26-28 William Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8NB

26-28 William Street, Cookstown, is a rendered end-of-terrace two-storey house and shop built around 1830, forming part of a long row of mixed terrace buildings along the eastern side of William Street in the commercial centre of Cookstown. It is roughly rectangular in plan, with a single-storey lean-to to the rear and a further single-storey flat-roofed outbuilding, also to the rear, built around 1897. The building is a well-composed example of a late Georgian house whose ground floor was converted to commercial use during the Victorian era. Its modest scale and simple proportions are characteristic of the type, and it contributes significantly to the early 19th-century character of the street scene.

The front (west) elevation faces the street and is finished in painted render. The rear elevation is unpainted render. The roof is pitched and slated, with cast-iron rainwater goods.

At ground floor level, the front elevation is divided between a shopfront to the right and a house door to the left. The shopfront has a recessed central doorway with a glazed and panelled timber door and an overlight above. To each side of the doorway are large shop windows in aluminium framing, set on rendered stall risers. Painted and panelled timber pilasters flank each side of the shopfront and are surmounted by carved timber console brackets with floral and leaf motifs, above which projects a carved timber cornice. The shopfront is topped by a decorative painted timber fascia with a continuous guilloche moulding at its base and a carved timber dentilled course above. The signboard has raised typeface. The house door to the left is square-headed, with a timber panelled door and an overlight, and has matching pilasters to each side. The entire shopfront is surmounted by a projecting modern canopy.

At upper floor level, the front elevation has painted one-over-one timber sash windows set on cut-stone sills. The rear elevation has an assortment of one-over-one timber sash windows.

The single-storey lean-to extension to the rear has a replacement timber window and an integral timber door, with replacement uPVC and aluminium rainwater goods and artificial slate to its roof. The further single-storey flat-roofed addition to the rear, possibly a boiler house, has a single timber casement window and a square-headed door.

The site is shown as developed on Ordnance Survey maps of 1833-34 and 1857. In the first valuation of 1835, the building is recorded as a structure that was already not new, in the possession of a David Miller. Its dimensions were noted as 24½ ft × 24½ ft × 21 ft for the main portion, with outbuildings measuring 11 × 7½ × 6, 19½ × 12 × 6½, and 22½ × 19 × 11 feet, the smallest of which was thatched. The building was given a rateable value of £6-15-9, rising to £10 in the valuation revision of 1838. By 1859, the property had passed to a Thomas Bell, with a Robert Black as immediate lessor, and the rateable value had risen to £14-10-0. Bernard Henry took over the tenancy in 1862, followed by Peter Donnelly in 1872 and Bernard Donnelly in 1879. P & B. Donnelly of William Street are listed as linen and woollen drapers and haberdashers in Slater's 1870 directory. John Early, a grocer, became the next occupant in 1891, also acquiring the lease. In 1897, Early added outbuildings to the rear, recorded in the valuation book as measuring 14½ ft × 25½ ft × 17 ft and 14½ × 47 × 11 ft, with the rateable valuation rising by £4 as a result. Early held the lease until 1915, when both it and the tenancy were taken over by another grocer, Henry B. Eastwood. Eastwood was succeeded by the Browne Brothers in 1928, and by 1936 a Robert Brown is recorded as tenant with a George Faulkner as immediate lessor. A Martha Brown and Mary Faulkner are listed as tenant and leaseholder respectively in 1951. By 1964 the property is noted as vacant, and appears to have remained so until at least 1972.

The building is in private ownership and is currently in use as a shop.