Woodburn House, 19 Willmount Road, Drumquin, Omagh, Co Tyrone, BT78 4QE

Woodburn House is a detached three-bay two-storey stone house over a basement, built around 1840. It is located to the north of Willmount Road near Drumquin, set on an elevated site accessed by a long drive to the south, with a range of outbuildings to the north.

The house presents an austere and unusual cubic appearance. Its square-on-plan form faces north, with front and rear elevations that are almost entirely windowless, creating a severe aesthetic emphasised by the high-quality tooled ashlar sandstone construction. The walls are coursed and laid with lime mortar on a projecting chamfered plinth course, with rubble sandstone at basement level featuring tooled quoins and several carved stone vents. A concrete retaining wall encircles the east, south and west basement areas.

The roof is hipped, almost pyramidal in form, clad in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles and a pair of replacement yellow brick chimneystacks with terracotta pots and lead flashing. The projecting sandstone ashlar eaves feature bull-nose moulding and function as the gutter, with cast-iron downpipes at the west and east corners.

The principal entrance faces north and consists of a single, slightly off-centre round-headed door opening with a corresponding window opening to the first floor. The door opening has a smooth ashlar sandstone surround with bull-nose moulding and chamfered reveals, containing a large replacement timber panelled door (incorporating panels from the original) and a spoked timber fanlight. The door opens onto a sandstone platform with a single step. The remainder of the north elevation is bare sandstone.

The east side elevation has a pair of window openings placed symmetrically on all three floors. The south elevation is predominantly bare stone with a single off-centre basement window containing a 2/2 timber sash window with coloured cement surround and sill. The west elevation has three windows to the first floor (the central window is off-centre), two windows to the ground floor, and three windows plus a door opening to the basement. The basement door also has a chamfered sandstone ashlar surround with a replacement hardwood panelled door.

All main windows have square-headed openings with raised and chamfered ashlar surrounds, sandstone sills and timber sliding sashes—3/6 to the first floor and basement, and 6/6 to the ground floor—with convex horns and some cylinder glass.

The site was marked as a 'Ruin' on the first edition Ordnance Survey Map of 1833. The current building first appears on the second edition map without caption, and is captioned 'Woodburn' on the third edition. Griffith's Valuation records the buildings at £10 10s 0d, rising subsequently to £12 0s 0d and then to £15 0s 0d in the Annual Revision Records beginning in 1860. By 1898 the valuation had reduced to £8 0s 0d and the house was described as 'dilapidated'. It was successively occupied by the Echlin, Orr and Sproule families, with the Echlins as lessors for much of the period recorded in the Annual Revision Records until John Sproule took the house in fee in 1923. A datestone bearing the date '1776' embedded in the north wall of the adjacent outbuilding may have come from the ruin formerly on the site. A lintel to the centre of the rear elevation suggests the opening was moved to its current position during the twentieth century. According to the current owner, the sandstone ashlar stonework is reputedly from the same quarry as that used for Omagh Courthouse.

The setting comprises a farm with a lawn to the north elevation enclosed by a concrete balustrade dating to around 1970, rising from the basement area to the west elevation. The lawn is enclosed to the east and north by a pair of single-storey rendered outbuildings; that to the north bears an early date stone in its north wall inscribed '1776'. The outbuilding roofs are pitched natural slate, walls are cement rendered, and windows are square-headed with steel casements. Further modern outbuildings are located to the northwest along a concrete lane continuing north, with additional corrugated iron structures to the northeast. A long drive curves westward from the farmyard before turning south towards Willmount Road.

This is a fine small country house of good quality, unusual in form and detailing, with a particularly distinctive cubic architecture. Although it has undergone alterations both recent and historic, these are appropriate in style and material, and its overall character survives. The house is well sited within its farm setting.