Mansefield House, 519 Clooney Road, Tully, Ballykelly, Limavady, Co Londonderry, BT49 9HP

Mansefield House is a charming cottage built in the mid-19th century, with a good outbuilding situated behind it. A sympathetic extension was added in the early 21st century, and the property includes a well-maintained garden, a front boundary wall, railings, and gates. The main road passing the house was realigned approximately 25 years ago, creating a more favorable setting.

The house is a one-and-a-half storey building, four bays wide, with rendered and painted exterior walls and a single-storey extension at the northern gable. The house sits at a slight angle to the road, as do the front boundary railings and gate, reflecting the road’s realignment over the last 30 years. A pleasant lawn is defined by clipped hedges. A front porch, positioned off-centre, has a pitched roof supported by chamfered, painted timber posts resting on masonry blocks. The underside of the porch roof has exposed rafters and sheeting, painted to resemble a church lychgate. The four-panelled front door features Tudor moulding similar to that on the gate piers. Drip mouldings trim the square heads of the ground-floor windows on the main facade, and there are two dormers with barge overhangs near the end window. All windows on the front and gable have sliding sashes with 12 panes. The house has been extended to the rear in a tasteful manner, although the window character changes. All roofs are covered with asbestos slates. Behind the house, parallel to it, is a single-storey, returned slated barn, now used as a garage. The garden is divided into several areas, including a former tennis court, and is separated by clipped hedges and a low boundary wall topped with decorative cast iron railing and a matching gate. The house was raised from a single storey to its present height around 1860, as indicated by evidence uncovered during replastering of the gable walls. The architect was possibly George Given (1815-83).

The building may have originated as an 18th-century coaching house and later served as a Unitarian manse from 1859, occupied by Reverend J.A. Newell from 1873 to 1906. A Dr. Maybury lived in the house until 1913 and conducted surgery in a single-storey adjunct. Dr. Matson, the grandfather of the present owner, took possession of the house in 1913.