6 Bowling Green, Strabane, County Tyrone, BT82 8BW

6 Bowling Green, Strabane, County Tyrone

This is a large three-storey terraced house of around the 1820s, notable for its distinctive Greek Revival portico and its remarkably intact original character, both inside and out. It is probably the most architecturally interesting domestic building in the Bowling Green area. The house also has a significant history, having served as a branch of the Belfast Bank in the mid-19th century — a past that may account for its somewhat unusual internal layout.

The property sits on the north-west side of the Bowling Green, with its front façade facing roughly south-east. The elevation is symmetrical, finished in painted render with rusticated quoins. At the centre of the ground floor is the main entrance: a panelled timber door with a plain rectangular fanlight, framed by a Greek Revival portico whose fluted columns support a frieze decorated with moulded wreaths, above which rises a tympanum with acroteria. To either side of the entrance at ground-floor level are flat-arched windows with horned timber sash frames, each glazed one pane over one. The first floor has three similar windows, and the second floor three shorter versions of the same.

To the rear, much of the elevation is taken up by a large, full-height gabled return. At ground-floor level of the return there is a window to the left, matching those at the front. To the right of this is a single-storey lean-to projection with a window to its north-west face fitted with a recent frame, and a doorway with a timber-sheeted door to its north-east face. The first floor of the return has two windows as at the front, with two shorter versions above on the second floor. The narrow north-east face of the return has a similar window at ground-floor level. On the narrow exposed section of the rear façade of the main range there is a window incorporating panes and coloured glazing, with a similar window at the level above. The rear elevation is finished in the same painted render as the front, but without the quoins. A 2005 amendment to the record notes that uPVC windows have since been installed to all window openings.

Both the main roof and the return are slated. The main section has two rendered chimneystacks, one at each end of the ridge, with a third to the gable of the return. Rainwater goods are a mixture of cast iron and uPVC. At the front of the house is a small garden enclosed by a rendered wall with battlements. To the rear there is a large enclosed yard.

Internally, the most notable surviving features are the large elliptical archways off the hallway. Although now filled with door screens, these were undoubtedly originally open, and it is thought that the hallway and what is now the dining room may together have formed the banking hall during the building's time as a bank. Other internal detailing, along with the presence of plate-glass sash windows, suggests the house was renovated in the early 1890s.

The site is shown as developed on the Ordnance Survey map of 1833–34. The valuation plan of Strabane drawn up to accompany the 1832–34 valuation has been lost, but the valuation book itself records a three-storey house of similar dimensions — though with a narrower return — standing on this side of the Bowling Green in 1832, then occupied by a James Adams. Post-1857 valuation records confirm the building as it stands today was in existence by that point. The 1857 valuation records it as a branch of the Belfast Bank, with the bank leasing the building from a John Fenton and a William Smyth occupying the manager's quarters. According to Noel Simpson's history of the Belfast Bank, the Strabane branch in the Bowling Green opened in 1834, though whether it was initially housed in this particular building is uncertain.

The bank vacated the property in 1862, relocating to larger premises on the south-east corner of the Bowling Green (since demolished). By 1863 a William Gourlie & Son are recorded as occupants of what had reverted to use as a house. A Charles McColgan followed in 1867, by which time the house had fallen into bad repair. McColgan appears to have died in 1868, and the property seems to have lain largely vacant through much of the 1870s and 1880s. When Margaret Bannon took up the tenancy in 1889, the valuers noted it as dilapidated. By 1892 new outbuildings had been constructed, recorded as measuring 10 yards by 11 by 3 storeys, 3 by 8 by 3, and 4 by 5 by 1 storey, and the rateable value rose by £7. A John Elliott is listed as occupier from around 1892 until 1921, succeeded by a Dr J. McAdam Hill, who remained until 1958. Sarah A. Stevenson became tenant in 1958, followed by W. E. Stafford in 1961. A J. J. Carnsby is noted as resident in 1967 and remained at least until 1972.