19 Foggy Hill Road, Killen, Castlederg, Co Tyrone, BT81 7SZ

19 Foggy Hill Road, Killen, Castlederg, County Tyrone

A detached asymmetrical three-bay two-storey house built around 1885, situated on the west side of Foggy Hill Road within a farmyard setting. The building is of considerable historical interest as a formal vernacular dwelling, though it is in poor condition and twentieth-century alterations have diminished its character.

The house is rectangular in plan with a single-storey gabled porch projecting from the east elevation. The pitched roof is covered with natural slate and topped with blue and black clay ridge tiles. Rendered chimneys with concrete coping rise from the roofline. The walls are roughcast over a smooth plinth with smooth chamfered quoins at the corners. Cast-iron half-round gutters and round downpipes provide rainwater disposal.

Windows throughout are timber-framed. The ground floor contains 6/6 sliding sash windows, while the first floor has 3/6 sliding sash windows. All windows feature smooth architraves and stone sills.

The principal elevation faces east and is asymmetrical, comprising an opening to each bay at both floors. The centrepiece is a ruled-and-lined rendered gabled entrance porch containing a timber-panelled door with an oval light and transom light above. The south gable is blank.

The west elevation features a replacement timber-sheeted door with transom light at ground floor, flanked by a replacement timber casement window to the left (the original opening having been remodelled) and a sash window to the right. Three 6/6 windows occupy the first floor, though the leftmost is blocked. The north gable is blank.

The farmyard also contains a three-bay two-storey stable building to the south with a pitched natural slate roof, rubble walls with sandstone quoins, and timber-framed openings. An external stair at the east provides access to the first floor. Single-storey lean-to extensions and sheds abut the stable building to the south and west. Further corrugated farm buildings lie to the south of the site.

The site is accessed from the road at the east through a pair of wrought-iron gates supported on square sandstone piers and is bounded on all sides by hedging.

Historical records indicate that buildings on the site first appear on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905. An Annual Revision fieldbook entry from 1864 to 1879 lists the property as 'house offices and land' occupied by Henry Hamilton and leased from James Roulston, valued at 5 shillings. In 1886 Joseph Roulston became the occupier, leasing from Sir John C Stronge, 1st Baronet. The valuation was amended to £3 10 shillings, suggesting a new building had been erected. After 1895 Robert Roulston acquired the property in fee and subsequently leased it to Hugh Greer. In the First Northern Ireland General Revaluation after 1933, William Dennison became the occupier. The property continued to be leased from Robert Roulston but was revalued at £6. At that stage it comprised a kitchen, three rooms, a pantry, and four bedrooms. The valuer noted that Dennison had formerly been a farm labourer to Robert Roulston and that the rent was exceptionally low. Dimensions recorded a main house and an outbuilding, both two storeys of rubble masonry and slated, together with a smaller rubble-built thatched outbuilding.

Twentieth-century alterations, principally the introduction of cement render, have compromised the building's architectural character. The house is not considered worthy of listing.