Ardmore Lodge (House), 119 Drumsurn Road, Limavady, Co Londonderry, BT49 OPD

Ardmore Lodge is a rambling Victorian house situated on Drumsurn Road near Limavady, Co Londonderry, a short distance below the road close to the valley bottom of the Castle River. The building stretches along the slope of the ground and is one room deep, extended several times at each end to provide additional accommodation.

The house is a long, two-storey structure approximately 11 bays in length, with chamfered and canted projections to front and rear and a kitchen back return. The front canted two-storey projecting bay has polygonal hips, while another two-storey projecting bay features a flat roof that incongruously thrusts through the front pitch and finishes almost level with the ridge. Natural slated pitched roofs cover the building. The walls are smooth rendered with a frieze under the roof soffits and decorated wooden modillions made of three pieces of timber clamped together. Shallow sunken rectangular panels between the ground and first floor windows of the flat roofed projecting bay are decorated with meagre swags. Windows throughout have sliding timber sashes varying between 12 and 15 panes, while those in the canted bay have two large panes each. Several entrance doors to the principal front exist because the house is divided. The front elevation faces north west.

The Macrory family came to Ardmore Lodge in 1822 from Castledawson, where they operated a mill, and continued in the milling business. Although the Ordnance Survey Memoir states the house was built in 1831, a dwelling likely existed on the site upon their arrival, previously occupied by Robert Millar. The original dwelling was described as a two-storey whitewashed structure with a slated roof. The milling business expanded with the erection of a second mill nearer the house around 1840 and the creation of a large pond around 1842 to ensure a steadier flow of water to the mills. During the famine, 45 acres were purchased with assistance from a Board of Works loan, and machinery was adapted to grind Indian corn. Macrory became a director of the Great Northern Railway. An 1853 advertisement for the sale of the house and premises described it as containing a parlour, drawing room, five large airy bedrooms, one water closet, pantries, kitchen, scullery, dairy and other rooms, with water supplied throughout the house piped from the pond. S Macrory became chairman of the Limavady to Dungiven railway and purchased prefabricated chalets from Sweden, delivered by rail to an adjoining site, which he assembled to form a dower house for Mrs Macrory (demolished in the 1980s). However, the railway forced the closure of the mills in the early 1900s, and the business was transferred to a location near the railhead with machinery relocated. In the 1930s, the house was further extended by the erection of a drawing room and conservatory at the top end, constructed from what had been described as a barn. The present owner, a barrister, was responsible for the Report on Local Government Reorganisation in the early 1970s (the Macrory Report) and currently resides in America while undertaking a major renovation of the house. Architects Dickson & McDonald; builder B Mullan. Two mills stand adjacent to the house.