103 Newpark Road, Tummery, Dromore, Omagh, Co Tyrone, BT78 3JZ

A now rare example of a small single storey thatched vernacular house of probable pre-1830 origin, sympathetically refurbished and extended lengthways in recent years.

The property is situated on a rise to the north of Newpark Road, roughly three miles west of the small village of Dromore, about ten miles south-west of Omagh. It is a direct entry house, approached by a long, straight, gently rising well-maintained lane opening off Newpark Road.

The front elevation faces roughly south and is asymmetrical. Roughly to the centre is a timber sheeted stable door set within a small shallow lean-to porch whose thatched roof merges with the main roof. To the left of the porch is a square window with an 8/8 timber sash frame, concrete sill and timber lintel. To the right of the porch, closer to it, is a similar window. The west gable is blank. The east gable has a centrally positioned window, as on the front but with a 2/2 sash frame and a sill created from two flat stones. The rear elevation is blank but has a shallow bed-outshoot to the left (east) side.

The façade is of whitewashed rubble stone with portions of the west gable in whitewashed brick, this gable having been raised slightly recently. The very eastern end of the building, beyond the eastern chimneystack, is a recent extension where the size and coursing of the rubble is somewhat different, with stones overall larger in this section. The gabled roof is thatched and has cement rendered parapets and two cement rendered chimneystacks, one on the west gable and the other east of centre. A small area of ground around the house is enclosed by a recent-looking low dry stone wall with a vehicle gateway on the west side fitted with a timber gate and conical-capped round gate piers.

A building is shown on this site on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834, but it is not recorded in the contemporary valuation returns, undoubtedly because of its modest proportions. The property is recorded in the second valuation of 1858 as occupied by a Patrick McQuaid and rated at fifteen shillings, but no other details are provided. Late nineteenth and early twentieth-century valuation revision notebooks indicate that no noteworthy alterations were made to the property after 1866. The McQuaid family and their descendants remained in possession of the house until the second half of the twentieth century. After lying vacant for some years, the property was acquired by the present owner. Recently the building was extended and refurbished, with a completely new roof and new window frames added in the process.