Site of former no.54 Townsend Street, Strabane, Co Tyrone

Site of former number 54 Townsend Street, Strabane, Co Tyrone

This site on the east side of Townsend Street was formerly occupied by a two-storey public house dating from around 1864. The building was demolished sometime after 1983, and its position is now partially occupied by a modern housing development.

The site is shown as undeveloped on the Ordnance Survey map of 1833-34. On the valuation plan of Strabane drawn up in 1857 to accompany the second valuation, a wedge-shaped structure occupies the northwestern half of the site. This was a forge, leased by Patrick McCahill from Samuel Martin, with a rateable value of £2-5-0. By 1864, the property is described as a house, office, forge and yard, with a rateable value of £8, indicating that major building works had taken place. The rateable value rose to £10 by 1873, possibly suggesting further works, though the valuers made no specific comment on this matter.

The property passed from Andrew McCahill in 1873 to John McCaffrey in 1880. From 1892 onwards the building functioned as a public house, a use it retained for the rest of its existence. Successive owners and occupiers were Jane McGrath (1896-1903), Mary McGrath (1903-12), Jonathan Devine (1912-13), Charles Devine (1913-46, freeholder from 1914), Rose Devine (1946-56), Rose Bradley (1956-65, also freeholder), Margaret Doherty (1965-67), and Peter Woods, still in residence in 1972. The building appears to have been extended at least once during the mid-twentieth century, as maps from that period show a significantly larger structure, though the valuations make no specific mention of this.

The building was latterly known as The Fountain Public Bar.

According to a First Survey description from 11 February 1970, the building was a late nineteenth-century structure with rendered walls and a slated roof. The upper floor contained plain sashed windows enclosed in square moulded architraves with keystones, and quoins marked the extremities. Two ground floor windows—one of three lights and one of two lights—were set in square-headed openings with segmental-headed lights, one opening featuring a moulded architrave. Channelled pilasters rose to bracketed gablets adorned with fleur-de-lys ornament, flanking the fascia and cornice. The upper part of the cornice was decorated with paterae.