Omagh Orange Hall, Mountjoy Road, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT78 5QG

Omagh Orange Hall

A detached, symmetrical two-storey sandstone hall built in 1869, located on the west side of Mountjoy Road at its intersection with Sedan Avenue. The building is a minor example of Ruskinian Gothic style and represents significant civic architecture of robust, municipal character.

The hall is rectangular in plan, four windows wide, with a central two-window-wide shallow gabled breakfront facing east. The structure is built of ashlar sandstone over a plinth, with a hipped natural slate roof, blue and black angled ridge tiles, and lead hip caps. A lower cast-iron fretted ridge runs to the breakfront with stone coped verge and apex blocking. Stone chimneystacks with moulded caps sit to both south and north elevations. A quatrefoil-perforated sandstone parapet conceals the gutter, with round cast-iron downpipes and ogee-profile uPVC gutters to the rear.

The principal east elevation contains four windows at each storey. Ground floor windows are segmental arch-headed replacement timber eight-light casements with chamfered rebated reveals and label-ended hoodmoulds. First floor windows are similar but with gothic heads, their hoodmoulds sprung from impost-level stringcourse with polychrome red brick and sandstone voussoirs. The two windows in the breakfront are closely set, with balconette detailing and parapet support on moulded corbels to the first floor. Walling shows stop-end-chamfered corners and moulded sill course over stringcourse. At the apex are three roundels inset with figurative carving, and a high-relief sculptural panel depicting King William III on horseback at the Battle of the Boyne, set in a moulded frame over the inscribed date "1690". Ground floor windows have polychromatic relieving arches, set between balconette corbels, and are separated by single crocketed columns with polished granite shafts. First floor window hoodmoulds are sprung from crocketed imposts.

The south elevation is blank except for a central chimneybreast bearing a date plaque inscribed "Orange Hall / 1869". The north elevation mirrors the south but without the date plaque; the ground floor right end contains a square-headed three-light timber casement with metal grille. The rear elevation is abutted centrally by a modern two-storey pitched-roof extension with entrance porch, which is of no architectural interest. The exposed section of the rear is blank.

The building stands in a tarmac parking lot enclosed by steel gate and railings over a splayed rendered plinth, set back from both Mountjoy Road to the east and Sedan Avenue to the south.

The hall was designed by the architects Loach & Wilmot of Londonderry and Dublin, with Samuel McClean of Omagh as contractor. The building first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905–6. Valuation Revisions records from 1867–1901 list it as the "Orange Hall", occupied by the Trustees of the Protestant Hall and entered as a house, offices and land valued at £31 10 shillings. Contemporary newspaper reports from the Tyrone Constitution record that the proposal sparked local controversy in January 1869, with letters of protest against the planned "exclusively sectarian institution". By August 1869, the architects' design was noted in the newspaper, and by February 1870, the building had reached considerable completion. Although alterations have been made and a modern extension added to the rear, the hall survives as a significant example of Victorian civic architecture.