On to the village of Ballykelly. This is also an Ulster Plantation settlement. This was created as the principal settlement of the Fishmongers Company’s ‘proportion’. The original 1610 settlement was closer to Lough Foyle than the present main street of the village (which is part of Clooney Road) and located perpendicular. Like in the nearby village of Eglinton the lease for the ‘proportion’ in which this village is situated reverted to the London company of the Fishmongers on the death of King George III in 1820. They also set about a vigorus campaign to improve and beautify their village in the mid nineteenth century. This building was one result. Now a private hospital with modern buildings to the rear, it was built as a model farm by the Fismonger’s Company in 1823 with wings to each side opeing to the farmyard behind and maintaining a formal facade to the road.
|
|