Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, 33 Urbal Road, Coagh, Cookstown, Co Tyrone

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, Coagh

This inter-war memorial hall, built in 1920–21, was a two-storey rendered building with a neo-Georgian classical style frontispiece. Designed by architect James Sherrif Kennedy and built by Lennox & Charters of Knockloughrim, County Antrim, it was constructed of Roosky granite and formally opened in 1922 by Lady Craig, wife of Sir James Craig. The building was erected in proud and grateful memory of those from the district who died in the First World War (1914–1919) and was built to seat 400 people.

The main south-east elevation facing the road displayed the most architectural ambition, though the handling of the classical style was comparatively clumsy and unsophisticated. The front was symmetrically divided into three bays by rusticated strips of two-storey height at the extremities and a pair of Ionic pilasters to the first floor, which rose from the ends of a slightly projecting surround to the main entrance on the ground floor. Above the quoins and pilasters were short dentil cornices surmounted by four projecting blocks. A cornice to the parapet broke up in the centre bay to form an open pediment with a dentil cornice. The blocks over the pilasters were ornamented with an unusual stylised leaf design. The central field of the pediment contained a raised datestone and letters proclaiming "Coagh Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall AD 1920".

The walling was of smooth cement render with projecting plinth, stringcourses, and cornices. The main entrance contained a rectangular timber sheeted door set in a segmental arched recess, with an original wrought iron expanding lattice-work grill gate across its face. Above on the first floor was a central segmental arched recess with a moulded surround and keystone, containing a pair of narrow sidelights in stop-chamfered reveals with what appeared to be fixed lights of two panes each. The outer bays each contained windows to both storeys: rectangular timber windows divided into two fixed lights with plain glass and two top-hung vents filled with decorative leaded lights. The ground floor windows were partly boarded over.

The south-west elevation was of plain appearance in smooth cement render, lined and blocked, except for the end bay containing the frontispiece which had two strips of rusticated quoins. It contained three three-light windows in the main hall block and one two-light window in a smaller rear block. Windows were of rectangular timber divided by mullions and transoms, containing plain glass with leaded lights to the top vents of the main hall. The north-west elevation was of similar character but with roughcast textured walling. It included windows of the same type as the south-west elevation, along with vertically hung sliding sash windows, one over one, with horns. Two smaller blocks projected from the rear wall, one with a parapet roof and the other with a corrugated iron lean-to roof. The north-east elevation was similar in character and materials to the south-west, including an opening (now boarded over) into the main hall and one into the rear block.

Roofs were of hipped form but had lost their covering. A circular metal ventilator or foul-air extractor was mounted on the ridge, and one chimney of smooth cement render stood between the main hall and rear block. The building displayed a few sizeable cracks in the walls. Guttering and rainwater goods were of uPVC and cast iron.

The grounds were enclosed by cement rendered walls to the sides and rear, with a set of four original piers and wrought iron gates and railings across the front. The front part of the plot was laid with a hard surface, now overgrown with grass, while the rear part was an overgrown garden with some trees.

Originally, the local Masonic Lodge occupied a hall on the first floor in the rear. The building first appeared in the valuation book in 1924 as a memorial hall, run by the Trustees for the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, valued at £7 (the Masonic Lodge valued separately at £3).

The hall appears to have been one of only two First World War memorial halls within Northern Ireland, the other having been erected at Ballinderry, County Antrim. By the time of its documentation, the building had fallen into a state of advanced dereliction, suggesting its social value had diminished greatly since it first functioned as an active community space. The building was demolished in March 2008.