Urney Park, 106 Urney Road, Strabane, Co. Tyrone, BT82 9RU

Urney Park is a detached three-bay, two-storey country house over a concealed basement, built around 1810 and substantially remodelled or rebuilt in 1814. It sits in a parkland setting to the south-east of Urney Road, approached from the north by an avenue, in a rural location south-west of Strabane near Clady. The house is L-shaped on plan, facing north, with a single-storey over basement return to the east and a pair of enclosed yards to the rear with some rubble outbuildings.

The roof is hipped natural slate with rolled lead ridges and three rendered chimneystacks with clay pots. The eaves are overhanging on the front elevation, where a cast-iron box gutter is carried on a rendered corbel course; the side and rear elevations have half-round guttering supported on iron drive-through brackets, with cast-iron downpipes throughout. The external walls are finished in ruled-and-lined render with rusticated stone ashlar quoins and a stone plinth course. Window openings are square-headed with stone sills; the ground floor has a projecting moulded cornice and the windows are 6/6 timber sash, though a number have been replaced with uPVC units.

The symmetrical three-bay front elevation has a shallow central breakfront dominated by a Doric prostyle tetrastyle portico in stone ashlar — that is, four Doric columns supporting a full entablature, with a pair of engaged Doric pilasters flanking a stone ashlar tripartite doorcase. The central square-headed door opening contains a six-panelled timber door with beaded muntin and iron door furniture, flanked by a pair of full-height sidelights fitted with 4/4 timber sash windows. The stone-flagged portico floor opens onto four stone steps. Two windows at first-floor level on this elevation have been replaced with uPVC units.

The two-bay, two-storey east side elevation has uPVC windows at first-floor level, blocked-up window openings to the basement, and a further uPVC window to the ground floor of the return. The rear elevation features a round-headed window opening at first-floor level with a 6/6 timber sash window, and a further 8/8 timber sash window to the basement. The west projection is abutted by a ruinous stone and brick wall — formerly an outbuilding — enclosing the rear yard to the west. The single-storey return has a single door opening with a uPVC glazed door leading onto a flight of steps. The three-bay, two-storey west side elevation over basement has three uPVC replacement windows, with timber casement windows at basement level.

The rear yard is enclosed to the south by a two-storey range of rubblestone outbuildings with a pitched corrugated iron roof, and an elliptical-headed carriage arch formed in red brick giving access through to a further smaller yard. This smaller yard is enclosed by mainly twentieth-century cement-rendered sheds.

The house was built or radically remodelled by Sir James Galbraith in 1814. Galbraith had been made a baronet the previous year and was law agent to the Marquess of Abercorn at that time. A letter from Galbraith to the Marquess, dated 27 July 1814, provides a vivid account of the work in progress: "My Dear Lord [Abercorn], We have had fine weather and a fine harvest. Abundant and good. Except the poor man's all is in and he has a fine prospect for his also. It has been most favourable for my Building. Mr Fenton quitted Urney in July and I have one wing covered in and the cornice laid on the other. I hope I may yet be so happy as to have your Lordship's opinion of it tho' it should be to say that I was a blockhead for not building where I first intended and break new ground and leave Fenton where he was but what I have done fixes me for life within an hour of Barons Court and I shall be comfortably fixed next year. Time is everything. May God Bless you my Dear Lord. Your faithful and affectionate servant ever." The first surviving letter that appears to place Galbraith in residence at Urney is dated 14 August 1815; earlier letters are largely headed "Holy Hill" and "Dublin". John Fenton Esq, the previous occupant, is mentioned in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs as an absentee landlord of Urney parish. The outbuildings to the rear may be survivals from the earlier house that Fenton occupied.

The house is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33, captioned "Urney Park", and formal gardens are also depicted at that date. By the second edition of 1855, a new outbuilding had been added to the rear, forming an enclosed courtyard. A gate lodge is shown to the north and a farmyard with a threshing machine to the south. The Townland Valuation records Lady Galbraith as the occupier, later revised to Richard Hamilton; measurements are given for a dwelling house, offices, a cellar and a threshing machine, with the property valued at £64 10s, subsequently revised down to £36.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs, which place the house in County Donegal, describe it in glowing terms: "Urney Park, the seat of the late Sir James Galbraith Bart and at which his widow Lady Galbraith is constantly resident, is a handsome modern house with portico situated in an extensive demesne looking over the plantations which divide it from the mail coach road to Sligo and over the grounds of Urney House to the River Finn, the picturesque hill of Crohan on the opposite side of the river forming a pleasing background and termination to the prospect in the north west."

Sir James also maintained a house in North Great George's Street, Dublin, and was at one time Crown Solicitor for Ireland. His baronetcy became extinct on his death in 1827, as he left no male heirs. Griffith's Valuation of 1857 records a house, offices and land occupied by Richard Hamilton and leased from Captain Andrew Knox, valued at £50. The Valuation Revisions show a succession of Knox family members as owners throughout the 19th century, until Catherine Perry is recorded in residence in 1908. A gate lodge appears in the property description and is deleted from the main entry in 1894, entered separately at a value of £1 10s and noted as slated; as a result the main property valuation decreased from £49 to £47 10s in 1894, and was further reduced to £46 in 1908. By 1933, valuers record Catherine Perry as occupier in fee, noting the ground floor comprised a kitchen, scullery, pantry and three rooms, and the first floor six bedrooms, a bathroom and a separate WC, with the whole described as "two storeys and basement". The house had hot and cold water but no electricity, being lit by oil lamps. Valuers characterised it as an "old mansion house in rambling condition — accommodation excessive". Perry was also the lessor of the gate house and the farm to the south.

The Dictionary of Irish Architects proposes Robert Woodgate as architect of Urney Park; however, the primary evidence does not support this attribution. The primary sources suggest instead that Woodgate was the architect of Urney House, the parish glebe house, which adjoins the Urney Park estate.

The house, together with its mature landscape setting, group of outbuildings, and its historical connections to the Abercorn Estate, makes a positive contribution to the architectural heritage of Strabane.