House in grounds of 266 Victoria Road, Bready, Strabane, Co Tyrone BT82 0ED

A detached three-bay two-storey house built circa 1820, located on the west side of Victoria Road in the townland of Drumgauty. The building is rectangular on plan with a two-storey return to the west, attached single-storey outbuildings to the west, and a single-storey flat-roofed porch to the east. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with blue and black clay ridge tiles over a corbelled brick eaves course, stone verges, and rendered chimneys with corbelled coping. The walls are lime-rendered rubble (partially deteriorated) with smooth platband quoins over a smooth rendered plinth.

The principal elevation faces east. The left bay contains a single window at ground floor and two windows at first floor. The right bay contains a single window to each floor. The central bay contains a window at ground floor to the right, flanked to the left by a porch with a sheeted timber door surmounted by a transom light, and a moulded cornice, with two windows at first floor. Windows throughout are timber-framed: 10 over 15 sliding sash at ground floor and 3 over 6 sliding sash at first floor, all supported by timber lintels with painted sandstone sills. Evidence of remodelling at ground floor exists where render has fallen away, revealing segmental-arched-headed brick voussoirs to the left of the left bay window.

The south gable contains a 1 over 1 sliding sash window at ground floor with iron railings over the opening, and two 2 over 2 sliding sash windows at first floor. The west elevation is partially abutted by outbuildings and a return. The exposed section on the left is blank, while the exposed section on the right contains a single window at ground floor surmounted by a tripartite window comprising a 12-paned centre light flanked by 1 over 1 sliding sash sidelights, and a 3 over 3 sliding sash window at first floor. The gable end of the return has two windows at first floor. The south elevation of the return contains two windows at ground floor and a single window at first floor. The north elevation contains a vertically-sheeted timber door flanked on each side by a single window at ground floor, and a single window at first floor. The north gable contains two windows at first floor. Cast-iron half-round gutters and round downpipes are present.

The two-storey return dates from the late nineteenth century. Buildings are shown on the site from the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, comprising a main house and outbuilding to the north. On subsequent maps the house was extended to the rear by outbuildings, and by the third edition (1905), the return had been added. The Townland Valuation (1828-40) lists the house as a dwelling with three outbuildings, valued at £4 18 shillings, occupied by John McGettigan. In Griffith's Valuation (1856-64), James McGettigan is listed as occupier, leasing from the Marquis of Abercorn, with a valuation of £13. The property remained with the McGettigan family throughout the Annual Revisions period (1860-1924) at a constant valuation of £10. John McGettigan became owner in fee in 1908 under early twentieth-century land purchase legislation. In 1933, Patrick McShane is recorded as owner with a valuation of £10 10 shillings, plus £3 10 shillings for outbuildings.

The house originally contained six rooms and a kitchen. Contemporary documentation shows multiple outbuildings to the rear including stables, barns, byres, and housing for calves, hens, and pigs, mostly of rubble masonry roofed with slate, with one barn roofed in corrugated iron. Two attached outbuildings, the former calf and hen houses, appear to have survived to the present day.

The building is in a poor state of repair. The loss of historic fabric and detailing, combined with the positioning of a modern dwelling within its setting, detracts from its architectural and historic interest. Despite some reconfiguration of openings, the house retains original proportions to the façade and the materials characteristic of an early nineteenth-century vernacular dwelling. It is accessed from the road via a concrete lane bounded by hedging, set within a private farm to the north-west of a recent single-storey dwelling, with further recent farm buildings to the west.