27 Killymore Road, Newtownstewart, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT78 4DT

27 Killymore Road, Newtownstewart

A detached three-bay two-storey rendered house built around 1880, set on a hill with front gravel area and elevated rear garden. The building forms part of a small farm in its rural setting, comprising the main house and multiple stone outbuildings.

The house is rectangular on plan, facing north. It has a pitched natural slate roof with three rendered chimnestacks topped with clay pots and terracotta roll-moulded ridge tiles, with timber bargeboards to either gable end. Three wall head dormers punctuate the front elevation, each with terracotta finials, timber bargeboards and cast-iron rainwater goods. The walls are painted cement rendered, now compromised by this material.

The front elevation is symmetrical with three bays. A central square-headed door opening contains an original timber panelled door with rectangular overlight. To the left is an off-centre entrance porch with a gabled natural slate roof, terracotta ridge, timber bargeboard and cast-iron rainwater goods, accessed by a vertically-sheeted timber door to the east with rectangular overlight.

Windows throughout are square-headed openings with stone sills and single-pane or 2/2 timber sliding sash windows. The west side elevation is blank except for a single square-headed window opening with a single-pane timber sash window to the first floor. The four-bay rear elevation has three ground floor windows to the east obscured by a lean-to extension; a square-headed door opening to the east side of the lean-to opens into a sheltered area with a 2/2 timber sash window.

To the east is a single-bay single-storey byre with attic level, having a pitched corrugated iron roof, rendered chimneystack to the east gable, cement rendered walls and a square-headed window opening with 2/2 timber sash window. An entrance porch and corrugated iron accretion are attached to the east, with a single timber sash window to attic level on the east gable.

A single-storey lean-to with corrugated iron roof extends to the rear. A single-storey rubble stone byre is attached to the north elevation with ruinous pitched natural slate roof and timber plank door and shutter to a single window. A further two-storey outbuilding attached to the north has a pitched natural slate roof, rubble stone walling with tooled quoins, and square-headed window and door openings with stone lintels and timber plank doors and half-doors.

The house retains an intact exterior with all windows and doors in situ, although compromised by cement render.

Historical Context

The site shows evidence of occupation from at least 1833, when buildings first appeared on the first edition Ordnance Survey map. The current house first appears on the third edition map of 1905–6. Griffith's Valuation records the buildings as occupied by Claude Hamilton, leased from Major A W Cole Hamilton, and valued at £1 5 shillings. The plot remained in the Hamilton family; David Hamilton became owner in fee in 1909. In 1933, the valuer described the house as comprising two rooms, a kitchen, scullery and porch on the ground floor and three bedrooms on the first floor, noting it was "in good repair and well built". An extension to the rear is shown on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1953.

This is a late-date example of a relatively common house type, of which better examples exist.