Stables for farm Horses, at Holy Hill House, 78 Ballee Road, Artigarvan, Strabane, Co. Tyrone, BT82 0AA

Stables for Farm Horses, Holy Hill House — constructed around 1810

This is a detached two-storey vernacular outbuilding dating from around 1810, forming part of an extensive farmyard complex within the demesne of Holy Hill House, a country house situated to the north-east of Strabane town in County Tyrone. The building is rectangular on plan and retains its original vernacular style and proportions throughout.

The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with angled clay ridge tiles, carried on brick eaves. The walls are of random rubble construction, lime rendered and limewashed. Windows are painted metal casements without sills.

The principal elevation faces north and features a central tongue-and-groove sheeted opening to the loft above a corrugated metal door; both openings have timber lintels and are partially formed in lime-rendered brick. To either side of the door is a two-over-four-pane window. The east gable has a painted timber loft door with a brick relieving arch visible above it, and a metal multi-paned lattice window at ground floor level. The south elevation is blank. The west elevation is abutted by a modern farm building. A cast-iron railing abuts the building to the rear. Rainwater goods are absent.

The interior is largely intact in its original form.

The building sits within the 17th-century demesne of Holy Hill House, which encompasses lawns, mature parkland, and farmland on undulating ground to the north-east of Strabane. The demesne has Plantation-period origins. Despite the loss of part of its original setting through the addition of modern farm buildings nearby, the stables make a positive contribution to the character of the demesne and its collection of outbuildings. The building has group value with the enclosed farmyard at Holy Hill and with the other listed buildings across the Holy Hill estate.

The building appears on all three editions of the Ordnance Survey map (1833, 1854, and 1905). Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 records the following outbuildings within the wider complex, with measurements: two dairies, a granary house, a coach house and associated structures, a fowl house, a boiler shed, two stables, a shed, a cow house, and two offices.

The Holy Hill estate has a long and documented ownership history. John Sinclair commissioned William Starrat in 1736 to draw up a map of the estate, though this omitted all buildings. An estate map in the Abercorn papers dated 1804 captions the property as "Holly Hill George Sinclair Esq." but similarly omits buildings. The estate is likely to have been cultivated and improved, and the house enlarged, during the 1730s and 1760s under John Sinclair, who owned the property from 1718 until 1770. During the subsequent ownership of his son George (1770–1804), who had been apprenticed as a linen merchant, the estate was further cultivated and a mill was likely established after 1779. Under George's nephew James, Justice of the Peace, who owned the estate from 1804 to 1865, the property was greatly developed and many estate buildings were erected, including the walled garden. James' son William — formerly High Sheriff of County Donegal in 1854 and later Deputy Lieutenant of Tyrone from 1876 — also probably continued improving the estate until his death in 1896, after which subsequent owners are unlikely to have undertaken new building projects.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs speak highly of James Sinclair, describing him as "the only resident proprietor" in the parish of Leckpatrick and praising his "skill in every department of agriculture [which] enabled him to suggest the most effectual means of improvement, whilst his liberality induced him to supply in a great measure the means." The Memoirs make particular mention of turnips, which "have long been cultivated with much success by Mr. Sinclair."

From inspection, it appears that the farmyard was largely constructed in a single phase of improvement, with some later additions. While the vernacular character of the buildings makes precise dating difficult, their appearance points to an early 19th-century date, supported by the Ordnance Survey Memoirs' account of the agricultural improvements carried out by James Sinclair from 1804 onwards.