15 Main Street, Newtownstewart, Co Tyrone, BT78 4AB

15 Main Street, Newtownstewart

A prominent three-storey street-fronted townhouse built around 1850, this Grade B1 listed building retains significant nineteenth-century character and forms a pair with the adjoining Northern Bank building on the corner, together comprising two of the most important structures on Newtownstewart's main street.

The house is a semi-detached three-bay rendered building facing northwest, with a two-storey lean-to extension to the rear. It sits within a conservation area and is privately owned.

The external elevations are finished in flint-dash render with a smooth render plinth to the front elevation only. Painted rusticated render quoins mark the east corner. The front elevation features three storeys across three bays, with square-headed window openings containing painted stone sills. The principal entrance is an off-centre segmental-headed door opening with moulded render archivolt resting on a pair of impost mouldings to plain stop-chamfered rendered pilasters. The doorway is currently fitted with a pair of replacement Greek Doric uPVC columns supporting a lintel cornice with semi-circular fanlight and uPVC door. The side and rear elevations are rendered in pebbledash.

The roof is hipped with natural slate, gabled to the rear, and features roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles with lead ridge to the outer corner. A pair of large rendered chimneystacks with cement coping and clay pots rise prominently. Ogee moulded cast-iron guttering runs to boxed timber eaves with cast-iron downpipes to the front elevation; plastic rainwater goods serve the rear. Windows include replacement uPVC units with square heads and painted stone sills, though the rear elevation retains some original timber sash windows with coloured margin lights.

The rear elevation has a pair of gables with a central shallow lean-to extension. A short cement paved laneway to the side provides access to the rear of this property and No. 13.

A rendered rubble stone outbuilding encloses the rear plot to the south. This multi-bay two-storey L-plan structure has a pitched natural slate roof and includes several square-headed door and window openings, a voussoired carriage-arch, and two flights of concrete steps to the upper floor.

The house retains many original internal features and was extensively refurbished around 1870, evidenced by late Victorian plasterwork and fireplaces.

Historical context

Buildings occupied the site from at least 1833, according to Ordnance Survey mapping, though the earliest available town plan (1828–40) has not survived. The building first appears clearly in Griffith's Valuation and its associated Town Plan of 1856–64, where the property is recorded as belonging to William McCloy in fee simple. The valuation records dimensions for the main house (31.6 × 24 × 14.6 feet), additions (12.6 × 7 × 6 feet and 5 × 11 × 6.6 feet), and four offices including a turf shed. The property was valued at £8 0s 7d initially, increasing to £11 in 1860 and to £20 in 1879, with a marginal note indicating 'improved'.

In 1919, Hugh McBride leased the house from Mrs Smith and subsequently leased the ground-floor front room to the Board of Works as a Customs and Excise Office. By 1928, the house was occupied by the Royal Ulster Constabulary as a Constabulary Barracks, office and yard, valued at £22 under the ownership of Miss Annie Smyth.

The building was long known as 'Setton House', named after a successful racehorse owned by the builder of both this house and the adjacent Northern Bank. According to the current owner, a win by the horse enabled its owner to construct these two buildings as investments.