20 Ranaghan Road, Maghera, Co. Londonderry, BT46 5ND

20 Ranaghan Road, Maghera

This is a single-storey, five-bay direct entry house dating from the period 1820 to 1839, situated on a short lane running south-westerly off Ranaghan Road, approximately one and a quarter miles from Maghera. The house faces north-east.

The building is constructed with plastered and whitened walls above a coloured base, a feature present at the front elevation only. A dwarf wall with coping and an entrance gate stands before the exposed front elevation. The house originally comprised four bays, but a store has been incorporated within the dwelling abutting the right north-west gable, transforming it into five bays; the walls of this bay and an adjoining annex are of whitened stone without contrasting bases. The roof is covered with corrugated iron and terminates at the gables with concrete copings. Corbelled chimney stacks, each with one clay pot, rise from both gables, with a further stack positioned left of centre to serve the kitchen fireplace.

A scullery and bathroom unit projects from the entrance, contained within an extension of the main roof and lit by two metal-framed windows; this unit has a sheeted door. The front elevation is lit by metal-framed windows: three to the left of the kitchen and bathroom projection, one to the right, and another lighting the former store, now part of the dwelling, which is provided with a timber ledged and sheeted external door. The adjoining annex has a timber sheeted door and a timber window of two vertical panes. The left-hand gable is pierced by an entrance containing a flush door. The rear elevation contains four smaller windows: a vertical window (partially blocked), a small plain square opening, a window of two horizontal panes, and a top-hung window. Between the latter two is a boiler house projection under an extension of the main roof with a timber sheeted door.

The former store has a pitched corrugated iron roof with timber bargeboard, and the adjoining annex is lean-to roofed. The original layout remains intact and the early roof structure is unaltered. Although the window openings at the front have been altered and the scullery and bathroom unit have been added, the building retains sufficient cohesion to make a positive contribution to the immediate landscape.

The house appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834 and on the revision of 1854. The scullery, bathroom extension, and the small annex on the north-west gable are later additions. To the north-west side are a range of plastic-covered outbuildings, accessed by a by-pass on the south-east side of the house; a wall of increased height stands before the second and last of these outbuildings.