Bridge House, Ballykelly, Limavady, Co Londonderry

Bridge House is a well-constructed stone building that marks the proper entrance to Ballykelly Village at the Derry side of its 18th-century stone bridge. It is a two-storey five-bay house over basement, constructed in 1829 by James Turnbull to designs by Richard Suitor at a cost of nearly £2,000. The building was commissioned by the Fishmongers Company as a dispensary and residence for a surgeon, forming part of their general improvements to their estate and the village during the nineteenth century.

The main south-east facade facing Clooney Road is built in ashlar sandstone and displays careful elevation and construction to create a simple, good-quality town building. The other facades are rough-cut sandstone with brick extensions and whinstone to the basement. The building sits at the south-west end of Ballykelly Bridge, with its south-west elevation forming the corner of Station Road and Clooney Road.

The main facade has four sixteen-pane sash windows flanking a central recessed entrance door with rectangular fanlight. A second door between two of the windows to the south-west has been blocked up and rendered in sand cement, coursed to match the ashlar. This was originally the dispensary entrance, surmounted by a reconstituted stone sculpture of the arms of the Fishmongers Company with the word "dispensary" carved above it. The carving was executed by James George Bubb (1782-1853), a distinguished London sculptor of the period. The sculpture is now located in the entrance hall of the Drummond Hotel. Above the blocked door is a projecting rectangular string course with five twelve-pane sash windows aligning with the openings below.

A notable architectural detail is the treatment of blank windows on the south-west facade. Two bays to the front have blank window recesses filled in cut stone, detailed to replicate the shadows of a sashed window. The stone is set back from the facade to align with the timber window frame, and the upper half of the stonework projects slightly in front of the lower half to replicate the horizontal joint of a sash window.

The south-west facade is three bays wide with windows aligning on each floor. The rear bay has a sash window with four panes on each floor, and aligning with the front and rear bays is a narrow attic casement four panes wide. The gable parapet has a stone barge and a carved kneeler stone projects at the eaves.

The roof is natural slate with brick chimneys (four pots) on each gable. Most of the original sash windows remain throughout the building. However, the building has been badly extended to the rear, with a six-bay return projecting along Station Road. The first two bays of this return are surmounted by a first-floor extension rendered to the road but exposed as brick to the courtyard behind, with a brick chimney on the gable. A string course at the junction between render and stone aligns with the eaves level of the main return but does not continue under the eaves. The end of the return has a hipped roof.

To Station Road the return has two double sash windows, one positioned over a blocked-up and rendered arched opening which is under head height at the present road level. At the rear of the return, ground level drops a storey to expose the basement, though a block wall continues on Station Road. Two casement windows align on the end wall. To the north-east side a door to a flat in the return is flanked by two small windows, with two further casement windows above, not aligning with concrete cills; one has been reduced from a door-size opening. A blocked-up arch aligning with that to the road can be seen but is partially obscured by a flat-roofed brick extension to the main building. The rear of the main building has surviving sashed windows of different sizes, with two flat-roofed dormers in the roof and a lean-to extension sitting into the corner of the house and return.

The north-east gable of the house facing the bridge has attic windows, barge stones, chimney and kneeler as described for the south-west gable. The arrangement of openings below is less ordered. At first floor two double-pane sashes are positioned closer to the corners than the attic windows. At ground floor one two-pane sash is almost on the centre line, with another to the rear aligning with the window above. To the basement a single door with relieving arch is off-centre. The whinstone of the basement matches that of the bridge, with the bridge wall curving around to join the gable of the building.

The building operated as a dispensary until well into the present century and is historically important as one of the pieces of architecture in Ballykelly commissioned by the Fishmongers Company. It is of local interest as the first purpose-built health care building in the village. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1835-40 noted a fine garden between the house and river but considered the building "too thick and clumsy". The removal of the Fishmongers Coat of Arms and blocking of the dispensary door has reduced the architectural effect of the building. The lack of cultivation of the garden between house and river represents a missed opportunity to enhance the setting.

The roof is in need of maintenance. The building was occupied by Mrs Cochrane when first listed in the 1970s. In 1987 Mr Graham Mills purchased the building and operated a restaurant. The present owner acquired the house in 1992 and it has since been converted into flats.