Garden Cottage, at Favor Royal House, Favour Royal Road, Augher, Dungannon, Co Tyrone, BT77 OEW

Garden Cottage at Favour Royal House

This is a well-designed picturesque estate cottage of grade B+ status, located immediately south-east of the main house, with which it shares group value within the Favour Royal demesne.

The cottage is a single-storey building, three bays wide, with rendered random rubble walls and three separate pitched natural slate roofs. The three bays differ markedly in scale and design. The left bay is considerably shallower than the other two, and its detailing appears to be of a later date. The front elevation of the left bay contains a 2/2 sliding sash window with horns and brick reveals, with a red brick chimney at the left of the roof.

The central bay projects to one and a half storeys in height. Its pitched natural slate roof has deep overhanging eaves supported on pairs of decorative timber brackets. Two red brick chimneys rise to the front right, one set at an angle to the front elevation. A pair of 4/4 sliding sashes, identical to those on the main house, are set in a flush stone architrave on the front elevation. The exposed portion of the left gable contains a 4/4 exposed box sliding sash window. The right gable has a window opening to the right of the central chimney breast, now missing.

The right bay has a pitched natural slate roof that cat slides as a porch to the front, with timber eaves supported on two plain tapering stone columns. Beneath the porch sits a canted bay window with brick dressings and stone cill; its front window is missing, and the cheeks are fitted with 4/4 sliding sashes.

To the rear of the cottage, abutting the central bay, is a circular tower rising to two storeys on the party wall with the right bay. This tower has rendered brick walls, a leaded conical roof, and narrow lattice arrow-loop windows at various levels. The rear elevation of the left bay contains a small narrow and damaged lattice window at the right end. The central bay has a pair of narrow timber doors, each with six glazed panels, over which is a moulded cornice, possibly salvaged. The right gable has a large window opening to centre (now missing), and to its right on the cheek of the rear lean-to is a smaller window with lead lattice casement.

The left bay has a 2/2 vertically divided window to the left and a tongue-and-groove sheeted door to the right, now collapsed. The left gable of the cottage is blank.

Outside the cottage, leaning against its right gable, is a sandstone plaque with moulded architrave and raised fielded central panel. The inscription is largely illegible but begins: "This house built by Order of / Grand Jury at Omagh 1732 /" and mentions "W. Edwards Overseer...".

To the front of the cottage the hillside steps down in several man-made terraces towards the main house.

Historical evidence suggests the right bay may predate the remainder of the cottage and possibly even the main house itself, built in 1825. The first edition 6-inch Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows the demesne and most of its features, including this cottage, which appears smaller than it is today. Nineteenth-century family photographs in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland show the cottage with terraced lawns to its front.

The cottage is recorded as derelict. It forms part of the broader Favour Royal estate complex, which includes a lodge on the north-west side of Favour Royal Road, main gates, bridges, the main house and yards, outer yard, walled garden, pigsty, and weigh house. The demesne is bounded to the north by the River Blackwater, to the east by Derrymeen Road, to the south by the border with County Monaghan, to the west by the church of St. Mary's Portclare, and to the north-west by Favour Royal Road.