Glencree House, 68 Old Mountfield Road, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT79 7EH

Glencree House is a detached three-bay two-storey rendered house built around 1840, located on Old Mountfield Road north of Omagh. It is a plain but substantial house of vernacular character, though later alterations have compromised some of its original qualities. The building survives in its original landscaped setting, complete with a Gothic gate lodge and vernacular outbuildings.

The house is rectangular in plan, facing east, and accessed by a drive to the south. The roof is M-profile pitched artificial slate with black clay ridge tiles, cement parged verges, and four rendered chimneystacks to the front elevation and two to the rear. Cast-iron rainwater goods run to the rendered eaves, with a lead-lined central valley and lead ridges to the bay windows on the south gable. The walls are painted ruled-and-lined cement render with rendered quoins to the outer corners.

The front (east) elevation is three bays wide with an off-centre single-storey gabled entrance porch. The porch has a pitched artificial slate roof with lead ridge, cement parged verge and cast-iron rainwater goods. The gable contains an early 6/6 timber sash window without horns, while the door opening to the south cheek contains a four-panelled timber door (possibly replacement) leading onto two concrete steps. Window openings throughout are square-headed with painted stone sills and replacement uPVC sliding sash windows unless otherwise stated.

The south elevation comprises a pair of gables with a single-storey square-plan bay to the ground floor of both. The first floor of both gables has single square-headed window openings with single-pane timber sash windows. The bays have hipped artificial slate roofs with lead ridges and cast-iron rainwater goods. The front bay has tripartite window openings to the front with single windows to either side on a continuous concrete sill course. The rear bay contains a pair of sliding glazed doors flanked by slender windows on concrete sills, with further windows to both cheeks, and doors opening onto a concrete flagged patio area.

The rear (west) elevation is five bays wide with a three-sided canted bay at the north end. A square-headed door opening encompasses a window opening to the left with a vertically-sheeted timber door with glazed panel.

The north elevation comprises a pair of gables with a further single-storey gabled projection. The front gable has the remnant of a single-storey canted bay with a slated shallow roof. The projection has rough-cast rendered walls with square-headed door openings to the east and west elevations with uPVC glazed doors. The north gable has a pair of asymmetrically-placed square-headed window openings with early 2/2 timber sash windows and concrete sills.

In the setting, a bitumac forecourt leads to a small front avenue through a wooded garden. A single-storey painted brick structure to the rear contains a garage with square-headed window openings with 2/2 timber sash windows and painted stone sills. The bitumac avenue descends towards Mountfield Road, passing a detached multi-bay lofted outbuilding. This outbuilding has a pitched artificial slate roof with cast-iron rainwater goods, painted rough-cast over rubble stone walling, square-headed door openings with vertically-sheeted timber doors and half-doors, and square-headed window openings with multi-pane timber sash and some steel windows.

Glencree first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1854. Griffith's Valuation records the property in 1858 as "house, offices and land" with Alfred Gahan as occupier and Elizabeth Hamilton as lessor, initially valued at £10 and later revised to £17. Annual Revisions between 1860 and 1903 record Lewis M. Buchanan (later Major Buchanan) as lessor from 1892, with various occupiers noted during this period. The house was built around 1840 following a period when prosperous merchants moved out of Omagh town centre to establish themselves in private, secluded sites such as this, having relocated after the major fire that destroyed much of Omagh in May 1743.