Lisahoppin House, Leap Lane, Omagh, BT79 0NQ

Lisahoppin House is a detached three-bay two-storey rendered house built around 1900, located on the east side of Leap Lane in Omagh. A symmetrical late nineteenth-century house with a restrained design, it retains most of its original external fabric, though with somewhat awkward proportions and of a relatively late date and common style that does not represent one of the best examples of the type.

The building is rectangular in plan, facing south, with a single-bay two-storey central projecting entrance bay. A two-storey L-plan range of outbuildings is attached to the rear. The roof is hipped with natural slate, lead rolled ridges, and a pair of symmetrically placed tall brick chimneystacks with corbels, though these have been rebuilt. Replacement uPVC guttering sits to the moulded rendered eaves course. The walls are painted with ruled-and-lined cement render, featuring rusticated quoins and a projecting plinth course.

The south front elevation is symmetrical with three bays. Square-headed window openings appear on the ground floor and segmental-headed openings on the first floor, all with moulded architrave surrounds, painted masonry sills, and single-pane timber sash windows. The full-height entrance bay has rusticated quoins and square-headed door openings to both cheeks with moulded architrave surrounds. The original raised-and-fielded timber panelled doors feature Art Nouveau brass furniture and open onto a bitumac front area.

The two-bay two-storey west side elevation has two window openings to each floor. The window opening to the left ground floor has been reduced in size to form a pair of diminutive single-pane timber sash windows with central mullion. The west elevation of the outbuilding steps back slightly and features a square-headed door opening with double-leaf timber glazed doors. A single-storey glazed rear entrance porch, built around 2000, has a shallow hipped roof and abuts the rear elevation to the right-hand side. A round-headed window opening to the stair hall contains a single-pane timber sash window with coloured margin lights. A further small window opening to the first floor has a replacement timber casement window. The two-bay two-storey east side elevation has two windows per floor.

The setting comprises a bitumac front drive passing the east side elevation to a concrete paved rear yard. The yard is enclosed to the west by two-storey and double-height rendered outbuildings with pitched natural slate roofs, and corrugated iron sheeting to that abutting the rear of the house. To the east, the yard is enclosed by a series of large industrial steel-framed buildings. The bitumac drive opens onto Leap Lane to the southwest.

Buildings were present on the site from the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map in 1833. However, the present house first appears on the third edition of 1906, together with a large extension to the rear which may incorporate earlier buildings. Griffith's Valuation lists a house, offices and land with buildings valued at £5 15 shillings, with dimensions given for a house and five offices. The owner in fee was Robert Harvey. In 1872 the occupier became William James Harvey, and in 1877 the property value was revised to £16 5 shillings, indicating a probable rebuild. In 1914 the occupier became George Harvey. Valuers' notes from 1934 record the house as comprising a dining room, drawing room, bedroom, kitchen, scullery and water closet on the ground floor, and four bedrooms and a boxroom on the first floor, with no bathrooms. The valuer remarked that the house was very similar to Lisboy and of the same quality and in very good repair, though the approach was considered somewhat of a drawback. The house was situated on high ground where water supply for ordinary purposes was very poor, available only in sufficient quantity for domestic use at irregular periods according to season. The owner had bored a well over 100 feet deep and failed to obtain a supply, consequently making it impossible to install a bath except by bringing supply from a distance at prohibitive expense. The water closet was flushed from a rainwater tank in the roof.