Glasvey House, Loughermore Road, Ballykelly, Limavady, Co Londonderry

Glasvey House is a former school building, now in use as a private dwelling, built in 1828 to designs by Richard Suitor, architect to the Fishmongers' Company, with earlier plans drawn up in 1821 by local architect David McBlain and Company agent Arthur Sampson. It was constructed by contractor James Turnbull for £1,200. The building sits on a formerly triangular piece of ground at the point where the Loughermore Road meets the Clooney Road on their western approach to Ballykelly village. Although the site has been reduced in size by the encroachment of other buildings and changes of ownership, the main facade faces north-east, overlooking the village, and originally occupied a commanding, visually prominent position. A minor road linking the two main roads provides access from both sides, and there is an additional entrance from the Loughermore Road across the front of the main facade. Various boundary walls and hedges have been formed around the building in recent times. To the north, very close to the building and set at right angles to it, is a single-storey special care school. In front, occupying the apex of the former triangular plot, stands a series of individual houses, and to the south-west lies a small local authority housing scheme.

The building displays a vigorous neo-classical style that is characteristic of Richard Suitor's work, which is also evident in nearby Fishmongers' Company buildings including Ballykelly Presbyterian Church, Banagher Presbyterian Church, and the model farm building at Churchill. Suitor's neo-classicism is restrained yet severe and dogmatic, and this building shares those qualities, being complete and resolved in its overall composition. Its proportions are bold and robust, its ornamentation restrained but carefully considered, with a pleasing interplay between brick and sandstone. The rigid symmetry of the plan is entirely in keeping with the neo-classical composition and is broadly comparable in conception to the school building (now an Orange Hall) in the Drapers' proportion at Moneymore.

The building is a symmetrical composition consisting of a central two-storey former teacher's residence, almost square in plan, with a pedimented gable, flanked by two identical single-storey classroom pavilions with hipped slated roofs, the long axes of which run at right angles to the main facade. The pavilions are connected to the central block by two entrance links with lower-pitched slated roofs. The gables of all three blocks are aligned on the entrance facade, though to the rear the central block is set back. The internal plan dimensions of the pavilions closely approximate the Golden Section.

The building is constructed in smooth red brick in Flemish bond, trimmed with ashlar sandstone forming the plinth, clasping quoins, string courses, keystones, friezes, and other dressings. The brickwork walls are articulated with bold semi-circular arches and piers, with round-headed windows to the pavilions, some of which at high level are semi-circular only.

The central block carries a dominant pediment similar to that on Ballykelly Presbyterian Church, filled with brickwork and trimmed with sandstone, with projecting timber barges. The principal facade is two bays wide, with ground-floor windows of a flattish segmental-headed, two-pane form and first-floor windows that are square-headed and two-pane. In the centre of the facade is a shallow breakfront in brickwork containing a blank semi-circular headed recess, the arch trimmed in sandstone with a shallow but prominent keystone that reaches to the underside of the sandstone frieze. The impost of the arch forms a string course carried across the facade to the clasping sandstone quoins, and also acts as the sill to the first-floor windows. At the centre of the semi-circular arch there was formerly a plaque, now removed but retained by the present owner.

The gables of the pavilions are two bays wide with semi-circular headed windows set in brickwork recesses. The north corner gable retains its original wooden sash windows, though with broken panes and deteriorating paintwork. The bottom sash has fifteen panes and the upper sash fifteen panes plus eleven panes in the arched portion. The entrance links contain central double panelled doors with a small vertical window on either side, each with a segmental head. In front of the north entrance, a low structure has been built to form a boiler house, which now blocks the former doorway. The pavilion quoins are similar to those of the central block.

The long facade of the south-east pavilion has four bays with windows similar to those on the gables, except that the brickwork is not recessed. The long facade of the north-west pavilion also has four bays, but the windows are positioned at high level and are semi-circular. A string course at impost level runs around three sides of this pavilion.

The south-west facade, though greatly marred by later additions, is treated slightly differently from the principal facade. The outer quoins of the pavilions here have sandstone clasping quoins, whereas elsewhere on this elevation they are brick. The pediment of the central block is missing its horizontal enclosing member, and while the central block retains windows similar to those on the front, there are no windows on the rear gables of the pavilions. The central block retains its two ridge chimneys, though these have been rebuilt. The pavilions no longer retain their original chimneys, though one retains a later corner chimney. Guttering and downpipes are PVC.

To the rear, single-storey and two-storey additions have been insensitively made, obscuring the original architecture. Windows have been altered and some have been inserted. These changes have been carried out over a number of years, and a comparison between a Campbell photograph of the main facade taken around 1880 and photographs taken in 1998 illustrates the extent of the alterations.

The historical background of the building is of considerable significance. The Fishmongers' Company was among the more enlightened of the Livery Companies involved in the plantation of County Londonderry. When their leases terminated in 1820, the Company undertook a building programme to provide a sound social infrastructure for their tenants. The establishment of Glasvey School was part of this effort. When the school was ultimately built in 1828 — the 1831 Ordnance Survey map shows it positioned closer to the road than it was actually constructed — the plans had been slightly revised and the elevations redesigned by Suitor, departing from McBlain's original scheme. The large classrooms followed the Lancasterian system and were divided in two by folding partitions, in much the same manner as at Largy Primary School. Sometime after 1880, the windows of the residence were altered at first-floor level and small windows were inserted on either side of the entrance doors; it was likely around this time that the school came under the National School System, and additional corner fireplaces would have been added at the same period. When the school was subsequently taken over by the County Londonderry Education Committee and later the Western Education and Library Board, additional indoor toilets were constructed. The school closed on 30th June 1966. The Fishmongers' Company donated the building and six others to the University of Ulster as an endowment. Seven years later it was purchased by the present owner, who converted it into a dwelling, making the alterations noted above. He purchased the entire site and sold off portions for other dwellings, with the result that the area in front of the principal elevation has been substantially reduced.

The building has significant historical associations in the context of the Fishmongers' Company's efforts at social provision within their proportion of the plantation, and it is one of the few such school buildings surviving in Northern Ireland, albeit now serving a different purpose. It is of considerable local and national interest, with important social implications.