4 Main Street, Newtownstewart, Co. Tyrone, BT78 4AA

4 Main Street, Newtownstewart

An attached two-bay three-storey rendered townhouse located on the north side of Main Street in Newtownstewart town centre. The building was significantly remodelled in 1908, when its value increased dramatically, indicating comprehensive reconstruction at that date. It forms part of a terrace of three units and sits adjacent to the former National School and St. Eugene's Church of Ireland Church within Newtownstewart Conservation Area.

The house is rectangular on plan, facing south. It has a pitched natural slate roof with blue and black angled ridge tiles, and half-round painted cast-iron gutters. The chimneystack, built with polychrome brick and featuring Victorian detailing, carries replacement terracotta chimneypots to each gable (painted to the west gable). The walling is painted smooth render with rendered quoins to the left of the principal elevation.

The front elevation displays square-headed painted timber 1/1 sash windows with painted rendered sills, showing diminishing windows characteristic of earlier townhouse design. The ground floor left bay window has a replacement mild steel sill-guard rail. The right bay contains a square-headed painted timber four-panelled door glazed above the lock-rail. The west gable is blank. The rear elevation, which was not accessed during survey, features square-headed replacement uPVC casement windows. The east gable is entirely abutted by the adjacent property, 6 Main Street.

Historical records indicate a building has occupied this site since at least the 1833 Ordnance Survey Map. Griffith's Valuation and town plan (1856–64) record a house with dimensions of 15.6 by 24.6 by 17 feet, valued at £3 5 shillings, with an office. The property was held by Alexander Aiken as freeholder and lessor. Subsequent revisions raised the valuation, and by 1864 James Glass was recorded as lessor. A marginal note from that year states: "Glass has gone to Australia and it is likely these houses may be finished. See in 1869". The houses were described as "greatly dilapidated" in 1901. In 1907 James Arbuckle became the lessor. The dramatic increase in property value in 1908 (to £8 and £7 10 shillings for this house and the adjacent one respectively) indicates substantial remodelling work was undertaken. A photograph from "Newtownstewart Remembered" dating to circa 1910 shows Main Street and identifies Number 4 as the residence of Miss Smith, a dressmaker, a designation confirmed in the Belfast & Ulster Directory of 1921/22. According to the current owners, the house was renovated circa 1980, at which time most interior and exterior detailing was replaced.

Despite modernisation and loss of some original windows and interior layout and detailing, the building retains architectural value through its early style and proportions, surviving front windows and Victorian brickwork detailing on the chimneys. It has group value as part of the three-unit terrace on Main Street and occupies a prominent location within the conservation area.