Railview House, 53 Rakeeran Road, Dromore, Co Tyrone, BT78 3HN

Railview House is a detached three-bay two-storey house built around 1870, located on the south side of Rakeeran Road near Dromore, County Tyrone. Although modernised, it retains its original form and many internal details.

The house is rectangular on plan with a single-storey lean-to boiler house to the south. The pitched roof is natural slate with blue and black clay ridge tiles and replacement brick chimneys. Walls are ruled-and-lined rendered with flush sandstone quoins over a stepped plinth; the west elevation is roughcast. Windows are timber-framed 2/2 sliding sashes, though the west elevation has replacement uPVC casements with replacement concrete sills at ground floor level; painted sandstone sills are used elsewhere.

The principal elevation faces east and comprises a central square-headed entrance opening containing a replacement timber panelled door with transom light, flanked by 1/1 sliding sash sidelights. The door is accessed by stone steps. Windows flank the entrance on either side, with three windows at first floor level. The south gable contains a small window to the attic and is abutted at ground floor by the smooth-rendered boiler house, which has a vertically-sheeted timber door to the west. The west elevation has a central replacement uPVC door flanked by single windows; three windows at first floor (the central one diminished in size); and two rooflights to the pitch. The north gable contains a single window at ground floor and a replacement uPVC window at first floor.

The house sits within a farmyard with a range of outbuildings to the west, each featuring natural slate roofs and coursed rubble lime-rendered walling with fieldstone quoins. To the north-west is an L-shaped single-storey stable block dated 1871, with segmental-headed carriage-arches on the south elevation. Attached to its south is a two-storey stable block with a lean-to store accessed at first floor by sandstone steps; timber-framed openings have red brick voussoirs. Wrought-iron gates supported by sandstone pillars within rubble walling provide access to the garden at the north of the house. The principal access from the road is through wrought-iron gates supported on octagonal rendered piers. The site is bounded to the road at the north by a timber fence, and the farmyard is accessed through farm gates in roughcast walling within an alcoved entrance.

The stables to the rear are built with rubble construction and lime-rendered, remaining largely intact with original openings preserved.

Historical records show buildings on the site from the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, with some appearing to have survived. The house is first shown on the third edition map of 1905-6, captioned 'Railview House'. An outbuilding to the north of the plot, next to the road, bears a datestone of 1871; stylistically, the house appears to date from the same period, although later amendments have altered the appearance of the rear elevation, including enlargement and replacement of windows.

Griffith's Valuation records a 'house, offices and land' valued at £3 and occupied by James Warnock. In the Valuation Revisions, the valuation increased to £6 10s, then £8 10s in 1863 due to 'new offices' being built. The occupier was revised to Andrew Lindrum in 1871, at which date 'gate lodge' was added to the property description, and the valuation increased to £17 5s. The designation 'gate lodge' appears to describe the outbuilding to the north of the plot, which is indeed next to the gate entrance into the property, though it is unusual to refer to a building of this type as a gate lodge.

The house, although of a relatively common type from its period, has been compromised by modern alterations and elements.