34 Glasgort Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51

Detached single-storey red brick lobby-entry thatched dwelling, built circa 1800, located at the end of a long lane in Glasgort, Co. Londonderry. The building is rectangular on plan, facing east, and currently unoccupied and derelict.

The dwelling was constructed using locally produced Agivey red brick laid in Flemish bond with lime-wash finish, except to the south gable which bears cement render. A later red brick byre has been added to the north gable, roofed with corrugated asbestos. The original thatch roof is now covered by a pitched corrugated iron roof with cement verges. Red brick chimneystacks rise from both gable ends.

The exposed thatch interior comprises rough-hewn purlins embedded in the gable walls supporting unhewn timber rafters and ridge board, lined with earthen sods and covered in straw thatch. The front elevation is symmetrical, with a central square-headed door opening and a window opening to the south, though the north end of this elevation has collapsed. Window openings are square-headed with red brick flat arches, lacking sills, and contain 2/2 timber sash windows with horns and exposed sash boxes. The south gable is blank and surmounted by a brick chimneystack. The rear elevation has a pair of diminutive square-headed window openings with fixed timber windows.

The building pre-dates the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832 and was extended to the west by the second edition of 1849-53. The structure exhibits brick of at least two different types and sizes, demonstrating the prevalence of local brick production. Thatched dwellings of brick construction are extremely rare and distinctive to this area.

Brick production in Agivey parish is documented from at least the early seventeenth century. In 1615, George Canning, agent of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, recorded the manufacture of bricks at a kiln across the Bann from Agivey, intended for use in completing the upper floors of a stone castle for the Ironmongers. Brick production flourished throughout the subsequent centuries, with the first edition Ordnance Survey maps of the 1830s showing brickfields along the River Bann south of Coleraine, including in Glasgort townland where a pottery was also recorded. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs comment on the quality of bricks made in the parish, used for local vernacular housing and brought up the River Bann to Coleraine where they sold for ten shillings per thousand. The Parliamentary Gazetteer of 1846 reports that coarse earthenware, bricks and tiles were made in considerable quantity from the abundant local clay, with a Potters Kiln and Potters Field shown on the second edition map of the 1850s in a settlement called Brick Hill at Mullaghmore. Clay of two colours—reddish and bluish-grey—was used in the 1880s in Glasgort to manufacture bricks, tiles and flower pots. Brick production gradually declined during the second half of the nineteenth century, though brick kilns and clay pits are still recorded on the third edition Ordnance Survey maps of circa 1900 in the wider Agivey area. Brick became the building material of choice for much vernacular and formalised housing in the parish.

The dwelling is not listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828-40 due to its low value, but appears in Griffith's Valuation of 1856-64 as the dwelling of John Boyle, leased from the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, with the house and outbuildings valued at ten shillings. The property passed through the Boyle family; Susan Boyle is recorded resident in the 1901 census, living in the three-room thatched house with her widowed mother and two sisters, all working as seamstresses while their mother farmed the land. By 1911 the sisters had also turned to farming. Susan Boyle remained resident into the 1930s, when the house was noted to be "in fair repair" and roofed with corrugated iron. The house remained with the Boyle family until 1946 when it was taken over by Henry Gill, after which it became vacant.

The building forms part of a collection of nineteenth-century structures on a site west of Glasgort Road, including a red brick firing range wall, a pair of derelict former dwellings, and a pair of mid to late twentieth-century dwellings.