5 Gorticashel Road, Gortin, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT79 8NW

5 Gorticashel Road, Gortin

A detached three-bay two-storey rendered house built around 1910 in Georgian style. The building is L-shaped in plan, facing east, with a single-bay two-storey flat-roofed extension. It has a hipped natural slate roof with gabled return to the rear projection, topped with a pair of yellow brick chimneys and terracotta ridge tiles. The uPVC rainwater goods are fitted to a timber boxed fascia.

The exterior walls are finished in painted pebbledash cement render with smooth rendered quoins at all corners and a smooth rendered plinth course. Window openings are square-headed with smooth rendered surrounds, painted concrete sills, and 6/6 timber sliding sash windows throughout.

The symmetrical east front elevation has three bays across two storeys, with moulded architrave surrounds to the window openings. A central square-headed doorway with moulded architrave surround contains a timber panelled door with sidelights and overlights, opening onto a concrete step to the front gravel area. The south elevation has two storeys with one window on the first floor and two on the ground floor. The west elevation features the gabled return with a yellow brick chimneystack rising from the gable end. The two-storey flat-roofed extension occupies the inner angle, with square-headed window openings containing timber casement windows and a square-headed door with timber panelled and glazed panels opening onto the rear gravel area. The north elevation displays three bays with window openings to both ground and first floors, all with moulded architrave surrounds and 6/6 timber sliding sash windows.

The house was not present on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1905–6, though it first appears on the fourth edition of 1953. It replaced an earlier dwelling shown on the first edition map of 1833. The Townland Valuation records the earlier house as a dwelling house and offices valued at £2 8s and occupied by John McKelvey. Griffith's Valuation of 1858 shows the property leased from Major A. W. Cole Hamilton. The new house does not appear in Annual Revisions records between 1867 and 1923, but the valuation was increased to £12 in 1933. Contemporary records describe it as a good, well-built farmhouse with good grates and interior finish. The ground floor comprised a drawing room, dining room, kitchen, scullery and pantry, with five bedrooms on the first floor.

To the northwest stands an enclosed farmyard of earlier date, enclosed to the east by a lime-washed rubble stone wall with wrought-iron gates. The yard contains a single-storey rendered outbuilding to the south, a two-storey rendered outbuilding to the west, and a single-storey iron-roofed structure to the north. A screen wall connects the west range to the iron structure, featuring a segmental-arched carriage arch. A flight of stone steps rises to the first floor of the two-storey west range. All outbuildings have timber plank doors and steel casement windows. The carriage arch opens onto a gravel lane leading north to the road. Adjacent to the entrance is a further single-storey rubble stone structure with corrugated iron roof. The principal approach lane runs parallel to the yard lane slightly further east, with an additional single-storey rendered structure to the west of the lane, also with corrugated iron roof. Outbuildings visible on the 1905–6 Ordnance Survey map appear to have survived.

This is a simple early twentieth-century house of late date and not among the best examples of its type, though the associated outbuildings add interest to the property.