Tyrone County Club, 10 High Street, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT78 1BQ

Tyrone County Club, 10 High Street, Omagh

The Tyrone County Club is an attached three-bay three-storey brick county club with attic, built around 1900 to designs by Mr G. W. Ferguson of Belfast. It stands on the north side of High Street and is a classically detailed, well-proportioned building with good ornamentation, representing a fine example of the style of its period. The building retains a high degree of original layout and detailing that preserves its turn-of-the-last-century character, combining classical detailing in the more formal parts with Art Nouveau detailing in smaller, more private rooms.

The building has an L-plan, facing south, with a diminished three- and four-storey flat-roofed return to the rear, a two-storey flat-roofed projection to the rear of the return, and a two-storey flat-roofed extension to the rear of that projection. The roof is pitched natural slate with angled blue and black ridge tiles. Chimneystack heads are red brick with moulded stone cornices. Three flat-headed dormers with lead-lined painted timber four-light casements (that to the centre is bipartite) break the roofline; they have replacement ogee-profile metal gutters with rectangular downpipes embossed with the foundry mark "APEX 4x5".

The walling is Flemish-bonded red brick with sandstone quoins and sandstone sill-courses. A moulded-and-dentilled cornice runs around the building. The ground floor is horizontally banded sandstone over a splayed plinth. Windows throughout feature slightly segmental arch heads, painted timber sashes with dropped sandstone keyblocks (mostly 1/1 configuration), except on the first floor where 2/2 casement windows rise to a platband at lintel-level with additional sandstone voussoirs.

The principal south elevation is symmetrical. The second floor contains four windows, with two positioned in the centre bay. The most prominent feature is a pedimented oriel on the first floor with painted timber mullion-and-transom casement windows, corbelled out at sill-course on sandstone brackets. The pediment contains a central cartouche inscribed with the monogram "T.C.C."

The ground floor comprises three distinct openings. The central entrance is a round-headed replacement painted timber-and-glazed double-leaf door with a plate-glass fanlight stilted over an overlight, with moulded architrave and keyblock. This entrance is flanked by two-light sidelights in moulded architraves surmounted by pulvinated entablatures, with the fanlight flanked by two square plate-glass casements. To the right is an open carriage arch with segmental arch head and keyblock, fitted with replacement sheeted timber double doors and a metal grille. To the left is the original club entrance, a painted timber moulded three-panel double-leaf door with a mullioned sidelight to the left and a three-light fanlight above (the central entrance has since been converted to access a retail shop in the former lobby).

The west elevation is entirely abutted by the adjoining building. On the rear north elevation, the return section has three storeys with windows that are 2/2 sashes without keyblocks. The third floor contains a single window; the second floor has two windows, with that to the left blocked with cement render. The first floor features a single segmental arch-headed stained-glass casement. The ground floor contains a carriage arch with a steel-beam lintel. The return's third floor is two windows wide, and the second floor is three windows wide (the centre window is a full-height 4/4 sash). The right cheek is blank; the left cheek has glazed bricks rising from above basement floor level to above first floor sill-level. The left end has a single window to the third floor, two windows to the second and first floors, and the basement floor has three windows (that to the left is louvred).

The rear projection is abutted to its left end by the extension. Its exposed section has three diminished windows on the first floor. The ground floor contains a segmental arch-headed painted timber mullion-and-transom casement and a modern porch of no particular interest. Both cheeks are blank. The extension has two segmental arch-headed painted timber four-light casements. The ground floor has a square-headed opening on the left end and two diminished casement windows on the right end. Both cheeks are blank. The rear elevation has a single casement window above a square-headed carriage arch.

The building is set back from the road to the south, with a paved patio to the rear accessed via the carriage arch.

Historically, the building does not appear on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905–6, though a previous structure is shown on the site. By 1907, the previous properties had been deleted with the notation "club house in progress" added in 1908. That same year, the property is recorded as occupied by the Tyrone County Club under secretary Col. Irvine Peck. The valuation listed it as a "house, caretaker's apartments, yard and garden" valued at £89. According to a committee report by H. Irvine, several plans for the club were examined before the decision was made to engage the architect Mr G. W. Ferguson of Belfast.

The club attracted many notable and distinguished members and visitors, several associated with the nearby Assize Court House. Prominent members included J. B. Gunning Moore, Reginald T. Harris, Major Burleigh Stuart, Captain J. C. Herdman, and Harry Alexander, many of whom served as High Sheriffs in Omagh. The club also numbered Members of Parliament among its membership.