Dispensary + Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single storey group of dispensary and cottage all in line with the latter at the south end. The dispensary having a higher ceiling height has a higher and predominant slated roof. Each has a separate entrance. The dispensary has an entrance door at one end (with original sign panel above) and is four bays long with three pointed casement windows, one to the waiting area and the other two to the surgery, which is at the gable end with chimney. There is another chimney to the waiting area. The cottage has a symmetrically composed elevation with central entrance door and small pointed window with diamond panes on either side. The walls are finished in roughcast rendering and the roofs slated. The building, set at an angle to the road, forms an eye catching long low rural cottage piece enhanced by its simple hedged garden.

Historical information

The building, built on the Bellarena estate, probably dates from c1840. Its date of building is not recorded in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1835 but reference is made to the healthy state of the local population and refers to the Limavady dispensary. Magilligan area was remarkable for longevity. The present tenant of the cottage has been in residence for 60 years. She told us that the building was erected after a particularly bad outbreak of an infectious disease in the area and the number of resulting deaths underlined the need for a dispensary nearer to Magilligan than Limavady. The dispensary is still used as a doctors surgery two days per week

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

A good example of traditional cottage type dispensary and residence in gothic style.