Loughry House, Loughry Agricultural College, 18 Killycolp Road, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8AD

Loughry House is a former country house built around 1754, now serving as the administrative wing of an agricultural and food technology college. It is a simple, well-proportioned building with restrained classical decoration, roughly square in plan with a double-pitched roof. Although somewhat altered from its original character, the setting provides a pleasing open aspect. The building has a presumed association with Jonathan Swift, though no documentary evidence currently exists to confirm this, and it shares a group value with Swift's House nearby. The complex as a whole represents an interesting progression of architectural styles spanning from around 1750 to the 1960s, though the mixture of surrounding additions somewhat devalues the main house.

The house is two storeys, attached, and built in painted render with quoin stones to the edges. A continuous dentilled stringcourse runs at first-floor sill level. The front east elevation is five bays wide. A single-storey projecting flat-roofed entrance porch sits at the central bay, supported on the outside by two rounded fluted Tuscan columns and on the inside by two fluted rectangular pilasters. These columns carry an entablature with a decorative frieze and a projecting carved cornice. The entrance door has a carved stone shouldered surround, is timber panelled, and has an overlight above it. Ground-floor windows are square-headed with decorative painted carved stone surrounds set on cut-stone sills. Upper-floor windows have similar carved stone surrounds but with a scalloped feature at the top. All windows have 1-over-1 timber sliding sash frames. There is a continuous dentilled stringcourse at ground-floor window sill level.

The south elevation is gable-ended. The 1960s extension abuts the building to the left, obscuring the view of the double gable. The visible right-hand gable has no ground-floor openings, and the upper-floor windows have been blocked up. The chimney is positioned at the centre of the gable at ridge level. The rendered verge carries a decorative scallop pattern. The north elevation is partially obscured by later additions and returns, though the double-pitched roof remains visible at this point. Both gable ends have chimneys and rendered scalloped verges. The roof is pitched and slated with pierced clay ridge tiles. There are four identical brick chimneys, each with a projecting carved cornice. Rainwater goods are cast iron, including hoppers, and there are decorative carved wrought-iron double brackets to the gutters.

To the north of the main house is a long, rectangular, hipped-roof Arts and Crafts style extension built around 1908, now used as a library. Its front elevation is thirteen bays wide. Ground-floor windows are segmental-headed with 6-over-6 timber sliding sash frames set on cut-stone sills; upper-floor windows are square-headed with the same type of frames. The second bay from the left is projecting, and the shallow projecting bays are stone-faced with wall-hung tiles to the central recess. The façade rests on a stone plinth. The ground floor of the seventh bay contains a semi-circular window with a decorative replacement brick surround. At the end bay there is a three-storey rendered tower with regular stonework to the ground floor. The rear elevation of this extension has a single-storey flat-roofed brick addition at ground-floor level, with timber casement windows at ground floor and square-headed 6-over-6 timber sash frames to the first floor, with a projecting parapet to the north end. The roof is hipped and slated, with three chimneys visible to the front. External walls are rendered. A large external concrete escape stair is located to the north.

To the rear west of the main house are several two-storey returns also dating from around 1754, further extended around the 1850s by a two-storey long rectangular wing to the north, which was originally a dormitory but is now vacant. The east elevation of the block adjacent to the main house has an assortment of square-headed and pointed-arched windows. There is a two-storey brick stair core at the inner corner between the main house and this extension. One of the square-headed ground-floor windows to the left has a carved stone lintel, long and rectangular in shape with a half-hexagon form above it, bearing carved reliefs and the date 1680. This lintel is believed to have been relocated from elsewhere. The block further to the north has an assortment of pointed-arched windows, and its end bay features a projecting three-storey tower in a style similar to the Arts and Crafts block. The rear elevation of this range has an irregular and scattered arrangement of returns and extensions, with various square-headed and pointed-arched openings placed in an irregular fashion, and several external staircases descending to the lower ground level. To the south of the main house is a large two-storey flat-roofed extension built around the 1960s, currently in use as a dormitory wing.

To the rear west there are also two-storey painted stone mill outbuildings built around 1857, with a mixture of square-headed, pointed-arched, and round-headed openings. These are listed separately, as is Swift's House.

