Old Inn, 44 Baronscourt Road, Newtownstewart, Omagh, Co Tyrone, BT78 4EY

The Old Inn is a detached two-storey three-bay house built around 1850 in the Tudorbethan style, located on the east side of Baronscourt Road at a road junction in Newtownstewart. The building is L-shaped on plan and has a carefully detailed and proportioned design that makes an important contribution to the Baronscourt estate grouping.

The roof is pitched with artificial slate and features a tall redbrick chimney (partially rebuilt) to the principal elevation, with a rendered chimneystack to the party wall. Eaves are boxed with bargeboards to the gables, and rainwater goods are painted cast-iron. The walling is random rubble stone with cement pointing throughout.

Windows are timber mullioned and transomed multi-light casements, generally bi-partite. Those to the front and side elevations have cast cement reveals with precast labels and cills, while those to the rear are stepped rebated brick. The building is distinguished by understated ornamentation including label mouldings and rebated dressings.

The principal elevation faces west and features a slightly projecting gabled right bay with a single-storey gabled projecting porch of brick construction. The porch has an open Tudor-arched entrance with cement label mould, a timber sheeted entrance door with original ironmongery and stone threshold, and a three-light fixed window to each cheek with internal timber sills. The left bay is blank and abutted by a projecting chimneybreast of rubble stone construction, instepped to brick stack below the eaves. The central bay is abutted by the porch at ground floor and has a gabled wall-head dormer to the first floor with a bi-partite casement. The right bay has windows to each floor, with the ground floor window being a tripartite casement with brick relieving arch.

The north gable has a first floor window and a brick canted bay to the ground floor with ogee gutters and a window to each cheek. The rear elevation is abutted by a return at the left. The central bay projects and is gabled with a timber sheeted entrance door in brick reveal and a first floor window. The right bay is blank and has a large square-headed brick infill panel, possibly an infilled carriage arch. The return has a window to each floor at the gable. The south gable has a window to each floor, with the ground floor window being tripartite with relieving arch.

There is some suggestion that the building was once a coaching inn, and the infilled brick panel at the rear suggests the possibility of an integral coach house, though no primary evidence has been found to support this claim.

The Old Inn first appears on the 1854 Ordnance Survey map as part of a group of three small uncaptioned buildings. The Griffith's Valuation around 1859 records that the property was leased from the Marquis of Abercorn by William Kane, with the house, offices and land valued at £4 10 shillings. Kane continued to be recorded at the property throughout the revisions, leasing from the Duke of Abercorn from 1868 onwards, until 1914 when the property was rented by Reginald L Plowman. The property value remained unchanged throughout this period.

The Old Inn is set at a road junction with a small front garden bounded by hedging and accessed from Ballyrenan Road by a small cast-iron gate. A vehicular access gate to the north leads to a rear gravel yard set with stone flags leading to the rear entrance. To the east is a two-storey outbuilding with pitched asbestos sheet roof, limewashed rubble stone walls and openings formed in brick. Doors are timber sheeted and windows are timber with wide timber frames. The building remains an attractive roadside feature in an unspoiled rural setting.