Widgeon Lodge, 170 Carrowclare Road, Ballymacran, Limavady, Co Londonderry, BT49 9EA

Widgeon Lodge is an early Victorian hunting lodge, dating from between 1820 and 1839, which was later converted into a farmhouse. It is located at 170 Carrowclare Road, Ballymacran, Limavady, and is accompanied by a former coach house positioned immediately behind. The building predates the construction of the embankment in the 1840s.

The building is a one-and-a-half-storey, double-pile house with three bays, complemented by a projecting porch block of similar height. It features smooth rendered walls, 12-pane sliding sash windows, decorative wavy bargeboards, large plastered quoins, cast iron ogee gutters and downpipes. Chimneys punctuate most gables, topped with tall hexagonal, straw-coloured pots, and ridge lines vary in height to create a lively composition. The rear pile is single-storey with an attic, separated from the main roof by a low-level valley gutter. The roofs now have asbestos slates as a result of recent renovations.

Outbuildings are located beyond the house on either side of the access road. Across the kitchen garden stands the original coach house, distinguished by three pointed, low archways. The west and south sides of the property feature lawns, trees and shrubs.

The house appears on the 1830 Ordnance Survey map and was originally a hunting lodge belonging to Henry O’Hara, who also built a tower house overlooking Portstewart. When the lodge was initially constructed, waterways extended to the road at Widgeon Lodge. The land was then under the ownership of James Ogilby, and later Samuel McDonnell, the great-grandfather of the current occupier, James MacDonnell, in 1858. A rear extension was added around 1900, which reduced the courtyard in front of the coach house arch and altered the entrance door’s arrangement. The current owner undertook renovations in the 1970s. It is believed that Revett, the engineer responsible for the embankment, occupied the house around 1837. According to the 1858 Griffith Valuation, the property was valued at £7.10.0.