Deerpark Cottage (also known as Katie's Cottage) is a restored

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge ('' Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

cottage near

Bellaghy Bellaghy () is a village in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It lies north west of Lough Neagh and about 5 miles north east of Magherafelt. In the centre of the village (known locally as The Diamond) three main roads lead to Magherafelt, ...

County Londonderry County Londonderry (Ulster Scots dialects, Ulster-Scots: ''Coontie Lunnonderrie''), also known as County Derry (), is one of the six Counties of Northern Ireland, counties of Northern Ireland, one of the thirty-two Counties of Ireland, count ...

, Northern Ireland. Built in the early 19th century, it is a Grade B+ building.

Architecture

The rural

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

cottage has a floor area of and stands 1 stories tall. It contains a reception hall, a kitchen/dining area, a utility room, a double and a single bedroom, and a wet room. Its

roof is made of + long

straw Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry wikt:stalk, stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the crop yield, yield by weight of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, ry ...

placed on

sod Sod is the upper layer of turf that is harvested for transplanting. Turf consists of a variable thickness of a soil medium that supports a community of turfgrasses. In British and Australian English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', ...

, with walls made of stone finished with a

lime render Lime render is the first coat of lime "plaster or the like" applied to the external surfaces of traditionally-built stone or brick buildings. It allows the building to 'breathe' – as lime is porous, it allows for the collection and evaporatio ...

History

The cottage was originally built in the early 19th century and owned by the McKenna family until Kathleen "Katie" McKenna's death in 2002. It fell into ruin, with the original thatched roof collapsing and waterlogging the building. In 2016, at the request of Katie's niece Mary, the building was restored and modernized between September and June the following year. The renovation was done by Patrick Bradley Architects and contracted by Peter McErlain Limited Building Contractors, with the thatching done by Kieran Agnew. The renovation cost £156,000 and was funded by the

Department for Communities The Department for Communities (DfC, Irish Language, Irish: ''An Roinn Pobal''; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster Scots: ''Depairtment fur Commonities'') is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive. The m ...

References

{{Reflist Grade B+ listed buildings Thatched buildings in the United Kingdom Cottages