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

16 Alexandra Place is an attached mid-terrace single-storey house built around 1880 as worker's housing for the local Herdman's Mill, located on the west side of Melmount Road in Sion Mills. It is the seventh house from the left in a terrace of eleven.

The building is rectangular on plan with a two-storey gabled extension added to the west around 1985. The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles over deep overhanging eaves, featuring decorative timber bargeboards. The chimney is roughcast with concrete coping and replacement clay pots. The walls are painted roughcast over a smooth banded plinth.

Windows throughout are replacement square-headed uPVC casements in smooth rendered reveals with painted masonry sills. The principal elevation faces east and contains a square-headed opening at the right with a replacement vertically-sheeted timber door fitted with decorative strap hinges, a single window at the left, and a central gabled dormer to the attic storey. The south gable is abutted by an adjoining property. The west elevation is abutted by the gabled extension, which contains single uPVC casement windows at each floor, with an exposed section at the right containing a single window at first floor level and a lean-to at ground floor abutted by a square-headed timber sheeted door. The north gable is abutted by another adjoining property. The house is directly accessed from the street to the east. A roughcast boundary wall with concrete coping encloses a rear yard, with access through a vertically-sheeted timber gate. The rainwater goods consist of cast-iron half-round gutters and round downpipes.

The ground floor return has been remodelled and extended to include first floor accommodation around 1985. The building first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905 as part of a terrace along Alexandra Place. Valuation Revisions from 1879 note that houses were "in Progress" that year, with numbers 3–20 valued at £2 10 shillings, listed as "house, office and yard" with various occupiers.

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. The workers had access to healthcare, and the village remained under company ownership until privatisation 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, who by 1853 numbered "upwards of 500 in number." The cottages form part of a planned layout similar to the work of Sir Titus Salt at Saltair. The village originally consisted of simple but well-built single-storey terraced cottages to house workers and spare them long walks to work. Until the 1960s, the Mill trained and employed people to cover all necessary trades needed to maintain and repair the village houses, surrounding areas, the Mill, its machinery, and the waterpower system. Householders were charged rent and gas payments fortnightly, with increases over time. The Herdmans provided a shop with fair prices and a dispensary. Workers paid a small weekly amount—one penny in the early days, six pence in the 1940s—towards healthcare, with the Mill funding a doctor and 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 adjoining properties in the terrace, the small-scale houses have lost considerable original architectural character both individually and as a group. Their general massing and historic interest mean they still contribute to the Sion Mills Conservation Area.