Parochial House ('Strabane Presbytery'), 44Barrack Street, Strabane, County Tyrone, BT82 8HD

Large, imposing three-storey parochial house built in 1898 in a vaguely Tudoresque, institutional freestyle. The building served — and continues to serve — the neighbouring Church of the Immaculate Conception, itself completed in 1895. It is listed along with its gate, outbuildings, and gate piers. Taken alongside the cathedral-like Gothic church it was built to serve, the building has a definite group value, and it remains largely original both inside and out.

The house is set at the end of a long, straight, tree-lined tarmac drive off the east side of Barrack Street, with the church located to the south. The plan is roughly U-shaped, with wings to the west, south, and east. Construction is in squared, rock-faced grey stone — probably limestone — with porches, canted bays, quoins, dressings, and stringcourses in ashlar sandstone. The roof is gabled and slated with decorative red clay ridge tiles and sandstone parapets with kneelers and finials. Five tall chimneystacks, built from the same material as the house, each have a narrower upper portion with curved ends. Window openings are generally a mixture of single and two-light flat-headed openings; to the principal faces of the building these are largely filled with horned timber sash frames with plate glazing. Many windows have rock-faced relieving arches above them. Rainwater goods are cast iron throughout, with square downspouts and moulded guttering to the principal faces, and round downspouts and rounded guttering elsewhere.

FRONT (WEST) ELEVATION

The front elevation faces roughly west and is asymmetrical. On the far left is a lower section — though still three storeys — followed, to its right, by a taller full-height gabled bay with a two-storey canted bay. To the right of this again is a broad section three windows wide, with the single-storey entrance porch set in the intersection between this section and the gabled bay. The porch is roughly square in plan and has a tall parapet with cornice and stringcourse, which obscures the porch roof. To the front face of the porch is a large pointed-arch doorway: the right-hand end of the arch is supported on a marble column with a floral capital, while the left-hand end rests on a decorative corbel. The arch has a moulded archivolt and trefoil panels — unevenly arranged — to the spandrels. Set beyond this arch is a smaller pointed-arch opening containing a panelled timber double door with a fanlight of stained glass. Several stone steps lead to the door.

To the left of the doorway, the gabled bay has its ground and first floors largely filled by a canted bay. This canted bay has windows to each face; the window to the front face is a two-light opening with lights separated by a sandstone mullion with a colonnette — a detail repeated on all two-light windows at ground-floor level, while those to the upper floors have plain mullions. This arrangement is repeated to the first floor of the bay, again with a tall parapet with stringcourse and cornice obscuring the roof. To the second floor of the main gabled bay there is another two-light window, with a patterned sandstone panel at the apex of the gable. To the left of the gabled bay, on the lower section, there are two windows to each floor, decreasing in height the higher the floor, and all resting on cill courses.

To the right of the porch there are two two-light windows, with two more directly above them at first-floor level. To the right of those first-floor windows is a smaller window with an unusual five-light timber frame, comprising two large cusped lights surmounted by three smaller ones. At second-floor level there are two more two-light windows, both partly set within gabled half-dormers with decorative panels, finials, and drops to the gable itself, and a smaller window to the left.

SOUTH ELEVATION

The south elevation has a full-height bay at each end, almost identical to the gabled bay on the front elevation, but each with the addition of a roundel panel just above the second-floor window. Between these two end bays is a three-window-wide section, with a porch — as on the front elevation — set in the intersection of that section and the left-hand bay. The roundel panel on the left-hand bay depicts the Virgin Mary. The roundel on the right-hand bay is a date stone which reads: 'Strabane Presbytery 1898. The Right Rev. Mons. O'Hagan P.P. V.F. The Most Rev. J.K. O'Doherty D.D. Bishop of Derry.'

Between the porch and the right-hand bay at ground-floor level there are two windows. At first-floor level, between the two end bays, there are three windows. There are three more windows at second-floor level, the central one larger and set in a gabled dormer as those to the front elevation.

EAST ELEVATION

The east elevation has a large three-storey section to the left and a much smaller two-storey section to the right. To the ground floor of the larger section there are two widely spaced windows, with three windows to each of the upper two floors; those at second-floor level are considerably shorter. To the ground floor of the two-storey section there are three windows, the rightmost very narrow. At first-floor level there are two shorter windows. A tall rendered wall extends from the north end of this section, enclosing the yard.

NORTH AND REMAINING ELEVATIONS

The north façade of the north wing has two gables, the right-hand one taller and narrower. A single-storey lean-to extends from the left-hand side, finished to match the main house, with a flat-arch doorway with a timber-sheeted door to its south-west face. To the right of the lean-to are two relatively small windows at ground-floor level, with two taller windows above at first-floor level.

To the west façade of the north wing there is a doorway — as on the lean-to — roughly to the centre of the ground floor, with a window to its left. At first-floor level there are two windows, with a further window to their right set at an intermediate level between the first and second floors; this window has margin panes. At second-floor level there is a similar arrangement of smaller windows, with the central one and the one to the right both having margin panes.

To the narrow north façade of the south wing there is a window to each floor, decreasing in size the higher the floor. The first- and second-floor windows have margin and lattice panes.

On the east façade of the west wing, at the far left there is a window to each floor similar to those described previously but with margin and lattice panes throughout. To the right of these is a similar window set at an intermediate level between the ground and first floors, with a doorway — as on the lean-to — to its right at ground-floor level. To the right of that is a two-storey lean-to with a small window to each floor. Above this bay is a second-floor window matching those to the far left. To the right of the bay is a much larger three-storey bay whose lean-to roof merges with the pitch of the main roof. At ground-floor level here there is a single window with vertical glazing bars — two panes over two. At first-floor level there is a similar window, with another to its right set at an intermediate level between the ground and first floors. There is a further similar window above this at an intermediate level between the first and second floors, while at second-floor proper there is a small window.

At the ground floor of the north gable of the west wing there is a lean-to, finished to match the rest of the house. What was formerly a doorway in its east face has been converted to a window; this conversion has been carried out with a recent timber frame made to resemble a sash, and the lower half of the former doorway has been blocked in cream-coloured brick. At second-floor level on this façade there is a window.

YARD, OUTBUILDINGS, AND GROUNDS

To the north side of the house is a concrete-finished yard enclosed on its east and west sides by tall walls. The west wall is finished to match the main house and is shaped so as to disguise the lean-to behind it on its east side. This wall incorporates a carriage gateway with sandstone pillars that have bevelled bases and edges and curved pyramidal caps, enclosing a pair of recently replaced decorative iron gates. The east wall is finished in unpainted roughcast but has a similar gateway.

To the north side of the yard is a two-storey gabled outbuilding finished in unpainted roughcast to the south and east, with the west gable finished to match the main house. The roof is slated with a single rendered chimneystack. To the ground floor of the south façade of this outbuilding, from left to right, are: a window with a multi-pane timber frame, a doorway with a timber-sheeted door, another similar window, another doorway, and then two flat-arch carriage doorways, both without doors. At first-floor level there are six symmetrically arranged window openings with louvres, with a loft doorway — fitted with a timber-sheeted door — set between the middle windows.

There is a small garden to the west of the main building and a larger one to the south. To the west again is a tarmac-covered forecourt and parking area, beyond which lies the long tarmac drive.