Cookstown Masonic Lodge, Fairhill Road, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8AG

Cookstown Masonic Lodge

This detached single-storey building on Fairhill Road in the northern suburbs of Cookstown was originally built as a private school house around 1884 and converted to use as a Masonic Lodge in 1928. It is a well-detailed and proportioned middle-size structure in late-Victorian and Edwardian style, with much of its external and internal fabric surviving substantially intact, particularly the Main Hall. The building has considerable social and local importance.

The construction comprises sandstone with brick dressings, set back from the road behind a brick boundary wall on a stone base with an iron gate. The building is roughly square in plan with an enclosed central yard. The main gabled-fronted eastern section was the original 1884 school house. In 1909, the building was enlarged to approximately its present form when it was reconstituted as Cookstown Academy. The work involved constructing new sections to the west, southwest and southeast, with estimated costs of £796.

The front north elevation facing Fairhill Road features two gable-ends to the left, each with a large elliptical-headed window containing two brick mullions and cut-stone sill. The windows are surrounded by red brick with red and blue engineering brick voussoirs. Above each window is a roundel with red and blue brick surround. The main segmental-headed door is panelled timber with a stained glass overlight, positioned centrally between the two gable windows. To the right, added at a later date, are three segmental-headed windows with chamfered brick reveals and voussoirs. All window frames are painted timber. The external walls to the front are squared snecked stone with clay brick dressings.

The west gable-ended elevation is constructed in Flemish bond brick and has a single-storey return positioned to its left. The east elevation contains square-headed openings with brick surrounds, all now blocked up. The south rear elevation has a plain blank rendered gable to the left and a hipped roof to the right, with two blocked openings each having brick dressings. A cut-stone plinth runs along the base of the building.

The various single-storey returns are of differing materials and construction. The pitched return to the southwest is rendered and has a tall shaped brick chimney with clay pots at the southern apex. The hipped return to the southeast is squared stone with blocked square-headed window openings. The pitched connecting return to the south is squared stone with no openings. The return to the west has a square-headed window opening on a cut-stone sill, with brick external walls to the west and render elsewhere.

All roofs are covered in natural slate with cast-iron rainwater goods. A decorative metal ventilator adorns the main roof. A concreted setback area extends from the boundary to the entrance door.

The building was listed in 1884 as a house, office and yard serving as a private school, occupied by John McKenzie and valued at £15. By 1909, it had been enlarged and was operating as Cookstown Academy with a rateable value of £25. The Academy vacated in 1927, and the Masonic Lodge took occupancy in 1928, relocating from their previous hall in the Commercial Buildings on Molesworth Street.