Seskinore Orange Hall, 11a Main Street, Seskinore, Co. Tyrone, BT78 1UG

Seskinore Orange Hall

A detached single-storey Orange Hall built around 1930, located on the east side of Main Street in Seskinore. The building is rectangular in plan, aligned north-south, with a pitched natural slate roof topped with red roll-top clay ridge tiles. Timber eaves boards support replacement uPVC ogee-profile rainwater goods.

The walls are roughcast rendered with a smooth rendered plinth and smooth rendered stepped quoins, though the rear elevation has no quoins. Windows are replacement timber casements with projecting masonry cills, smooth rendered banding, and decorative cast-concrete architrave details. The principal elevation faces west and contains three windows. Between the windows are moulded roundels: on the left, a moulded centrepiece and the date 1690; on the right, a moulded coat of arms and the inscription 'VIRTUTE ET LABORE' (meaning 'by valour and exertion').

The north gable is abutted at its centre by a single-storey extension with a pitched natural slate roof, with the exposed section blank. The entrance is located on the west face of this extension, consisting of a double-leaf timber sheeted door within a moulded architrave featuring a central roundel and star motif. A single window is located in the north gable, while the east elevation of the extension is blank. The south gable is blank.

A rear east extension, built around 1960, is abutted to the left of the rear elevation and features a flat roof. The exposed section to the right is blank.

The hall is accessed from Main Street through a wrought-iron pedestrian gate supported on ruled-and-lined rendered square-plan piers with pyramidal caps. The west boundary is enclosed by a ruled-and-lined rendered plinth wall with wrought-iron railing. The ground surface around the hall is concrete, with lawn to the north and east.

The building first appeared on the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map of 1938, without the rear extension, which therefore postdates that map. In 1933, the hall was occupied by the Orange Society, later amended to the Trustees of Seskinore Orange Hall. A 1935 valuer's comment noted: 'Quite a good building but built in an amateurish manner and by local labour. Hall used solely for Orange meetings, socials &c.'

The building is largely intact in plan form and retains original cast-concrete mouldings and original detailing. However, it is of a late date and pedestrian design and is not of special architectural or historic interest.