The house is set within its own grounds, approached via a long driveway from the road that continues through the estate past various college buildings. The house sits on a rise overlooking playing fields. In front of and slightly below the main entrance is a tarmac car park. To the east are extensive playing fields, with the Killymoon River forming the southern boundary.

The origins of the Loughry demesne go back to 1611, when land in the area was granted by King James I to his Chief Harbinger, Robert Lindesay, who is believed to have built a timber residence on the southern side of the Killymoon River, close to the village of Tullahogue, surrounded by a ditch with a high bank of clay and a quickthorn hedge. Robert died around 1629 and his lands passed to his son, also named Robert, who built a new residence on the present site in 1632. This house was destroyed in the 1641 rebellion and the site was abandoned until 1671, when a new dwelling was begun. This second house was finished in 1674, shortly after Robert's death, and survived until around 1750 when it was destroyed by fire, believed to have been accidental. Although no documentary evidence survives to confirm it, the relatively steeply-pitched roof and simple symmetrical lines of the present building suggest that it is the one built around 1754 to replace the 17th-century residence. The house appears on Taylor's and Skinner's road map of 1777, marked as Loughry — Lindsay Esq. The first detailed cartographic record is the Ordnance Survey map of 1833–34, which shows the main two-storey, five-bay gabled block to the south together with rear returns and the long wing to the north. This arrangement is largely repeated on the revised map of 1857, but with more extensive rear returns.

The first valuation book of around 1835 for this part of Derryloran parish, which would almost certainly have recorded the building's dimensions and an estimation of its age, is currently missing. The house notes for the second valuation of 1858 appear never to have been deposited at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. There is no description of the house in the 1830s Ordnance Survey Memoirs, only a passing mention, nor does any other available contemporary account appear to survive.

The valuation records do confirm that Frederick Lindesay added a saw mill, steward's house, offices, and lodge to the demesne in 1863, with the saw mill and offices almost certainly corresponding to the large structure immediately to the west of the house. The house itself was subsequently improved by his son, Frederick "Fritz" Lindesay, upon his coming into the estate in 1871–72, raising the rateable value from £50 to £65. These improvements probably included the addition of the section at the north end of the north wing, believed to have originally contained a banqueting hall and musicians' gallery, as well as the entrance porch — not shown on the earlier maps — and the decorative mouldings around the window openings. Fritz Lindesay led an extravagant lifestyle and by the time of his death in 1877 had accumulated debts said to have exceeded £42,000. His younger brother and successor, Joshua Lindesay, attempted to address this by living frugally, and appears to have vacated Loughry during the 1880s, living instead in the much more modest Rock Lodge to the south of the estate. Joshua died in 1893 with the family's financial problems unresolved, and shortly afterwards the house and estate were sold to Cookstown businessman John Wilson Fleming. According to Lindesay family historian Ernest Godfrey, either before or just after the sale a fire destroyed the top storey of the mansion. The extent of the damage and the degree of rebuilding that followed are uncertain. The valuation records for these years note only the addition of some new outbuildings in 1902. The Ordnance Survey map of around 1905 shows the house much as it appeared in 1857, but with the short section at a right angle to the north end of the long north wing and, to the rear, the large L-shaped mill and outbuildings.

In 1908, John Wilson Fleming sold the house and its demesne to the Irish Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, who opened the Ulster Dairy School on the site in January of that year. Shortly afterwards the school built the new front wing and converted the interior of the original building extensively: the library became an office, the dining room a sewing room, the small drawing room a superintendent's room, the large drawing room a school room, the blue bedroom a staff sitting room, another bedroom a small dormitory, the yellow room a superintendent's room, Bachelor's Walk — believed to be the long north wing — a teachers' wing, and the banqueting hall and musicians' gallery another dormitory. Following Partition, the school was handed over to the Northern Ireland Ministry of Agriculture in 1922. In 1949 it became Loughry Agricultural College. Originally catering solely for female students, with the aim of training farmers' wives and enabling students to work in farming, poultry, and dairy industries, the college admitted male students for the first time in 1962. By the 1970s the main emphasis had shifted from dairying to food courses. This expansion in student numbers and scope led to the construction of new buildings on the site from the 1960s onwards, most notably the large modern complex added to the south end of the original house.