35 Molesworth Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8NX

35 Molesworth Street, Cookstown is a Grade B2 listed building of significant local importance, representing the Victorian urbanization and prosperity of the town following the arrival of the railway.

The building is a three-storey terraced house constructed around 1874 in sandstone. It forms part of a long terrace of mixed three-storey buildings erected between 1850 and 1880 in stages, yet maintaining remarkable uniformity despite the thirty-year building period. The property now functions primarily as a shop, with residential use above.

The street-facing north elevation contains a ground floor shopfront of symmetrical design, dating to around 1980. This features a central square-headed timber panelled doorway with glazed top panel and overlight, flanked by two large single-light timber shop windows set on a timber panelled stall riser. Simple panelled painted timber pilasters frame either side of the shopfront, surmounted by ogee-shaped carved timber console brackets and a simple signboard. The upper storeys contain square-headed 1/1 timber sash windows with cut stone sills. The roof carries replacement gutters and artificial slate covering, with a shared brick chimney to the west.

The rear south elevation is rendered and features a random arrangement of square-headed replacement timber casement windows. A two-storey flat-roofed return projects to the rear, similarly fenestrated with square-headed timber windows. A single-storey lean-to with artificial slate roof abuts the southern elevation of the return, with a rendered chimney rising above the roofline. An exposed concrete block wall connects the southern face of the lean-to to the rear boundary. An external brick-balustrated staircase, added around 1980, provides access from ground level to the upper deck and apartments.

Historically, numbers 35 and 37 originally formed a single property built in 1874 by William Taggart, who had completed the neighbouring buildings at numbers 27-29 and 31-33 two years earlier. The first recorded occupant was Thomas McKay with a rateable value of £46-10-0. Following Taggart's death in 1893, McKay himself leased the property, sharing it with his son from 1908 to 1916. Subsequent occupants and leaseholders included Joseph Anderson (1923), Bernard Donaghy (1929), Joseph Donaghy (1952-1970s), and Patrick McCusker (from 1970 until at least 1972).

The building's significance lies in its well-proportioned and detailed design, its external appearance, and its group value with other listed buildings in this important street, which collectively illustrate Cookstown's Victorian development and increasing commercial prosperity.