Collon House, Buncrana Road, Londonderry, BT48 8AE

Collon House is a two-storey multi-gabled house in the Arts and Crafts style, situated on flat ground well set back from Buncrana Road and screened by mature trees. The principal south-east facing elevation is five bays long with roughcast finished walls, colour washed, and steeply pitched roofs. The upper floors feature half-timbered construction, with the pattern becoming diagonal or herring-bone halfway up the gables.

The entrance is a six-panelled door set in the flank wall with a plain rectangular fanlight above and a projecting slated canopy supported on timber brackets. The canopy returns across the gabled projection over the porch window and a shallow rectangular bay serving the main reception room. The porch window comprises six fixed panes, while the reception window contains eight panes filled with lead lights.

At first floor, the second bay contains two two-light sliding sash windows symmetrically placed, each with the lower sash divided into three horizontal panes and the upper sash into four panes. The adjacent bay has matching two-light double-hung sliding sash windows, with a simple ten-pane sliding sash window above that breaks the eaves to form a gabled dormer. The two bays set further back are one-and-a-half storeys, with two single twelve-pane sliding sash windows at ground floor and above each a single small four-pane double-hung sliding sash window, terminating in a gable. The middle bay gable has a ten-pane sliding sash window positioned near the corner. Below the reception and porch windows are two basement windows with heads just appearing above ground level.

The north-west elevation is three bays wide and features a projecting gable, half-timbered at first floor, extending from the reception room. In the angle formed is a small conservatory accessed from the reception room. To the south of the conservatory is a tall narrow six-pane sliding sash window, with a small two-pane sliding sash window above under the eaves. The half-timbering continues around the flank of the projecting gable, where a tall narrow six-pane sliding sash window sits at ground level. The gable features a central nine-pane double-hung sliding sash window with horizontal astragals in the lower sash, flanked by slightly narrower nine-pane sliding sash windows. Above the gable is centred a two-light sliding sash window with six panes in each light. At first floor the walls are similarly half-timbered as the principal gable.

To the rear, a two-storey kitchen wing is similarly treated, with ground floor windows on the flanking walls. A recently erected two-storey element partially fills the angle between the dining room and kitchen wings while maintaining the character of the original house. A further larger two-storey extension has been added to the other side of the kitchen wing, again in sympathy with the original, with minimal half-timbering at first floor where any banding appears as painted smooth rendering, sufficiently distinct from the original work.

The roofs form a series of intersecting planes in asbestos slates with plain ridges. The original chimneys have been retained, though possibly rebuilt in redbrick with oversailing courses.

The setting includes a pleasant lawn to the south-west and a former vegetable garden to the north-west. Behind the house are former outbuildings and new garages. A noteworthy group of stone outbuildings is neatly arranged around three sides of a farmyard court with segmented arched openings and a central two-storey gabled barn. The outbuildings are separated from the house by a random rubble stone wall.