Drumagarner House, 58 Drumagarner Road, Kilrea, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 5TR

Drumagarner House is a detached two-storey farmhouse built around 1840, situated on an elevated rural site to the south of Kilrea in County Londonderry. The building represents a formalised farmhouse design of the period and makes a significant contribution to the rural historic character of the wider Kilrea area.

The house is rectangular on plan with an asymmetrical two-storey, three-bay Georgian-style form. The main north-facing elevation is constructed of roughly coursed and squared black rubble stone with red-brick dressings and stepped brick reveals to window and door openings. The remaining elevations are rendered in roughcast with projecting smooth rendered plinths. A replacement pitched natural slate roof with grey and blue angled ridge tiles sits above, with rebuilt brick chimneys to the gable-ends, each carrying a single octagonal clay pot. Half-round replacement metal rainwater goods are mounted by wall-driven brackets to projecting eaves courses.

The north elevation is almost symmetrical, with the right bay slightly wider than its neighbours. Three windows occupy the upper floor, while the ground floor features a central four-panelled timber door with plain glass transom and decorative glazing bars, retaining original door furniture. Eight-over-eight timber sashes flank the door on either side. All windows are replacement timber sashes, typically arranged as three-over-six unless otherwise noted.

The east elevation is largely blank except for a diminutive two-over-two window positioned right of centre and a six-over-six sash to the left. The rear south elevation contains three windows across the upper floor with irregular fenestration at ground level featuring various timber sashes. A mono-pitched single-storey roughcast return extends to the right of centre, with a slate roof and blank elevation; a timber-sheeted and braced half-door occupies the right cheek, while the left contains a six-over-six window. The west elevation contains two six-over-six windows to the upper floor with a fifteen-pane timber door positioned right of centre below.

The house was constructed between 1830 and 1853 on the site of previous farm buildings, first appearing on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853. Historical records show it was leased by Reverend John T. Paul and occupied by farmer Andrew Adams, with the buildings valued at £3 in Griffith's Valuation of 1857. The Adams family maintained occupation throughout the 19th century. The 1901 Census recorded five family members in residence with associated outbuildings comprising a stable, two cow houses, a piggery and a barn. By 1911, the complex had expanded to include a stable, shed, piggery, calf-house and coach-house. In 1916, under the Wyndham Land Purchase Act of 1903, John Adams purchased the land and buildings from Robert Newton. Ownership transferred to John Hutchinson by 1935, at which point the main house's valuation had fallen to £1. The west-facing outbuildings were removed during the latter half of the 19th century and replaced by those now located to the south-east of the main house, as shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905. A proportion of these outbuildings remain to the rear.

The house was renovated in recent years after falling into poor repair. Historic fabric is now limited to the exterior walls; all interior elements are replacements.

The setting comprises mature rural farmland immediately south of Kilrea, with the north and west elevations visible from Drumagarner Road. Access is via modern blackstone and brick piers supporting replacement metal gates, leading to a gravel hedge-lined path and gravel carpark areas to the front and west of the house. A vegetable garden lies to the north, containing a whitewashed single-storey outbuilding with corrugated iron roof (formerly thatched) and rubblestone walls with timber-sheeted and braced doors. The west room functions as a turf store with straw-filled sacks in the roof for insulation; the east room has a concrete floor with exposed rubble walls and some original or late 19th-century roof beams and rafters. A former piggery to the south-east has been refurbished in recent years with some uPVC windows and a replacement slate roof. A further outbuilding to the south serves as a shed with large timber-sheeted barn doors, corrugated metal roof with new timber trusses, roughcast exterior walls and rubblestone and rendered interior walls.