Tea House, Lislear, Baronscourt, Newtownstewart, Co Tyrone, BT78 4EZ

Tea House, Lislear

An unusual early twentieth-century pavilion building located at the northern shore of Lough Catherine on the Baronscourt demesne. The structure is characterised by its distinctive octagonal plan and accompanying star-shaped roof, making it an interesting and idiosyncratic element within the group of listed structures associated with estate life.

The Tea House is a single-cell pavilion erected circa 1912 on Lislear Rath at the north shore of Lough Catherine. The building is octagonal on plan with a porch to the south and a canted extension projecting from the three northernmost sides. The roof is star-shaped with gables to all sides of the octagon, covered in fishscale clay tiles with plain timber bargeboards to all gables. The porch has crested ridge tiles and exposed rafter tails. A tall red brick lozenge-shaped chimney with stop-end chamfered corners and cogged corbelled brick cap rises from the west ridge. Lead valleys are present; no rainwater goods are visible.

The walling is garden wall bonded red brick over a projecting plinth, with the extensions in stretcher bonded brick. The apexes have timber shingles. Windows are steel-framed multi-light casements with concrete sills, now boarded over. The principal entrance faces south, comprising a timber door with lattice glazing over the lock rail and a three-light transom. This is contained within the porch, which is open to the south and features chamfered brick-dressed circular openings at each cheek. The porch floor is laid with decorative mosaic tiles. The elevations flanking the entrance each have a window; those to east and west are blank. The extension is detailed as the main cell and contains two timber-sheeted doors and two boarded windows.

The building appears to have been constructed in two stages, with the main octagonal block pre-dating the changing room extension. The octagonal structure is believed to date to circa 1912, with the extension possibly added in the late twentieth century. The building's dating is uncertain: it does not appear on the 1936 Ordnance Survey map or the 1:10,000 scale 1976 map, but is recorded on the 1:2500 scale map of the same year.

The pavilion is pleasantly situated on a flat circular rise planted with trees at the north of Lough Catherine, accessed from a secondary road within the demesne through woodland. A steep terrace inset with rough steps leads down to the flat grassed bank of the shore, affording secluded views over the water.