Stragullin, 3 Drum Road, Victoria Bridge, Strabane, Co Tyrone, BT82 8NS

Stragullin is a detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey house built around 1865, situated on the west side of Drum Road in Strabane. The house displays good style and proportions, with a double-sided front porch and steps, and remains largely intact in plan form and detailing both internally and externally.

The building is rectangular in plan, facing west, with a central single-storey entrance porch and a single-storey return with pitched roof to the rear. The roof is hipped natural slate with blue and black clay ridge tiles, and features four smooth rendered corbelled chimneystacks with decorative clay pots. Corbelled eaves support u-profile cast-iron rainwater goods. The walls are ruled-and-lined rendered with a projecting plinth and projecting rendered stepped quoins. Windows throughout are 6/6 timber sliding sashes with projecting stone cills.

The principal elevation faces west and is abutted at its centre by a single-storey entrance porch with flat parapet roof, flanked by a window on each side, with three windows at first-floor level. The entrance porch contains a dipartite window to the east and entrance doors to both the north and south cheeks. Both doors are original glazed four-panelled timber doors, each accessed by four stone steps.

The left (north) elevation is three-bay with a central entrance door flanked by a window on each side and three windows at first-floor level. The original timber panelled entrance door has glazed panes and a transom light above, accessed by a single masonry step. The rear elevation is abutted at left by the single-storey return with pitched roof. The exposed section at left contains a stairwell window, with two windows at each floor at right. The right (south) elevation contains three windows at each floor. The return has a hipped natural slate roof with roughcast rendered walls. The north elevation contains a single replacement uPVC casement window. The east elevation contains a vertically sheeted timber door at right and two 2/2 timber sliding sashes at left, abutted at the left corner by a random rubble boundary wall enclosing a yard to the west. The west elevation is blank. The east elevation also contains a single 6/6 timber sliding sash window at left.

Immediately east of the house, fragments of stone slabs arranged in a circular pattern indicate an early horse engine house. The house is accessed both from the east and north, with the north lane encompassing an arrangement of farm buildings to the north-east. Access at north is via decorative wrought-iron gates and railing. The entrance at east comprises cast-iron gates supported on cast-iron posts and flanked by smooth rendered square piers with pyramidal caps.

Historically, the site is first shown on the third-edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905. The first-edition map of 1832–3 shows a collection of ancillary buildings to the north of the current house, some of which remain. The complex is captioned 'Strathgullin' on the second-edition map of 1855. Griffith's Valuation of 1858 records a 'house, offices and land' on the site, occupied by Aaron Gordon and leased from the Marquis of Abercorn and Captain Murray, valued at £10 5s. Valuation Revisions record an increase to £25 in 1865, with a marginal note stating 'value new home at £20', indicating recent construction. The offices were valued at £5. A slight increase to £26 10s was recorded in 1878 due to the addition of a 'Cottier's House'. The Gordon family remained in residence until 1929, though the lessor became George Knaggs in 1889. The property represents a Victorian design which retains fenestration of Georgian proportions. The Gordon family, in Ireland by 1741, acquired the land at Stragullin in 1798, and the present house was erected in 1865.

The house is enhanced by its rural farmyard setting and mature gardens, and contributes significantly to the architectural heritage of the local rural area.