Former Governor’s House, Omagh Gaol, 18 Castle Place, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT78 5ER

Former Governor's House, Omagh Gaol, 18 Castle Place, Omagh

This is a former gaol governor's house, attached, three bays wide, and three storeys over a raised basement, built around 1823 to a design by John Hargrave — the same architect responsible for the nearby Assize Court House. The house is unusual and architecturally significant in that it is octagonal on plan, a form directly connected to its function: it was positioned at the centre of a large prison complex designed on the Panopticon model, allowing the governor to observe each prison yard from a wrap-around first-floor balcony. Although much of the gaol complex has been demolished since its closure in 1904, this house remains part of a distinct and coherent group of surviving structures, including the former gatehouse and the treadwheel building. The ashlar stonework and the wrought-iron supported balcony both exhibit fine craftsmanship. Together, the plan, proportions, ornamentation, and attached screen walls demonstrate the architect's intention to create a piece of functional architecture that embodies the ideals of order and control central to early 19th-century penal thinking.

Architecture and Appearance

The house faces north and is sited to the west of Castle Place on an elevated position visible from Abbey Street to the south. It has a single-bay, two-storey return to the south. The roof over the main house is a replacement flat concrete construction; the return has a pitched roof clad in artificial slate. There is a dressed sandstone chimneystack to the gable. Walls are of coursed, dressed, and squared sandstone over a splayed plinth, finished with a moulded stone cornice. The projecting stone balcony is fitted with simple wrought-iron railings.

Windows throughout are generally square-headed replacement painted timber casements with sandstone sills and reveals, with replacement 1/1 sashes at second-floor level and original sashes retained in specific locations as noted below.

The principal (north) elevation is symmetrical. At second-floor level there is a single original 6/4 sash window. At ground level, the centred entrance is a square-headed replacement timber-and-glazed door reached by a flight of sandstone steps, with a dressed limestone lintel and jambs and a square-headed plate-glass overlight above, framed by sandstone jambs and lintel.

The east elevation is symmetrical. At first-floor level there are full-height windows, with the central one serving as a glazed door opening onto the balcony. The ground floor retains original 8/8 sash windows. The west elevation mirrors the east in detail, though the ground floor here has a replacement casement. At basement level on the west, three square-headed entrance openings are visible to each canted side, though the doors themselves are not visible.

The rear (south) elevation is partly obscured where the return meets the left end. The exposed section at second-floor level has a replacement casement to the centre and one at ground-floor level to the left end. The return itself is abutted by a single-storey ruinous former house of no architectural interest. The exposed section is otherwise blank, with a chimneybreast to the centre. The left cheek has a single replacement casement window at each floor. The right cheek has a single original 8/8 sash at first-floor level and, at ground-floor level, an arcaded arrangement of two round arches over a replacement timber door to the left and a casement window to the right, both with cement-rendered tympanums.

Screen Walls and Enclosed Area

The house is abutted by an open, single-storey wall-enclosed area. The wall is finished in the same manner as the house and has a saddleback coping. The north elevation of this enclosure is blank. The left (east) cheek is opened by two round arch-headed arcaded entrances — the left one giving access to ascending front stairs and the right to descending stairs. The right (west) cheek has one square-headed entrance opening to the left. An area-side lintel carries painted lettering reading "CRIMINAL WARD", which gives access to an area with a sunken basement channel.

Rainwater goods are cast iron.

Setting

The house stands at the geometric centre of the former gaol complex, which occupies an elevated site at the west end of Castle Place. The former gatehouse lies to the northeast and the former treadwheel building to the west. Remains of various gaol structures survive as housing to the south and east. The former prison cells, which were laid out on a half-octagonal plan, were located to the west but have been entirely demolished, apart from some surviving sections of boundary wall standing up to approximately four metres in height.

Historical Background

The house is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, where the Griffith's town plan identifies it as the 'Governor's House'. The Ordnance Survey map of 1905–6 captions the entire gaol site as 'disused'. Griffith's Valuation records the property collectively as 'County Gaol and yards', with a building valuation of £250.

Lieutenant William Lacey's Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1834 describe the gaol in some detail: "…it consists of the old and new gaols. The former was built in 1796…and is now used as the women's and debtor's prison. The new part was erected in 1823 of cut freestone in a semi circular form, divided into [?] wards, each having a separate yard for the different classes of prisoner. Both old and new gaols are three storeys high. In front of the old building an open space has lately been enclosed for the prisoners to work in and the whole building is surrounded with a high stone wall to prevent their escape. This establishment can accommodate 300 prisoners and is guarded by 14 keepers. The governor's house stands in the centre of the arc formed by the new gaol and looks into each yard."

Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland states that the county prison was "built in 1804 and enlarged in 1822, according to a plan adapted to the better classification of prisoners." The Dictionary of Irish Architects attributes the new gaol to John Hargrave, connecting it to his Courthouse of 1814–20. According to the Omagh Tourist Information Centre, the earlier gaol complex was begun in the 1790s, opened in 1804, and closed in 1904, with the Governor's House added in 1823.

The octagonal, centrally positioned plan of the Governor's House is directly connected to the ideas set out by Jeremy Bentham in his 1787 essay on the Panopticon. Bentham described a circular building in which prisoners' cells occupy the circumference, divided by radial partitions, while the inspector's lodge occupies the centre, surrounded by an intermediate annular area — allowing constant observation of all parts of the institution. These principles clearly influenced the layout of Omagh Gaol and are physically embodied in the form and position of this house. Bentham's ideas on institutional design were later to inspire the work of Michel Foucault.