1 Alexandra Place, Sion Mills, Co Tyrone, BT82 9HR, *** See General Comments***

1 Alexandra Place is a semi-detached one-and-a-half-storey house built around 1880 on the west side of Melmount Road in Sion Mills, County Tyrone. It forms the northern half of a pair with its neighbour, sharing a symmetrical central porch. The house is rectangular on plan with a one-and-a-half-storey pitched extension to the west.

The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta clay ridge tiles, supported by replacement uPVC deep overhanging eaves and decorative timber bargeboards. Brick corbelled chimneystacks with replacement clay pots rise from the roofline. The walls are painted roughcast with a smooth platband over a smooth banded plinth.

Windows are replacement square-headed uPVC casements set in smooth rendered architraves with painted masonry sills. The principal elevation faces east and contains a gabled porch at its centre—shared with the neighbouring house—with a single window to the left. The porch east gable is open with an ogee opening framed by smooth rendered banding. A single dormer is positioned to the left. The entrance is via a replacement timber glazed door at the left, contained within the party wall. The south gable contains two windows at each floor. The west elevation is abutted by an extension and contains a replacement uPVC door at the left and a window at the right; a single window serves the attic at the left. The south elevation contains a single window at ground floor left and two wall-head dormers at attic level. The north gable is abutted by the neighbouring semi-detached house.

The house is directly accessed from the street at the east. A smooth rendered boundary wall with concrete coping encloses a yard to the east and south, with access through a replacement timber gate. Rainwater goods are replacement uPVC.

The ground floor return was remodelled and extended around 1980 to include first floor accommodation. The house first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905. Valuation Revisions note that the houses were "in Progress…1879". Both houses 1 and 2 held a higher valuation and larger building size, assessed at £3 5 shillings each and listed as "house, office and small garden".

Sion Mills was a company-owned town established by Herdman & Co., a flax spinning mill run by the Herdman family as a model village for their workers and village maintenance staff. Workers had access to healthcare until the village was privatised in the mid 1960s when the mills needed to raise capital during a slump in the linen industry. Dwellings, both single and two storey, were built by the Herdman family to house the new generation of flax mill workers—numbering over 500 by 1853. The cottages form part of a planned layout similar to the work of Sir Titus Salt at Saltaire. Until the 1960s the Mill trained and employed people to cover all necessary trades needed to maintain and repair the village houses, the Mill, its machinery, and the waterpower system. Householders were charged for rent and gas per fortnight, with charges raised occasionally. Over the early years the Herdmans provided a shop with fair prices and a dispensary. Workers contributed a small payment from their wages—one penny per week in the early days, sixpence in the 1940s—towards healthcare, with the Mill paying for 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 village had its own fire service and fire engine.

Due to alterations and extensions to this house and those in the adjoining terrace, the small-scale houses have lost considerable architectural character both individually and as a group. However, their general massing and historic interest mean they still contribute to Sion Mills Conservation Area.