shown on the third edition OS map of 1904. The first occupier to be noted was Henry De Monepeide in 1881. The house, office, yard and small garden, was valued at £22 initially but reduced to £20 in 1887, probably as the result of an appeal. The house subsequently passed to Thomas Agnew in 1887 and then Rev Robert McClenahan, (minister of First Coleraine Presbyterian church from 1894-1905) in 1895 (History of Congregations). The reverend made a small addition to the rear of the house costing about £50 and this resulted in a rise in the valuation to £22. The house was taken over by Robert O’Neill, who had formerly lived at number 58, in 1900. Robert O’Neill was a solicitor who lived with his two unmarried sisters and kept a 21-year-old general domestic servant (1901 census).

William Abraham, father of the surgeon and writer James Johnston Abraham (Dictionary of Irish Biography), who had formerly lived at 7 Kingsgate Street, was the next occupier in 1907 and was followed by James B Stewart in 1911, a retired leather merchant and widower who lived with his brothers-in-law, a retired draper and a retired farmer, and his sister-in-law. The family kept a domestic servant (1911 census). Dunedin Terrace was revalued in 1912 and valuer’s notes of this period show a plan of the house with two-storey rear extension and outbuildings against the yard wall and at the rear of the yard, all still present.

Subsequent occupiers were Rev McFarland (1917), James B Stewart who returned in 1918 and Hugh Craig (1924), the Craig family remaining resident until at least the 1950s. Valuer’s notes of the 1930s give the accommodation as a reception, kitchen, scullery and pantry on the ground floor, two bedrooms, a bathroom, WC and reception on the first floor and three bedrooms on the second floor. In the 1930s the houses were said to have cost £1400 each to build, had gas lighting and the rear outbuilding was cobbled inside.

The house was listed in 1977 and converted to offices on the ground floor in the 1970s. Renovations took place to the building in the 1980s (HB file).

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/5/7/1 First Edition OS Map 1830
2. PRONI OS/6/5/7/2 Second Edition OS map 1849-50
3. PRONI OS/6/5/7/3 Third Edition OS Map 1904
4. PRONI OS/6/5/7/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1923
5. PRONI OS/6/5/7/5 Fifth Edition OS Map 1949
6. PRONI VAL/12/A/5/13 Valuer’s notes 1909-12
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/9A-N Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/4 First General Revaluation 1933-57
9. PRONI VAL/3/D/6/2/H/23-24 First General Revaluation 1933-57
10. HB file – 03/17/005A-G
11. 1901/1911 census

Secondary Sources

1. “A History of Congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland 1610-1982” authorised by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Belfast: Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, 1982 (available at www.presbyterianhistoryireland.com)
2. Girvan, W D “Historic Buildings, Groups of Buildings, Areas of Architectural Importance in Coleraine and Portstewart” Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1971-2
3. McGuire, J and Quinn, J, eds “Dictionary of Irish Biography” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Royal Irish Academy, 2009
4. Mullin, Rev T H “Coleraine in Modern Times” Belfast: Century Services Ltd, 1979
5. www.dia.ie

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A two-bay two-storey-with-attic end-terrace townhouse; built c.1880 to designs by J & W Kirkpatrick and located to the north side of Lodge Road in Coleraine town centre. Some alterations and refurbishments, but the building retains much of its original detailing and remains a well-preserved example of a typical late-Victorian terraced townhouse. Forming part of an important and prominent terrace, in a town largely characterised by its development during the Victorian era, Dunedin Terrace is one of the best preserved representative examples of late-nineteenth century terraced architecture in Coleraine. No70 has group value with the other listed buildings in the terrace and is of significant local interest.

General comments

Listing Criteria R - Age; and S - Authenticity a also apply.