38 Station Road, Ballymagorry, Strabane, Co. Tyrone, BT82 0AX

38 Station Road is a detached, multi-bay, two-storey house with attic, built around 1765 and situated on the north side of Station Road, Ballymagorry, facing west. It is one of an increasingly rare surviving examples of a rural 18th-century house in this part of County Tyrone, and is notable for its impressively intact interior, farmyard setting, and landscaped front garden.

The house is rectangular on plan. To the south there are front and rear avenues, a gabled entrance porch to the front elevation, and a rear yard with a range of single-storey outbuildings. A lean-to abuts the north gable. The south gable was formerly abutted by a linear range of single-storey outbuildings, of which only the west wall now remains standing. The roof is pitched natural slate of undulating profile, finished with clay ridge tiles and four symmetrically placed rendered chimneystacks. Rainwater goods are plastic, carried on iron drive-through brackets to a stepped eaves course.

The front and rear elevations have quite distinct characters. The six-bay, two-storey front elevation is relatively formal, with painted ruled-and-lined cement render and an organised arrangement of timber sash windows with cylinder glass and painted stone sills in generally square-headed openings. The first-floor windows are 3/3 sashes and the ground-floor windows are 6/6 sashes. The two northernmost bays are recessed with deep overhanging eaves and have 2/2 timber sash windows to the first floor with exposed sash boxes. The gabled entrance porch has a fibre cement slate roof with black clay ridge tiles, a timber bargeboard, plastic rainwater goods, and ruled-and-lined rendered walls. It contains a 6/6 timber sash window to the front and a matching window to the left cheek, with a square-headed door opening to the right cheek fitted with a vertically-sheeted timber plank door opening onto a stone step. The north gable is abutted by a lean-to with a corrugated iron roof, rubblestone walls, a six-pane timber window, and a pair of vertically-sheeted doors. The attic storey has a pair of small boarded-up square-headed window openings with exposed brickwork to the chimneystack at this end.

The six-bay, two-storey rear elevation presents a markedly different, more vernacular appearance. The walls are limewashed over rubblestone, the window arrangement is irregular, and the slated roof undulates. Square-headed openings to the first floor have concrete sills and 2/2 timber sash windows; the ground-floor openings have no sills. The two northernmost bays correspond in arrangement to those on the front elevation and include a door opening below. At the centre of the rear elevation, a round-headed window opening to the first-floor staircase incorporates a fanlight into the upper sash, with a rear entrance below fitted with a vertically-sheeted timber door. Adjacent to this door is a landscape window opening containing a pair of 2/2 timber sash windows with ogee horns and a central sash box. Further along is a 6/6 timber sash window with ogee horns and a boarded-up opening to the southern bay. The south gable is painted cement rendered with a single first-floor window fitted with a timber casement. This elevation was formerly abutted by a linear range of single-storey rubblestone ancillary structures, recently demolished except for the west elevation wall.

To the front, a gravel surface continues southward as an avenue through mature gardens, opening onto the road through a timber gate on timber posts dating from the early 20th century. The rear entrance opens onto a concrete-paved yard, with a range of single and two-storey rubblestone outbuildings to the northeast having pitched natural slate roofs and timber-sheeted doors. The yard continues southward past a modern sheeted steel farm building before opening onto the road.

According to the present owner, the bay to the left of the entrance porch was added at a later date to provide additional accommodation for mill workers. This is consistent with the deeper Victorian-proportioned windows to the first floor at this end, the smaller chimneystack, and the thinner wall beside the porch. The owner also states that the white timber entrance gate was constructed by a previous owner around 1910, and that the now-demolished corn mill nearby was four storeys high and was powered in its later years by an electrical turbine.

The house has a well-documented history connected to the Abercorn estate. It appears on a 1777 estate map as part of a group of buildings associated with a mill, the land occupied at that time by one Andrew Hogston. Correspondence in the Abercorn papers from as early as 15 April 1770 records James Hamilton writing to the Earl of Abercorn about Hogston as the occupier of Ballymagorry mill, noting disputes over grain rents and recording that Hogston had lost more than two acres of land to river encroachment, with a request that the Earl pay to secure the river and protect the mill race. The house appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, at which time an old mill lay to the east and a corn mill to the north. By the third edition of 1905 a porch had been added to the west elevation. The Townland Valuation of 1828 to 1840 groups the house with the mill to the north, with the fieldbook listing a corn mill and two millers' houses occupied by Thomas Barnhill and valued at £3 14 shillings. By Griffith's Valuation of 1858 the house and mill appear as separate plots, a distinction maintained in all subsequent valuation records. At that date the house was occupied by William Donnell as tenant of the Marquis of Abercorn, and the buildings were valued at £6. The house remained in the Donnell family until 1886, when it was occupied by Jane Moore. In 1902 it passed to Joseph McCarter, who in 1910 became owner in fee under early 20th-century land purchase legislation. By 1933 Alex Coulter was the owner, with the house valued at £11 and outbuildings at £2. The accommodation at that date comprised a kitchen, pantry, two rooms, five bedrooms, and a small room. The valuer noted that the interior was rough and that the house had a close range but no modern conveniences.