Lisnamallard House, 11 Old Mountfield Road, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT79 7EG

Lisnamallard House is a symmetrical three-bay, two-storey-over-basement house built around 1820, extended and remodelled around 1890, and set within a mature landscaped garden on the south side of Old Mountfield Road on the outskirts of Omagh. The name derives from the Irish "Lis na Mallacht," meaning "the cursed fort." The house is an unusual example of a late Georgian house restyled in the late Victorian period, and is one of the larger historic properties in the vicinity of the town.

The house is U-shaped on plan, with the east side extended by two bays. There is an additional ridge to the central valley and a further two-storey addition of around 1890 to the north. The roof is half-hipped and clad in natural slate with angled clay ridge tiles. Rainwater goods are half-round cast iron with decorative hopper heads. The chimneys are mid-20th-century red brick with decorative corbelled caps and terracotta chimneypots. Plain timber bargeboards are used throughout, except to the oriel additions. The walls are painted and harled with a bellcast profile over a smooth rendered plinth. Windows are generally six-over-six timber sliding sashes, some with horns and some without.

The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged around a semi-circular-headed entrance doorway enclosed within a substantial glazed gabled porch. The original entrance consists of a replacement pair of double-leaf doors divided from geometric sidelights by decorative half-engaged reeded colonettes on plinth blocks, the whole surmounted by a spider-web fanlight. The porch is fully glazed over a harled plinth with four-pane windows and margined, obscurely glazed toplights divided by timber transoms and mullions. It has a timber cornice and fluted corner pilasters; the apex features lattice glazing with a central stained glass oval panel surmounted by a timber pediment and decorative metal finial. Access to the porch is at the right cheek through replacement double-leaf doors copied from the originals, with elongated glazed top panels, timber lower panels, a central brass knob, and a white marble threshold. The windows to the principal elevation have moulded stucco borders and painted stone sills.

The left (west) elevation has two windows to each floor. Those at first-floor level are timber box oriels on coved corbels with panelled aprons beneath. Each oriel contains a bipartite three-over-six sash window to the front and two-over-four sash windows to the cheeks, with decorative drop finials to the corners.

The rear elevation of the original block is exposed only to the right bay, where there is a first-floor window. The central bay is abutted by the later addition, which occupies the re-entrant angle between the main block and the extended left bay. The rear of the left bay has a first-floor window and is abutted at ground floor by a monopitched garage of no architectural interest. The right cheek of the left bay has a bipartite window at ground floor and two windows at first floor. The addition has a variety of sash windows at ground floor and a replacement entrance door at ground-floor level on the left rear elevation with a concrete canopy over. At first floor, the addition has a round-headed window to the rear elevation and two windows to the left cheek.

The right (east) elevation is four bays wide above a two-bay basement. From left, the first bay has a window to each floor, with the first-floor window being three-over-three. The second bay has French doors opening onto a concrete bridge enclosed on either side by mild steel railings; the first floor has a six-over-six window set into a gablet with decorative bargeboards and finial. The third bay has French doors opening onto bull-nosed concrete steps enclosed by plinth walls, with a three-over-three window at first floor. The fourth bay has double-leaf doors to each floor, enclosed at first-floor level by a gabled oriel supported on a narrower projecting glazed porch beneath. The oriel is glazed on all sides over a panelled apron with a timber-sheeted apex, decorative bargeboards, and finial. The porch beneath is fully glazed with a latticed front pane and six-over-six side panes over a panelled apron. The rear elevation of the garage sits flush and connects to an outbuilding to the north.

To the rear of the house is a two-storey outbuilding with a pitched slate roof, painted roughcast to the south and west elevations, rubble stone to the north and east, and square-headed openings.

The house occupies a mature garden setting with mature trees, lawns, and a terrace to the east. The rear wall of the terrace is inset with a rectangular datestone inscribed "E.P.1724" and contains several bee-bole niches — recesses originally designed to shelter skeps and provide honey for the household before sugar was commercially available. Access from the main road is via a long, straight tarmac avenue to the north, flanked at its entrance by modern cement-rendered alcoved walls surmounted by steel railings and terminating in two pairs of piers with pyramidal caps. A gravelled turning circle lies directly to the south, and the southern boundary is marked by the mill race of a former mill.

The history of the house and its setting is well documented. The earliest Ordnance Survey map of 1833 shows the main rectangular front block (then captioned "Millbank") as it largely exists today, with a rear return. By the second edition of 1854, the footprint appears reduced to a plain rectangular block, with the current outbuilding shown to the rear. Griffith's Valuation and subsequent valuation revisions record the Orr family as owners and occupiers, with valuations consistently around £25, until the property was purchased in the 1880s — specifically in 1881, according to a history written by a member of the subsequent family — by Charles Scott of W. & C. Scott, owner of Excelsior Mills. He also owned Mullaghmore House. The third Ordnance Survey edition of 1905–6 shows the house much extended to the rear and with the main porch in place.

A brief history written by a member of the Scott family records that at the time of purchase, the house was a rectangular Irish Georgian country house of vernacular style, with a basement kitchen and service area, a front hall, four ground-floor reception rooms, a central staircase, and five first-floor bedrooms. Margaret Scott, Charles's wife, extended the house to the rear to incorporate a modern kitchen, two additional bedrooms, and a bathroom. She also constructed a line of three greenhouses along the south-facing wall in the 1890s, which extended 86 feet from the potting shed to the end of the terrace and survived until the mid-1980s. On their demolition, seven brick-lined recesses — the bee-bole niches — were discovered in the surviving retaining wall. No further significant changes were apparently made between 1900 and 1940, with the exception of a second bathroom being added and the house being painted dark red. The chimneys were replaced during refurbishment works following the Second World War, during which the house was requisitioned for military use. Two large murals painted by American servicemen survive in the house: one described as a tasteful reclining nude. Both are presently concealed — one painted over, the other hidden behind a notice board.

The physical fabric of the building provides evidence of a major remodelling phase around 1890. Internally, much of the original fabric has been replaced, though at least two architraves appear to date from the early 19th century. The presence of a coal hole in the basement, located beneath the present third bay of the rear extension, strongly suggests that the right side of the house was extended to the north at the time of the late 19th-century remodelling, with the addition possibly slightly later still and originally containing sanitary facilities and self-contained housekeeper's quarters, according to the current property manager. The walls flanking the internal basement stairs have the appearance of former external walls. The datestone of 1724 found to the rear suggests the presence of an earlier house on the site, although no primary source evidence has been found to confirm this, and the oldest part of the present house is considered to date from between 1790 and 1820.

Lisnamallard House was purchased by Omagh District Council in 1994, with the Scott family remaining in residence until September 1997. It now functions as the Council's Environmental Health Unit. The conversion to office use has not detracted from the character of the building, and the historic fabric has been substantially retained.