44 Castlewarren Road, Donemana, Strabane, Co Tyrone BT82 0PJ

A detached two-bay single-storey vernacular dwelling built around 1890, located on the north side of Castlewarren Road in the townland of Church Hill. The building retains much of its original external fabric and features, and is of particular interest for its intact vernacular interior and the presence of a former forge on the site, though a large rear extension substantially detracts from its architectural merit.

The main dwelling is rectangular in plan with a lower single-storey former byre to the north and a flat-roofed kitchen extension to the west dating from around 1930. The roof is pitched natural slate with blue and black clay ridge tiles over a corbelled eaves course, concrete verges, and red brick corbelled chimneys; the byre has a corrugated roof. The walls are roughcast. Windows are square-headed timber-framed 2/2 sliding sash with painted masonry sills. The principal elevation faces east and comprises a single window to the left bay, a vertically-sheeted timber entrance door in the centre, and a single window to the right bay. The south gable is blank. The west elevation is abutted by the kitchen extension, which contains three timber casement windows. The north gable is abutted by the byre, which features a single window and a large square-headed opening containing vertically-sheeted timber double-leaf doors to its east elevation, with a further single window to its west elevation.

A single-storey former forge is attached to the extension at the south-west corner. It has a corrugated metal roof and whitened lime-rendered rubble walls with timber casement windows. Rainwater goods comprise cast-iron half-round gutters and round downpipes throughout.

The building is set within private grounds bounded to the road by hedging, with access via a driveway and access to the rear through a wrought-iron gate to the north of the byre.

The building first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905, captioned 'Smithy', and on the fourth edition of 1951 without caption. Historical records show a house entered into the Annual Revision records in 1890, initially occupied by James Browne and leased from James Bond, valued at 10 shillings and not identified as a forge at that stage. The property comprised two rooms and a kitchen, with a store to the north, a scullery extension to the rear, and a separate forge. The valuer noted that the house and scullery were of rubble masonry and corrugated iron, and that the lease was conditional upon Mr Bond's work being carried out free of charge in the forge.

The property was first identified as a forge in 1933, when David Brown became the occupier and the valuation increased to £4. By 1945, David Brown had become the owner in fee. At that time, the valuer recorded that Brown had not been using the forge for over two years, as he was working in Derry, and it was then labelled 'old forge, now store'.