The Old Rectory, Lower Langfield, Sloughan Road, Drumquin, Co.Tyrone, BT78 4PF

The Old Rectory, Lower Langfield, is a detached former rectory dated 1762, making it an unusually early surviving example of its type. It is a five-bay, two-storey building over a basement and attic storey, rectangular on plan, rendered throughout and set in a low-lying woodland landscape to the south of Sloughan Road, facing northwest. The house is now in private residential use.

The building is constructed on a slight slope, with the basement partially exposed and partially concealed depending on the elevation. All four elevations show a slight projection to the walls at basement level. The walling is painted rough-cast render to the front and rear elevations, with cement smooth render to both gabled side elevations.

The roof is a pitched natural slate construction with four rendered chimneystacks fitted with clay pots, clay ridge tiles, and stone raking copings to the gable ends. Half-round cast-iron guttering runs along a projecting eaves course, supported on wrought-iron drive-through brackets, with cast-iron hoppers and downpipes.

The front elevation is symmetrical across five bays, with the two main storeys rising above the part-roofed and part-concealed basement. The centrepiece is a single-bay, two-storey gabled entrance projection. This gabled bay has a plain stone pediment, its pitched natural slate roof hipped down to meet the eaves of the principal roof, finished with roll-moulded clay ridge tiles. The entrance itself is positioned on the east cheek of this projection rather than facing forward. It consists of a round-headed door opening with a moulded timber frame, a six-panelled flush-profile timber door with decorative iron door furniture, and an iron bats-wing fanlight. The door opens onto a stone-paved area that bridges the basement level and is sheltered by a canopy supported on a plain timber post with a wrought-iron rail to the east. This canopy has a hipped natural slate roof with a lead ridge and cast-iron gutter. At first-floor level of the entrance projection, both the front face and the east side have round-headed window openings fitted with multi-pane pivot windows — timber to the gable and iron to the east cheek — each incorporating a bats-wing fanlight that matches the one below. To either side of the entrance projection, on both floors, are slender window openings fitted with four-over-four sash windows.

Window openings throughout the house are square-headed, with painted stone sills and timber sash windows. The majority are six-over-six panes with no horns. The three central bays of the rear basement elevation have six-over-three sash windows with thick glazing bars, including a single bull's-eye pane. At attic level, in each gable, is a diminutive square-headed opening fitted with a four-pane timber casement window. There are three iron roof lights to the rear pitch and a further three iron roof lights to the lean-to roof over the basement.

The rear elevation is five bays wide, two storeys over an exposed basement, with regularly placed window openings. To the left of the ground floor is a three-sided canted oriel window with a hipped natural slate roof, rendered base, and a six-over-six timber sash window flanked by two-over-two sash windows set on a continuous stone sill course. The east gable elevation has a single window opening to the basement, a diminutive attic-level window, and a rendered chimneystack rising from the gable. To the west elevation of the lean-to basement, flush with the west gable, is a square-headed door opening with a tongue-and-groove timber door and a slender rectangular overlight.

A carved sandstone date plaque is set into the centre of the east elevation. It reads: "A.D. MDCC:XII Peu, A.? BENSON. DD Parochias, Rector. SIUI ET RectoriBus, SuccedenTiBus., POSUIT." The architectural historian Alistair Rowan records the inscription slightly differently as: "AD MDCCLXII REV Ar BENSON DD PAROCHIAE RECTOR SUET RECTORIBUS SUCCEDENTIBUS POSUIT", translating partially as: "In the year 1762 Rev Benson DD, the parish rector…established…"

The house retains a wealth of original features. Notably, the basement windows preserve their early sash windows. The sash windows to the main elevations are a later improvement, dating from around 1850. The staircase was re-arranged in the late 19th or early 20th century. Internally, Rowan records five-panelled doors in lugged surrounds, and notes that the building is only one room thick in plan.

The site and building have a documented history. The first edition Ordnance Survey map shows a number of buildings on the site captioned "Glebe Ho", and the second edition captions them "Lower Longfield Rectory". The Townland Valuation Records of 1828 to 1840 describe the complex as comprising two dwelling houses, a kitchen, an underground pantry, three offices, a carhouse, and a shed. In Griffith's Valuation the Glebe House and offices were valued at £30 0s 0d and recorded as leased from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. This valuation remained unchanged throughout the Annual Revision records, and the property was used as a rectory throughout the period covered by those records.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe it as follows: "West Longfield, Glebe House, the residence of Rev Gilbert King, is the only gentleman's residence in the parish. It is situated three quarters of a mile to the west of the town of Drumquin. There is nothing remarkable in its appearance. It is a plain but large whitewashed building of an oblong form, with a good quantum of fir trees about it."

The setting is an important part of the building's significance. The house occupies a large landscaped site directly opposite Lower Langfield Church of Ireland to the northeast, and together these are considered one of the best groupings of church and glebe house in the area. The site descends from the road level down to the Black Water River. A long curved gravel driveway opens to the road to the north through a pair of wrought-iron gates on octagonal rendered piers, flanked by a pair of matching pedestrian gates also on octagonal piers. In the northern boundary wall, opposite the church, is a wrought-iron pedestrian gate between stone pillars with steps down to the road.

Immediately to the west gable is a single-storey stone outbuilding built of squared limestone, with a half-hipped natural slate roof, black clay ridge tiles, and cast-iron rainwater goods to exposed rafter feet. It has three square-headed openings without doors. To the east of the house is a single stretch of decorative cast-iron railing on a low wall with a matching pedestrian gate. Further east still is a pair of rusticated ashlar stone piers carrying a pair of wrought-iron gates. Beyond these lies a linear range of single and two-storey rubble stone outbuildings, now roofless and in a derelict condition.

The listing covers the house together with the retaining walls and a wall incorporating a dog kennel. The survival of such an early rectory in virtually original condition, on an intact and historically associated site, is considered rare and of considerable local and architectural interest.