Dunwish Cottage, 20 Dunwish Road, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT78 5PH

Dunwish Cottage is a detached, symmetrical three-bay two-storey house built around 1840, located on the east side of Dunwish Road in Omagh, County Tyrone. The building demonstrates the evolution of rural domestic architecture through the nineteenth century, though it has been compromised by later alterations and is not considered among the finest examples of its type.

The main house is rectangular in plan, facing south, with a two-storey return added to the rear around 1960. The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with blue and black clay ridge tiles, and features two brick corbelled chimneystacks. Deep overhanging timber eaves with exposed rafter-ends support replacement aluminium u-profile rainwater goods. The walls are roughcast rendered with smooth rendered stepped quoins and plinth.

The principal south-facing elevation contains a central entrance door flanked by windows on each side, with three windows at first-floor level. Windows throughout are 2/2 timber sliding sashes (vertically divided), diminished in height at first floor, set within smooth rendered lugged architraves with projecting stone cills. The entrance comprises a four-panelled timber door with panelled glazed sidelights and an elliptical fanlight, contained within a smooth rendered surround. A later pitched timber canopy with asbestos tile roof, supported on cast-iron columns, fronts the entrance, with timber sheeted soffit and moulded bargeboards; replacement uPVC rainwater goods are fitted. The west elevation is blank, while the east gable is also blank.

The rear north elevation is partially obscured by the flat-roofed return of circa 1960, whose exposed sections on left and right each contain single windows at ground and first-floor levels. The return features a felted flat roof set above the eaves line of the main house, roughcast rendered walls with smooth rendered banding and plinth, and top-opening timber casement windows with precast concrete cills. The north elevation of the return contains one window at ground floor and two at first floor (the left diminished). The left cheek contains one window at each floor (that at first floor diminished), while the right cheek has a replacement timber door accessed by two masonry steps.

The house stands within a substantial farmyard complex. An original outbuilding of circa 1830 is located to the north. The northern boundary is formed by roughly coursed rubble walling with saddleback coping and hedging, punctuated by two circular rubble piers with no gates.

The ground-floor interior detailing is largely original and intact, dating from the early nineteenth century. Interior evidence suggests the house may originally have comprised two bays, with the east bay one-and-a-half storeys and the west bay single-storey. Remodelling towards the end of the nineteenth century appears to have involved adding a second floor over the existing west bay, introducing a new central stairwell, and subdividing original rooms. Re-rendering of the exterior conceals any physical evidence of this rebuilding.

The property first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853. A previous building is recorded on the 1833 map. Griffith's Valuation of 1858 records the occupier as Robert Wiley, leasing the property (described as 'house, offices and land') from Sam Galbraith, with a building valuation of £2. Valuation Revisions show James McBrien as occupier from 1876, with the valuation increasing slightly to £2 2s. By 1892 the property was described as a 'herds house and land', valued at £1 12s. The entry was crossed out in 1902 but re-inserted as a 'house and office' valued at £5 20s, suggesting renovation or significant changes at that date, which may correspond to the internal remodelling evidenced by the interior details.