52 Moyle Road, Newtownstewart, Co Tyrone BT78 4JT

A detached three-bay two-storey former Methodist Manse, built around 1900, located on the north side of Moyle Road in Newtownstewart. This Edwardian house of modest proportions is rectangular in plan, with a single-storey entrance porch and canted bay to the west, a two-storey return to the east, and a single-storey conservatory to the north.

The roof is hipped asbestos tiles with synthetic ridge tiles. Smooth rendered chimneys are topped with decorative clay pots. The walls are ruled-and-lined render with painted sandstone quoins set over a smooth projecting plinth. Windows are square-headed timber-framed 2/2 sliding sashes at ground floor and segmental-arched-headed at first floor, all with moulded architraves and painted masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces west. The left and right bays are each abutted at ground floor by a canted bay with hipped roof containing a window to each cheek, surmounted by a window at first floor. The central bay is abutted at ground floor by a hipped entrance porch and contains a single window at first floor. The porch features a round-arched-headed opening flanked by moulded pilasters and surmounted by a moulded archivolt. It contains a square-headed four-panelled timber entrance door topped by a fanlight. Access is via two stone steps and the porch is flanked by a pair of stone statues of dogs. The north elevation contains a single window at each floor. The exposed section of the east elevation contains a single round-arched-headed 1/1 sliding sash window with margin lights containing stained and etched glass at first floor right in the stairwell. An attached three-bay two-storey hipped outbuilding is located to the east. The south elevation contains, at ground floor, a replacement uPVC glazed door flanked at right by two replacement timber casement windows, and three timber casement windows at first floor.

A timber-framed conservatory was added to the north elevation at ground floor right around 1980. The attached outbuilding has a roof of hipped natural slate with blue and black clay ridge tiles, roughcast walling, and replacement timber casement windows. A single-storey lean-to timber shed is abutted to its north, and a single-storey garage to its south-east.

The house sits within mature grounds bounded on all sides by hedging. Access from the road to the south is through a timber entrance gate supported on roughcast pillars within roughcast walling.

Rainwater goods are replacement uPVC ogee profile gutters and square downpipes. An ornate door surround and moulded architraves and quoins are among the original features that remain. The house has lost its original roof material and some rear windows.

The house first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905, captioned "Manse". Historical records show it first appears in valuation records in 1878 as an unfinished, vacant house leased from Andrew Monteith, valued at £13. By 1882, the house was finished. In 1891 its value was raised to £15, with a note that "offices never valued". From 1901 onwards, the occupiers were ministers of Newtownstewart Methodist Church: Rev John Hodden from 1908, Rev E Bennett from 1912, Rev J Waugh from 1914, and Rev P G Shipway from 1917. In 1934, Rev James Gibson (later amended to Rev Thomas Jackson) leased the house from Maturin Baird, with the leaseholder later noted as the Trustees of Newtownstewart Methodist Church. At this date it was valued at £15, revised to £23, and comprised three receptions, a kitchen, pantry, scullery, four bedrooms, and a bathroom with low basin, hot and cold water and W.C. The valuer noted the house was in rather a neglected condition.