27-29 Molesworth Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8NX

27-29 Molesworth Street, Cookstown

This is a three-storey terraced house built around 1872, constructed in painted ashlar stone with a rectangular plan. The building now contains a barber shop at ground floor level (installed circa 1970) with accommodation above. It forms part of a long uniform row of mixed three-storey buildings erected in stages between 1850 and 1880, most of which have been converted to shops, pubs and offices. The terrace demonstrates the urbanization and increasing prosperity of Cookstown during this period, particularly reflecting the arrival of the railway.

The front elevation faces the street to the north. At ground level, the façade features an elliptical-headed coach arch to the left with splayed rusticated quoins to the reveals and a central keystone lintel, now fitted with galvanised steel gates. The centre contains a replacement shopfront dating from circa 1970, composed of a central doorway with overlight and two flanking single-light shop windows set on a painted raised brick plinth. The shopfront surround is galvanised steel with a roller shutter box above, topped by a simple signboard. To the right is a square-headed doorway with overlight. The upper storeys contain square-headed 1/1 timber sash windows with painted cut stone sills. Painted rusticated stone quoins are present to the right of the front elevation. The eaves are fitted with replacement uPVC gutters, and the roof is natural slate with a single brick chimney to the right.

The rear south elevation is rendered and exhibits an irregular arrangement of square-headed door and window openings combining timber and uPVC casement windows and doors with painted concrete sills. A large galvanised steel fire escape stair and railings stretch from second floor to ground level. A two-storey stepped return extends to the south, also with rendered finish, irregular square-headed uPVC windows with concrete sills, rendered chimneys, and uPVC guttering and downpipes. The return abuts a range of two-storey plain rendered outbuildings with single-storey lean-to and metal roofs. An additional single-bay single-storey flat-roof return at ground floor level contains a single square-headed timber window.

The present numbers 27 and 29 originally formed a single property. Alexander Molloy is recorded as the first occupant in 1872, with William Taggart as the immediate lessor and a rateable value of £34-15-0. By 1892 the property was noted as containing a public house. The lease passed to James Gorman by 1897, then to Joe W. Devlin in 1901, who remained as tenant until 1929. James Mayne became resident in 1930, the same year the building was noted as a 'licensed hotel'. By 1936 the property had been divided into two, with a shop at ground floor and dwelling above, under the lease of William McDonald Porter. In 1952 the lease passed to Mary S. Porter, with the ground-floor shop operating as a café run by Joseph Anderson, who also occupied the dwelling. Some outbuildings had been converted to a garage and mechanics' workshop by this date, operating as a separate property under 'Cookstown Auto and Battery Services'. By 1967 Patrick Eastwood had acquired the lease, and a doctor's surgery occupied the ground floor with three flats above.

The building makes a positive contribution to the group value of Molesworth Street through its well-proportioned form and external style. Despite being built over a thirty-year period in many stages, the terrace from numbers 19 to 53 has maintained remarkable uniformity.