120 Coa Road, Woaghternerry, Enniskillen, BT74 4BU

120 Coa Road, Woaghternerry, was a substantial corrugated-iron bungalow of 1925, now demolished. It stood on a raised rural site on the north-west side of Coa Road, approximately 8km from the centre of Enniskillen, with views from the front across countryside to the south-east. The building was of exceptional rarity and significance: it was not only one of a very small number of pre-Second World War corrugated-iron domestic structures surviving in Northern Ireland, but was also, according to Dr. Barry O'Reilly — a specialist in these buildings — the largest corrugated-iron dwelling house of its kind on the island of Ireland. It was additionally notable as an early example of prefabricated kit construction, a method that was essentially unknown in Northern Ireland domestic building at the time, and which gave the house a formal, decidedly colonial appearance quite distinct from the simple linear vernacular idioms typical of its corrugated-iron contemporaries. The building was demolished during the final stages of the listing process in November 2020. The description below was recorded before demolition took place.

Origins and History

The house was built in 1925 for Mrs. Sarah Wilson, on land that valuation records show had been in the family's possession since at least 1864. According to her grandson, Sarah requested the house as a retirement residence from her son William, who at the time operated a timber firm in Dublin specialising in the manufacture of kit-form bungalows for export throughout the British Empire as residences for British administrators. The kit is believed to have been originally destined for Darjeeling in India. It was delivered by train to Enniskillen and transported from there to the site by horse-drawn wagon. The 1925 valuation records specifically describe the building as a 'bungalow' — still something of a novelty at that date — and note a 'shop' within the same plot, possibly within a separate outbuilding, though this is difficult to verify. The property appears to have remained with the Wilson family, or at least someone of the same name, until the 2010s, and was sold around 2019.

Exterior

The building had a rectangular footprint and was a single-storey hipped-roof bungalow clad throughout in corrugated iron, set on a shallow rendered plinth. The roof was pitched; the front south-east section was symmetrical and hipped, while the rear north-west section was double-piled with a central valley gutter and a gabled north-west face. The entire roof surface was covered in corrugated iron. Eaves and verges were both overhanging, with sloping timber-clad soffits. Four evenly spaced chimney stacks — two on each long ridge — were constructed in straw-coloured clay brick with corbelled caps and matching plain clay pots.

Extending across the full width of the front south-east façade was an open veranda, supported on a series of square timber posts with horizontal brace members between them, with a timber-clad soffit above. A flight of three concrete steps rose to the centre of the front façade, leading to a replacement uPVC door screen with sidelights and an overlight. Two window openings flanked the door screen on each side; those on the left were replacement uPVC, while those on the right were Crittall-style, formed in galvanised steel with six panes and a two-pane side-hung opener. All window openings throughout the building had raised timber architrave-style surrounds, timber sills, and straight heads.

The south-west side façade had six window openings, two per room, all replacement uPVC with painted timber sills and surrounds. The north-east side façade was similar but had five window openings rather than six, all Crittall-style in galvanised steel. The north-west rear façade had a plain rendered lean-to porch added off-centre to the right. Of the windows to this rear elevation, one to the right side of the porch was replacement uPVC, one on the far left was Crittall-style, and two immediately to the left of the porch were uPVC. The rear porch door was a timber frame with upper and lower glazed panels. In total, of the twenty openings to the main block (nineteen windows and one door), eight were Crittall-style in galvanised steel and twelve were replacement uPVC. Rainwater goods to the main block were painted metal downpipes and gutters; those to the rear porch were uPVC and metal.

Site and Setting

The site was entered through a symmetrical curved gate screen formed in red clay facing brick and framed with square concrete gateposts. The central posts were panelled with corbelled caps, and both the panels and caps featured domino-style decoration. The gate screen was set to the left of the main axis of approach. A vehicle drive extended up to the rear, where there was a small rendered outbuilding at the west corner. On the main axis, directly in front of the house and following the contours of the land, was a flight of external steps, with flanking square concrete posts at the foot — similar in character to those at the main entrance but smaller — and a tubular steel handrail on the left side. Despite the relatively recent replacement of some window frames and the entrance with uPVC, the building had been largely original both externally and internally at the time of recording, and the site as a whole remained similarly untouched.