52 Boleran Road, Glenkeen, Garvagh, Co. Londonderry, BT51 5EG

52 Boleran Road is an asymmetrical two-storey three-bay farmhouse predating 1830, located on the west side of Boleran Road northwest of Garvagh. Though vacant and having undergone some alterations and loss of detailing, it retains substantial nineteenth-century fabric and original proportions. It represents an increasingly rare example of a two-storey nineteenth-century farmhouse in rural Co. Londonderry, and is of local interest.

The building has a rectangular plan with a two-storey gabled extension to the south, which is taller than the main block. A perpendicular single-storey rendered outbuilding abuts the north gable. The pitched roof is partially thatched with raised masonry verges and rendered chimneystacks to the gables; natural slates cover the extension. Plastic rainwater goods are fitted to timber eaves. The walls are finished in smooth painted lime render to the front and cement render to the rear.

Windows are small replacement 1/1 timber sash with horns, exposed boxes and projecting concrete sills, diminished at first floor level. The principal east-facing elevation has two widely spaced windows at first floor over three ground floor windows and an off-centre replacement timber-sheeted half-door accessed by a single concrete step. The extension to the left has a central gablet and a window at each floor. A cast-iron water pump is located to the left of the front door, a cowtail-handled pump with spiral incised column and acorn top, marked as made by plumber D. Christie of Coleraine. The south gable has two 1/1 windows at first floor. The west (rear) elevation has two widely spaced windows at first floor over three ground floor windows (one diminutive) and a replacement timber-sheeted half-door to left of centre. The north gable is abutted by the perpendicular single-storey slated outbuilding.

The farmhouse predates the first Ordnance Survey of 1830 and appears on that map together with a dwelling house to the south and an outbuilding to the east. The slated portion is not shown on the second edition of 1849–53, suggesting it dates from the second half of the nineteenth century. The building does not reach the threshold for inclusion in the Townland Valuation (1828–40) but is first recorded in Griffith's Valuation (1856–64) as a house valued at £1 12s, situated on a plot of over seven acres leased from the Marquess of Waterford. The farm passed through the O'Kane family; at the 1901 census, occupier Jeremiah O'Kane, a farmer, lived there with his schoolteacher wife and four young daughters. The three-room house with three front windows was thatched at that time. By 1911 there were five windows to the front elevation, suggesting the house was raised in the early twentieth century. Valuer's notes from the 1930s describe three reception rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor and three bedrooms on the upper floor.

The property is situated on a large plot with views over surrounding farmland. It is set back from the road and accessed via a long tarmacadamed avenue lined by modern timber fences, which leads to a yard at the front of the house. A single-storey replacement dwelling stands to the east, and agricultural buildings occupy the south side of the yard. The attached rendered outbuilding has been modified with replacement timber windows and doors. The front of the house is laid with concrete. The current building lies empty, as a replacement dwelling has been built on the farm in recent years.