14 Munolahug Road, Dungiven, Co Londonderry, BT47 4PX

An interesting vernacular farm buildings group of early and mid-19th century date, retaining much of its early character and worthy of note. Unfortunately, the house renovation was not treated more sympathetically.

The group comprises a vernacular arrangement of 2-storey and single-storey farm buildings with a single-storey cottage, extended to the rear and enclosing a small farmyard. The dwelling, which has been renovated, has a 2-storey outbuilding at one end with external stone steps and the remains of a byre at the other end. The house originally had a bed outshot, now incorporated into a back return. Originally the house was a 2-room dwelling with direct entry and a fireplace in the gable at the 2-storey end. The kitchen has now been partitioned off to form a hall with access to the back return, and a further room has been added beyond the bedroom by taking in an outbuilding, which now serves as the kitchen. The roof has been changed to interlocking concrete tiles, the walls pebble-dashed and modern windows inserted, and the interior has been replastered.

The 2-storey outbuilding in line with the dwelling is 2 bays long, each bay having a different roof finish. The section next to the house has natural slates; the other has corrugated iron. In front of the slated portion, a flight of stone steps parallel to the wall has its underside built in with a door under the landing, giving access to the ground floor. Immediately above, at the top of the landing, is a sheeted door to the first floor. The corrugated roof section has a door at ground level and another at first floor without access, positioned directly above the door below. Towards the gable is another slightly smaller opening sheeted with corrugated iron. The walls are roughly plastered and whitewashed, contrasting with the pebbledash of the cottage. To the rear of the 2-storey barn is a single door opening without access in the slated portion, with walls similarly treated.

At the gable of the 2-storey barn is a lean-to shed with corrugated iron roof, slightly shorter in length than the width of the gable and in line with the rear wall, with walls similarly treated as the barn. The other wall of the shed extends almost to the verge of the road. The shed, barn and cottage are set at an angle to the roadway, not quite at right angles.

Parallel to the road and forming the verge is a single-storey outbuilding with an outshot, windowless to the road. This building defines the farmyard and, with the gap between it and the 2-storey barn, serves as the entrance to the farmyard from the road and to the dwelling. This building is 2 bays long with 2 sheeted doors, stone-built walls, whitewashed and unpainted corrugated iron roof without chimneys. From the lower gable, enclosing walls project to form a small external area for pigs, approximately 1.5 metres high with a narrow opening to the farmyard and a low opening into the piggery. The piggery, now unused, is walled off roughly in line with what was probably a bed outshot. At the other gable is an opening high up in the gable for access to the loft. The front facing the road is windowless. This building was probably the original cottage on the site.

The cottage faces east. At the entrance to the farmyard from Munolahug Road, there is a stone-built round, conical-topped pillar at the north-west corner of the piggery. Unfortunately, its companion has been demolished and a thin rendered square pillar has been rebuilt with a short length of wall joined to the lean-to shed, presumably to widen the entrance.

The 1832 Ordnance Survey map (sheet 24) shows a building where the piggery now stands, assumed to have originally been a dwelling with a bed outshot, with the entrance door and any windows on the south side overlooking the present farmyard. The 1856 Ordnance Survey map (sheet 24) shows the buildings as they presently exist. The cottage was improved and extended with Northern Ireland Housing Executive grant funding around 1990.