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

2 Alexandra Place is a semi-detached one-and-a-half-storey house built around 1880 as worker's housing for the Herdman's flax spinning mill, situated on the west side of Melmount Road in Sion Mills. It forms one half of a pair with its neighbour, and together these houses are constructed on a symmetrical plan about a central porch shared between them.

The building is rectangular in plan with a one-and-a-half-storey pitched extension to the west, added around 2000. The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta clay ridge tiles over replacement uPVC deep overhanging eaves, and features decorative timber bargeboards. Brick corbelled chimneystacks with replacement clay pots project from the roof.

The walls are painted roughcast with 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 to the left (central), shared with the adjoining property, with a single window to the right. The porch's east gable is open with an ogee opening framed by smooth rendered banding. The entrance, contained in the party wall to the right, is accessed via a replacement uPVC glazed door. A single dormer sits at the right. The south gable is abutted by the semi-detached neighbour. The west elevation is abutted by the extension and contains a replacement uPVC door to the left and a window to the right at ground floor, with a single window to the left at attic level. The north elevation contains two windows at each floor, while the south elevation is blank. The north gable contains two windows at first floor.

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

The ground floor return has been remodelled and extended to include first floor accommodation around 1980. The house first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905. Valuation Revisions note that houses were in progress in 1879. Numbers 1 and 2 had a larger valuation than their neighbours, being valued at £3 5 shillings, and were listed as 'house, office and small garden'.

Sion Mills was a company-owned village established by Herdman & Co., a flax spinning mill operated by the Herdman family as a model village for their workers and village maintenance staff. Workers were provided with the option of healthcare. 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, who by 1853 numbered upwards of 500. The cottages are part of a planned layout similar to the work of Sir Titus Salt at Saltaire. The village originally consisted of simple, well-built, one-storey terraced cottages to house workers and save them from having to walk miles to work. Until the 1960s, the mill trained and employed people to cover all necessary trades needed to maintain and repair the village houses and surroundings, as well as the mill, its machinery, and the waterpower system. Householders were charged fortnightly rent and gas, with occasional increases. The Herdmans provided a shop with fair prices and a dispensary. Workers paid a small amount from their wages—one penny per week in the early days, sixpence in the 1940s—towards healthcare; the mill paid for a doctor and nurse. The Herdmans also built a doctor's house and surgery in Mill Lane at the end of the nineteenth 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, these small-scale houses have lost considerable amounts of their original architectural character both individually and as a group. However, their general massing and historic interest mean they still contribute to the Sion Mills Conservation Area.