Artikelly Community Centre, Artikelly School, Aghanloo Road, Limavady, Co Londonderry, BT49 OH

Artikelly Community Centre (formerly Artikelly School)

This is a two-storey, four-bay former school building dating from 1834, situated 50 metres south-west of Aghanloo Road. The building is remarkable for its unusually large size for a country school of this period and represents an interesting episode in 19th-century educational design.

The structure is built of brick with painted harling to the front and sides, and exposed brick to the rear. It is roofed in slate with chimneys on each gable. A flat-roofed brick porch projects from the front; the bricks in this porch are notably poor quality and are said to be rejects from a nearby brick field.

The fenestration includes two casement windows on the south-east side and one on the north-west side. Two top-hung casement windows flank the front porch, with six square single-pane casements arranged above. The south-east gable contains a first-floor window serving the toilets and a vent pipe. The north-west gable has a low-level rear window. The rear facade is the most architecturally revealing, showing the original brickwork and numerous blocked windows and alterations. At first floor are two square single-pane casements near each gable, with an emergency exit door featuring a concrete lintel adjacent to the north-west window. An external steel staircase descends from here to approximately the centre of the rear facade. At ground floor are a two-pane casement window near the south-east gable, a central door with adjacent window, and a second door with window near the north-west gable; all feature concrete lintels. To the left of the central door is a bricked-up window with a relieving arch above a flat arch. Four additional flat arches are distributed at different levels between the central door and the top of the stairs.

The building was constructed by the Marquis of Waterford in 1834. According to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs, "The house has four apartments, two of the rooms are each 18 feet by 20 feet, the other rooms are each eight and a half by 20 feet. The walls are brick." The severe storm of 7 November 1834 nearly destroyed the building while still under construction, but it was completed. The brickwork confirms that the building has never been extended and remains at its original 1834 size.

Extensive renovations, estimated to date from the 1950s, have significantly altered the architectural character of the building. The structure served as a school for approximately 163 years before ceasing operations during the 1970s. It now functions as a community recreational centre. Although architecturally and historically interesting, the substantial 1950s alterations mean that listing has been deemed unsuitable.