Ballydevitt Gate Lodge, Ballydevitt Road, Aghadowey, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4DR

Ballydevitt Gate Lodge is a single-storey Gothick-style gate lodge built before 1830, located on the north-west side of Ballydevitt Road near Aghadowey. The building was originally associated with Wigmore House (formerly known as Ballydevitt House) and is thought to have been constructed as a lodge for its residents in connection with the nearby Ballydevitt Bleach Works. It retains group value with both Ballydevitt House and Wigmore House.

The lodge is a detached, symmetrical rendered building on a rectangular plan containing two rooms. The principal elevation faces south and addresses the main entrance gates to Ballydevitt House across the road. It features a central replacement timber sheeted door with pointed-arched window openings either side, now fitted with internal timber sheeting and timber plant boxes fixed to sills. The west and east gables are blank. The north elevation is asymmetrical, containing two rectangular window openings of uneven heights; the windows have been removed but timber frames remain.

The building is constructed with smooth unpainted render below continuous painted masonry platboards that wrap around elevations above lintel level, with painted roughcast render above. The roof is pitched slate with copper roll-moulded ridge-tiles. A rendered chimney with no pots is mounted on the building. Ogee cast-iron rainwater goods are mounted on timber fascia to overhanging boxed eaves, with decorative timber barge-boards to the gables.

Originally built as a picturesque thatched structure with a steeply pitched hipped roof and outsized eaves, known locally as the 'wren's nest', the lodge was radically altered during the twentieth century. The thatched roof was replaced with the current pitched slate construction and the building was raised to one and a half storeys with a tiled gabled roof, significantly altering its original form and appearance. Despite these alterations, much of its Gothick character remains.

The lodge is surrounded by a capped rendered and painted masonry wall that abuts the southern edge of the two gables and extends a short distance along the road, punctuated on the west side by a pedestrian cast-iron gate. A dwarf rubblestone wall of a small bridge carrying the road over a stream abuts the boundary wall to the west. The site is bounded by mature woodland to all but the south elevation, which enhances the building's interest and picturesque setting.

Historical records indicate that Griffith's Valuation (1856–64) recorded James Miller as occupier, valuing the building at 10 shillings. A succession of occupants followed, leasing the lodge from the resident of Ballydevitt House. The 1901 census records widower William Clarke and his son, both linen bleachers, as occupants. By 1911, John Milliken, a watchman at the bleach works, lived in the house with his wife and three adult sons, two of whom worked as linen bleachers and one as an agricultural labourer. The gate lodge is now derelict.