14 Molesworth Road, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8NR

This is a well-proportioned and detailed semi-detached house designed in picturesque late-Victorian style. Built around 1897, it was constructed together with the adjacent semi-detached house (HB09/13/033B), and the two create a balanced symmetrical appearance. Combined with nearby railway-related structures on Molesworth Street and other houses in the area, the building contributes significantly to the overall Victorian character of this part of Cookstown's north-eastern suburbs.

The house is a rendered semi-detached structure of two-and-a-half storeys, roughly square in plan with a two-storey return to the rear. Two single-storey lean-to outbuildings stand in the rear yard. The building is set back from Molesworth Road behind a low boundary wall with cast-iron railings and simple square pillars with pyramidal stone caps. A small garden to the front contains a gated path leading to the entrance door.

The front south elevation faces the road and features a doorway to the right and a canted bay window to the left. The doorway is set within a semi-circular headed recess and contains a four-panelled timber door with a semi-circular headed overlight. It has a carved stone surround with a central carved fluted keystone, a brass knocker, doorknob and letterbox. The doorway projects slightly and is surmounted by a projecting stringcourse at keystone level and a projecting cornice above.

The canted bay has segmental-headed windows with 1/1 timber sash frames, carved stone surrounds with central carved fluted keystones, and projecting carved stone stringcourses at sill level, at half-window level, and above window level. The upper levels also have segmental-headed windows with 1/1 timber sash frames and similar carved stone surrounds. The window above the doorway features a decorative rendered apron beneath the window sill.

A dormer to the roof contains a round-headed window with a 1/1 timber sash frame, overhanging eaves with decorative timber bargeboards to the gable, and a central timber finial surmounting the apex.

The west gable-ended elevation has two round-headed windows to the second level, each with 1/1 timber sash windows set on carved stone sills with window surrounds as described above. Decorative aprons appear beneath the window sills, and the continuous stringcourse from the front elevation at half-window level continues around this side.

The rear north elevation contains square-headed timber casement windows set on painted cut-stone sills. The main roof is slated with carved stone eaves and cast-iron rainwater goods, overhanging to the gable-end, with four timber brackets to the eaves and decorative timber bargeboard. A rendered chimney rises to the left (west).

External walls consist of painted render with smooth stone quoins to the front elevation and a carved stone plinth to the base. The two-storey return has timber casement windows on painted cut-stone sills and a square-headed door with overlight to the west elevation. External walls here are ruled-and-lined render. The rear lean-to outbuildings are rendered with metal roofs. The rear yard is tarmac, bounded by a high snecked rubble stone wall. A tarmac access drive to the west leads to the rear yard.

Historical records indicate the house was probably built by Stewart Devlin, who held the lease of the plot at that time. The valuers' office notebook records it as constructed of rubble masonry and brick with a slate roof, measuring 21½ feet by 27 feet by 28 feet, with a return of 13½ feet by 24 feet by 22 feet and a bay of 8 feet by 3 feet by 12 feet. The estimated construction cost was £443, with a rateable value of £18. In 1899, the property was occupied by William Porter; later occupants included James Ross (from 1903), E.S. McNeill (1936), Henry B. Eastwood (1951), B. Rooney (from 1960), and James Duff Devlin as leaseholder in 1936.