Loy House, 80 Chapel Street, Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, BT80 8QD

Loy House is a late Georgian and Regency town house, built around 1830, possibly to the designs of John Nash. It forms the northern half of what was originally constructed as a single, symmetrical dwelling together with the house immediately to the south (no. 82 Chapel Street). When viewed together, the two properties create the balanced, unified appearance that was originally intended. The listing covers the house and its boundary walling.

The house is roughly square in plan, with a projecting Regency bowed bay to the front. To the rear there is a hipped two-storey return, with a further hipped two-storey extension abutting it. A single-storey lean-to extension with uPVC glazing, built around 1970, is located to the rear of this extension. The house is set back from Chapel Street in the northern suburbs of Cookstown, in an area that otherwise became largely Victorian suburban development along Molesworth Road.

The principal west-facing front elevation looks onto the road. The projecting bowed bay sits to the right and contains square-headed 6-over-6 timber sash windows with cut-stone sills, both the frames and the sills following the curve of the bay. To the left of the bay is the main entrance doorway and further windows. A boundary wall to the left contains a coach arch giving access to the rear yard.

The doorcase is a fine early 19th-century Regency composition set into an elliptical-headed recess. Rounded, fluted pilasters with Tuscan capitals flank the door and stand on cut-stone plinth blocks; these pilasters carry a projecting moulded cornice, above which a radial fanlight is set within the elliptical-headed recess. The remaining windows on the front elevation are square-headed 6-over-6 timber sash frames on cut-stone sills, with the classical proportions reducing appropriately at upper-floor level.

The rear east elevation has a timber and glazed double doorway at ground level with an overlight, along with an assortment of 6-over-6 timber sash windows and timber casement windows, all with painted cut-stone sills. The main roof is hipped and covered in natural slate, as is the roof over the projecting bowed bay. There is a rendered chimney to the north of the main roof, a brick chimney at the centre, and a chimney with clay pots to the rear elevation. Rainwater goods have been replaced in uPVC. External walls are rendered, though much of the front elevation is covered in climbing foliage.

To the rear, the hipped two-storey return has a 6-over-6 timber sash window at ground-floor level and a timber casement window at first-floor level. The hipped two-storey extension abutting the return similarly has a mix of 6-over-6 timber sash and casement windows with painted cut-stone sills. The single-storey glazed lean-to extension has continuous timber glazing around its perimeter, set on a low rendered upstand wall, with a high boundary wall behind it. A landscaped garden lies to the rear of the yard.

The front boundary wall has simple cut-stone square pillars with pyramidal stone caps. A gated path leads from the street to the entrance door, with a small garden between the wall and the house. The access drive to the north passes through the coach arch to reach the concreted rear yard, which is enclosed by a high wall with climbing foliage.

The house has a long and well-documented history. It appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833–34 and was known as Loy House, regarded at the time as among the grandest, if not the grandest, property on Cookstown's main street. According to the 1971 Ulster Architectural Heritage Society list of historic buildings in Cookstown, it was built as the dower house for the Stewart family of Killymoon and was designed by John Nash; however, no documentary evidence was produced to support either of those claims. The possibility that it served as a dower house is considered plausible given the scale of the building and the fact that no Stewart dower house has otherwise been identified. Nash's authorship, though not firmly established, is considered a serious possibility: he designed Killymoon Castle in 1803 and the nearby Derryloran Parish Church in 1822 (subsequently rebuilt), and the distinctly Regency character of the bowed bay — which may originally have housed the entrance — suggests the house may at least be broadly contemporary with Killymoon.

Pigot's Directory of 1824 records the occupant as the Reverend Hugh Hamilton, indicating the property was not serving as a dower house at that date. By November 1834, when the first valuation was carried out, a William Achmuty (possibly Auchtermuchty) was in residence. The valuers noted the house as a relatively new building constructed, in their knowledge or judgement, within the preceding thirty years or so. They recorded the main portion of the dwelling as measuring 76 feet by 39 feet by 19½ feet, the circular porch as 10 by 8 by 19½ feet, a return of 13 by 6½ by 16 feet, offices measuring 110 by 20 by 16½ feet, 18 by 17 by 5 feet, 40 by 17 by 10½ feet, 18 by 17 by 6 feet, and 45 by 18½ by 8½ feet, a gatehouse of 21 by 18½ by 8½ feet, and cellar offices of 11 by 39 by 8 feet. The house and field were recorded as being held under lease, with a rateable value of £46 8s 6d. A modification entered around 1838 revised the rateable value down to £30.

Slater's Directory of 1846 records a William Fountain — possibly the person after whom the nearby Fountain Road is named — as the occupant. At some point between 1846 and the second valuation of 1859, the building was divided into the two properties it remains today, most likely in or shortly after 1851 when the Stewart family's Cookstown estate was sold. By 1859 this northern property was recorded as the home of an Adam Fulton, with Andrew Mulholland — the mill-owner of Ballywalter Park, County Down, who had purchased part of the Stewart estate in the 1851 sale — recorded as the lessor, and the rateable value noted as £28. Fulton remained until 1874, when a John M. Weir took over the lease. In 1877 the return to the south end was enlarged, raising the rateable value to £32. Subsequent occupants included William MacMillan (listed in 1883), Sarah Bole (1887), and then the Sisters of Mercy, Cookstown, from 1888. They were succeeded by John McKenzie in 1894, who had previously lived at no. 84 Chapel Street; Jane McKenzie followed in 1906, acquired the freehold at some point between around 1929 and around 1935, and remained until 1960. Gerald Conway purchased the property in 1964 and was still in residence in 1972. The current resident has stated his belief that the property was used as a schoolhouse at some point in the early 20th century; this is considered possible given that John McKenzie, resident between 1894 and 1906, may have been a schoolmaster — a man of the same name is recorded as running a school on Fairhill Road between 1884 and 1909.