Glenkeen Road, Aghadowey, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51

Glenkeen Road, Aghadowey

A single-storey rubblestone former dwelling built around 1800, with a pitched corrugated iron roof over thatch, located at the end of a long lane to the south of Glenkeen Road in Co. Londonderry. The building is rectangular on plan and faces west.

The exterior walls are rendered rough cast over rubblestone. The west front elevation is five openings wide with a central door opening. The windows are square-headed openings formed in brick soldier arches with brick reveals and rough-hewn stone sills; some retain 2/2 timber sash windows, while the southernmost opening has a tripartite timber sash window. The central door opening has a timber lintel and frame. The roof features pared cement verges and a pair of rendered chimneystacks at either end.

The north gable displays exposed rubblestone walls with red brick detailing around the flue and a single window opening at attic level. The rubblestone rear elevation has irregularly-placed diminutive square-headed window openings.

The property is part of a former clachan settlement and predates the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832. By the mid-nineteenth century, valuation records show at least three occupiers on the site. Griffith's Valuation (1856-64) records the tenant as Jane Gilmore, who leased the house and over 17 acres from the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, with the house and offices valued at £15. The property later passed to the Gilmore family, who became owners in fee in 1891. The 1901 census lists Matthew Gilmore as occupier, living with his wife, three young children and a farm servant in the five-room thatched house. Improvements in 1901 raised the valuation to £1. A new slated house was added adjoining the original dwelling in 1916, valued at £2, with six windows to the front elevation and designated first class by the 1911 census.

The building now stands derelict, with a two-storey mid-twentieth-century rendered house attached to the south gable, also derelict and roofless. The site is further surrounded by roofless rubblestone outbuildings arranged around an informal front yard. The Glenkeen Orange Hall stands at the head of the lane fronting onto Glenkeen Road.

Despite recognisable elements of vernacular construction and historic roof structure, the building has lost considerable historic fabric and detailing and is not of sufficient interest to warrant listing.