Wood Cottage, 341 Clooney Road, Ballykelly, Limavady, Co Londonderry, BT49 9PL

Wood Cottage is a pleasing 1½-storey cottage built in a Tudor Gothic rustic style, dating from the 1840s to the 1850s. It represents an enlightened and benevolent policy by the Fishmongers’ Company, originally constructed as an agriculturist’s dwelling. The cottage holds national, local, and social importance, reflecting the Fishmongers’ Company’s concern for their tenants and efforts to improve agricultural methods, and its connection to the later Plantation Period of Ireland. It is located on the south side of Clooney Road, a short distance from the former entrance to Walwork House (Beresfords), within a ¼ hectare site containing a neat garden.

The cottage is stone built, two bays wide, with a gabled slated roof and a central brick chimney stack. It has a one-room-deep back return with a lower ridge line. Ground floor windows have sandstone trim, now painted, with moulded labels. The gable entrance is at the rear of the cottage but projects slightly beyond the east gable. Two gablets emphasize the first-floor windows of the principal facade. The building is constructed of blue-grey whinstone with a rustic plinth. Decorative corbels support the fascias, and deep, curvy barges adorn the main gables, while the simpler gablet barges have exposed sprockets. The main entrance door has a Tudor arch head with a matching hood moulding. Windows are timber sash, generally divided into four panes, with ground-floor windows divided into six. A small, two-storey extension to the rear is finished with smooth rendering. Rainwater goods are in cast iron, with moulded sandstone kneelers at the ends of each gable. To the south of the cottage, across a small enclosed yard, is a single-storey stone-built outhouse with brick trims, white washing, and a slated roof. The design is believed to be based on prototypes by Henry Roberts, honorary architect to the Society for Improving the Conditions of Labouring Classes, who worked in the office of R Smirke. The listing includes both the cottage and the outhouse.