Courthouse, High Street, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT78 1DU

Omagh Courthouse is an attached, five-bay, two-storey-over-raised-basement stone Palladian courthouse, built between 1814 and 1822 to designs by John Hargrave of Dublin, and extended in 1863 to designs by William Joseph Barre of Newry. The listing covers the courthouse itself together with its steps, boundary walls, gates, railings, and piers.

The building is of L-plan, facing east, and sits on an elevated site at the top of High Street, where its prominence above the town reinforces its role as a major civic building. It is enclosed by decorative wrought-iron railings, with sweeping steps and rusticated stone piers aligned to both entrances.

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER

The walling throughout is ashlar limestone, with rustication to the ground floor and basement, a dressed stringcourse between ground and first floor, a sill-course to the first floor, and a simple entablature to the eaves. The roof is hipped natural slate with lead ridge and hip caps, rendered chimneystacks, and ogee-profile cast-iron gutters. Windows are painted timber 6/6 sashes; those at ground-floor level are round-headed with incorporated fanlights, while those at first-floor level are square-headed with lugged moulded stone architraves.

PRINCIPAL (EAST) ELEVATION

The principal elevation of the main block is flanked by Doric pilasters to each side and is abutted at the centre by a full-height pedimented prostyle tetrastyle portico. The portico has four Roman Doric columns raised on a twelve-step platform with wrought and cast-iron railings. It carries an entablature and triangular pediment bearing a clock face, with a Royal heraldic cipher topped by an Edwardian Crown and flanked by a lion and unicorn at the apex. The soffit panels to each bay are painted timber diamond-sheeted. The ground-floor windows on the principal elevation have metal grilles. The entrance door at ground-floor level is a round-headed varnished timber raised-and-fielded three-panel double-leaf door with a replacement multi-light fanlight and moulded archivolt on impost mouldings.

Barre's five-bay, three-storey extension to the south has similar detailing to the principal elevation, except that the ground-floor windows are extended to square-headed basement windows with moulded panels to the soffits. At the centre of the basement level is a square-headed replacement painted timber multi-light double-leaf door, flanked by Doric pilasters with blind side-lights and overlights, and encased in a Roman Doric distyle portico with a full dentilled entablature. The south elevation of the extension is blank and smooth rendered.

REAR (NORTH) ELEVATION

The rear elevation is abutted at its left end by No. 6 George Street. The exposed section has a variety of projections with a smooth-render finish. It is single-storey over a raised basement, seven openings wide, with smooth rendered walling and a rusticated basement having a continuous sill-course. The windows have round-headed openings with painted timber 12/12 sashes and intersecting tracery to the incorporated fanlights. The jambs have Gibbsian blocking, with moulded archivolts and keyblocks. The central section is encased in a distyle prostyle portico with Doric columns and a triangular pediment, accessed by stone steps with a cast-iron railing. There is also a square-headed door opening with a painted timber raised-and-fielded eight-panel door with beaded muntin, stone architraves, and a peacock fanlight. To the left of this elevation is a square-headed niche with a moulded surround, containing a statue of a wigged male figure of Justice. The basement area walling is random rubble, with two square-headed painted timber vertically-sheeted and studded doors.

CRAFTSMANSHIP AND MATERIALS

The building displays fine stonework and craftsmanship throughout. The freestone used in construction was obtained from west Longfield, and the columns were quarried from Mulnatoosnog in Drumragh, as recorded in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1834.

INTERIOR

The interior has been described in published sources as plain and unremarkable, though the building has been noted as reportedly the first in Omagh to have central heating.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The first courthouse in Omagh was destroyed by fire in May 1742, and it is not known what building served as a courthouse between that date and 1814. The present courthouse was built on the site of the earlier one. Pigot and Co.'s Commercial Directory of Ireland of 1824 recorded the completed building as follows: "Fronting the Main Street is the court house, an elegant piece of architecture, finished two years ago; in front are four massy pillars in the Doric order, at the top are his majesty's arms, cut in solid stone, also a good clock in front is of essential service to the town." The 1834 Ordnance Survey Memoirs note that the portico was added in 1820 and that the total cost, met by county presentments, was £17,000. Griffith's Valuation of 1858 records the building as the County Court House and yard, valued at £200, occupied by the Grand Jury, County of Tyrone. Valuations revised in 1867 note that No. 2 High Street had been demolished to allow for the courthouse addition, with the value amended to £320, and a further note of 1869 refers to a "large addition to Court House." The Dublin Builder of 1 December 1863 reported that the Grand Jury committee had instructed Barre of Belfast to prepare plans for extensive alterations and additions, for which adjoining property had been purchased. In 1906, William Henry Byrne and Son carried out repairs and alterations, including the replacement of existing wood and glass domes. The original courthouse was connected by an underground tunnel to the former RUC Barracks at No. 2 High Street.

The periwigged statue of Justice on the George Street elevation is believed to date from the late 17th or early 18th century and was set in its current position in 1854.

ARCHITECTURAL ASSESSMENT

The building has been praised by architectural historians for the quality and ambition of its design, though also noted for certain idiosyncrasies. Alistair Rowan observed that the portico columns — described as Roman Doric in their detailing — are of an unusually elongated proportion, with shafts almost ten times the column diameter, far exceeding the Vitruvian rule for the Tuscan order of no more than seven. He also noted that the entablature, where it extends across the main facade to the corner pilasters, omits the architrave entirely, requiring a detached block above the corner capital. The rusticated ground floor with round-headed sash windows and the ashlar first floor with a continuous stringcourse formed by the window sills were considered more orthodox features.

Barre's extension has been widely admired for its restraint. Jeremy Williams wrote of it as "a rare example of William Joseph Barre's architectural discretion, doubling in size the 1814 courthouse of John Hargrave without overbalancing what existed." Barre extended the horizontal fenestration of the original five bays into five further bays, but deliberately omitted the portico, pilasters, plinth, and steps that distinguished the original. This restraint allowed him to insert an additional floor at ground level by taking advantage of the sloping site. Rowan similarly praised Barre's "adroit regularisation" of Hargrave's mannerisms, noting the good Italianate effect created by containing the windows of both additional floors within high relieving arches.

SIGNIFICANCE AND CONNECTIONS

John Hargrave was responsible for a number of courthouse and gaol complexes in Ireland, including courthouses at Dungannon (1830) and Letterkenny (1831). The original Omagh Courthouse forms part of a distinct architectural group with Omagh Gaol, which was also rebuilt to Hargrave's designs around the same time, though of the gaol only the former Governor's House now survives. The extension and much of the original courthouse retain their original detailing, although recent alterations have been noted as detracting from the building's character. The courthouse sits within a conservation area.