124 Melmount Road, Sion Mills, Co. Tyrone, BT82 9EU

124 Melmount Road, Sion Mills — Arts and Crafts Semi-Detached House, circa 1905

This is a semi-detached two-bay, two-storey house built around 1905 in the Arts and Crafts style, situated on the east side of Melmount Road at the southern end of the Sion Mills Conservation Area in County Tyrone. Together with its neighbour at No. 122, it forms a symmetrical and architecturally cohesive pair facing onto Melmount Road, further unified by a low cut-stone wall running north to south in front of both houses. This wall also visually connects the pair to the adjacent Church of the Good Shepherd and its hall, reinforcing the group character of this part of the conservation area.

Form and Structure

The house is rectangular on plan with a rear return to the east. There is a lean-to extension at the rear and a canopy over the entrance to the south. The roof is pitched and slightly sprocketed, finished in clay tiles with angled clay ridge tiles, timber bargeboards, and boxed eaves. Rainwater goods are cast iron throughout. The central chimneystack is red brick with a stepped cap and vertical banding; a smaller rear chimneyshaft on the return is similar in style. The external walls are finished in painted roughcast with decorative timber framing. Windows are irregularly spaced and sized, all timber-framed except in the rear extension, which has brown UPVC windows. Painted concrete sills are used throughout.

Principal West Elevation

The road-facing west elevation is the principal front. It features a rectangular bay window with a timber-framed canopy supported on decorative timber corbels and covered with a clay-tiled roof. To the right of the bay is a small rectangular one-over-one sash window with horns. The two houses share a gabled dormer with tile-hung cheeks and decorative timber framing to the apex. The north gable is fully abutted by No. 122.

South Elevation

The south elevation contains the main entrance: a four-panelled timber door with bolection mouldings and a lion's head knocker, reached by a concrete step. Above the door is a timber-framed canopy with timber squinches and a clay-tiled roof. At attic level, the elevation features decorative timber framing and two raised timber bands running horizontally above and below the window. There are six irregularly spaced windows on this elevation, including one at attic level; all are one-over-one sash with horns except for one UPVC window in the eastern extension.

Rear East Elevation

The rear elevation has a lean-to extension on the end of the return gable, with brown UPVC windows. A red brick chimneystack serves the return, and the chimneybreast is visible on the gable wall. The boundary to the neighbouring back yard is formed by a painted brick wall. The enclosed yard is finished in painted roughcast to match the main walls.

Outbuilding

There is a garage to the south-west of the house, built in a similar style to the main building, with a pitched clay-tiled roof and painted roughcast doors, and timber doors on its north elevation.

Former Greenhouse

The base of a former greenhouse, visible in a survey photograph taken around 1975, survives and is now used as a flowerbed.

Setting

The house sits slightly back from Melmount Road, separated from it by a lawn and the low cut-stone boundary wall, which has an access gap with two low steps shared between both houses. There is a large rectangular garden to the rear.

Historical Context

Sion Mills was a company-owned model village established by Herdman and Co., a flax spinning mill, and run by the Herdman family for their workers and village maintenance staff. The village provided healthcare, with workers contributing a small weekly payment — one penny per week in the early days, rising to sixpence in the 1940s — towards a doctor and mill nurse. The Herdmans also built a doctor's house and surgery in Mill Lane at the end of the 19th century. The company maintained all trades necessary to repair and maintain the village, with householders charged for rent and gas paid per fortnight. The Herdmans also provided a shop with fair prices and a dispensary. The social experiment was considered comparable in spirit to Robert Owen's in New Lanark.

This house first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905, captioned "The Villas." It was added to the Valuation Revisions in 1905 as a house, initially vacant but occupied from 1907. The lessor was E. T. Herdman and the property was valued at £10 10s. No. 122 next door was built in the same year and leased from the same landlord, though with a separate tenancy. Worker accommodation in the early 20th century was a documented concern: the Herdman Diaries from 1900 to 1910 noted that "the problem of the supply of workers is influenced considerably by the available accommodation." When the mill needed to raise capital during a slump in the linen industry in the early 1960s, the company sold off village houses, with prices ranging from £60 for the smallest to £120 for two-storey houses, bringing the model village era to a close.