Cavan House, 101 Cavan Road, Fintona, Co Tyrone, BT78 2LU

Cavan House is a substantial detached house of early nineteenth-century date, situated on the north side of Cavan Road in Fintona. It is a three-bay two-storey building with an attic storey, rectangular in plan with a single-storey hipped lean-to extension to the north-west. The proportions and fenestration are typical of a modest Georgian country house in Ireland.

The roof is half-hipped natural slate with blue and black clay ridges, carried on replacement sandstone corbelled eaves, and topped with replacement rendered chimneys fitted with clay pots. The walls are finished in roughcast render. The principal elevation faces south and features a central square-headed entrance containing a replacement six-panelled timber door with side and transom lights containing leaded stained glass, flanked on each side by a single window. Three windows are positioned at first-floor level. The windows throughout are square-headed timber-framed 1/1 sliding sashes with uPVC mullions and sandstone sills.

The west elevation contains a single window at each floor on the left side, with replacement square-headed double-leaf timber glazed doors on the right. The north elevation projects at its right end and has a dipartite window at ground-floor level on the left, flanked by a timber casement window, with two further windows at first-floor level. This elevation is abutted on the right by the extension, which contains three casement windows. A replacement timber door opens onto the east elevation. The east elevation contains a single window at each floor on the right side.

The building has been sympathetically restored, though the extensive renewal of detailing and fabric means it no longer retains its original features and character. This has been further compromised by the application of inappropriate roughcast render finish.

The property is set in mature gardens with access from Cavan Road at the south-east through a pair of square roughcast pillars with concrete caps. An enclosed yard at the rear is accessed through a pair of steel gates supported on square sandstone piers with sandstone caps set in roughcast walling, with a rubble boundary wall to the west of the yard. A single-storey stable block to the north is L-shaped in plan, with a pitched natural slate roof, rubble walling to the west wing and ruled-and-lined rendered walling to the north wing. A further rendered stable to the north-west has a corrugated metal roof.

The house is recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, showing a small extension or porch on the south elevation which had been removed by the third edition of 1950. It is captioned as Cavan House from the 1853 Ordnance Survey edition onwards. The Townland Valuation records the property as a house and offices valued at £18 and occupied by William Dixon Esquire. Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary notes that among the gentleman's seats in the parish are Cavan House belonging to W. Dickson Esquire, and the Ordnance Survey Memoirs briefly refer to the house as belonging to Dickson Esquire at the north-west end of Cavan townland.

Griffith's Valuation of 1858 records a house, offices and land, with the building initially valued at £14.10, later reduced to £12. James Wilson Esquire is named as owner in fee. Valuation Revisions show that in 1861 the occupier changed to George Alex Rogers, with the building valuation raised to £15. Charles Sproule became owner in 1869, with George Osbourne as occupier in 1881. Subsequent changes of ownership followed, and by 1904 the valuation had decreased again to £12. In 1933 the owner was J R Tubman, later revised to H F Elliott at an unknown date. At this point the house was valued at £4.10 shillings and comprised a kitchen, scullery, pantry, two rooms and six bedrooms. The building was noted as being in bad condition. The house was purchased and restored by the current owner in 1990.