23 William Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8AX

23 William Street is a three-storey terraced house and shop built around 1840, situated on the west side of William Street within the commercial district of Cookstown, County Tyrone. It forms part of a ten-bay matching terrace arranged in a 3/2/3/2 bay pattern alongside the adjacent properties (Nos. 25, 27, and 29 William Street), and contributes to the Victorian character of the street. Although a well-composed early Victorian building in the Regency style, a significant number of alterations and window replacements mean it does not meet the threshold for statutory listing as a building of special architectural or historic interest.

The plan is roughly rectangular, with a three-storey return to the rear and a further single-storey flat-roofed extension projecting beyond to the rear west. The external walls are rendered with raised plaster features. The roof is pitched and slated, with a rendered chimney finished with a profiled stepped capping. Rainwater goods are replacement aluminium.

The front east elevation faces directly onto the street. At ground floor level, a replacement uPVC shopfront occupies the right (south) portion, comprising a central square-headed double doorway flanked by two large single-light shop windows, surmounted by a painted signboard with raised lettering. To the left (north) is an integral coach arch with a square head and a simple painted timber signboard above it. At first floor level there are 1-over-1 timber sliding sash windows. All windows are set on painted cut-stone sills, with classical proportions that reduce in scale at the upper levels. The windows are recessed into Regency-style elliptical-headed vertical bays, and there is projecting carved stone cornicing at the springer level of each elliptical-headed arch. These decorative arched openings enliven the character of the façade and reinforce the surrounding Victorian character of the locale.

The three-storey rear return is finished in unpainted render. The side south elevation and the rear west elevation of the return have an assortment of square-headed timber casement windows, all fitted with protective metal grilles and cut-stone sills. The single-storey extension has a dry dash render finish and a flat roof. The rear yard was inaccessible at the time of survey, and openings to the rear were hidden from view. Access to the rear of the building is via the integral coach arch, which leads to a rear yard enclosed by a wrought-iron gate.

The wider setting on William Street consists largely of two- and three-storey Victorian buildings.

The site is shown as already developed on the Ordnance Survey map of 1833–34. The 1835 valuation records the entire plot as an old, large, mainly thatched inn in the possession of a Hugh Espey. The inn comprised a main building measuring 45 feet by 22 feet by 14½ feet with a return of 19½ by 16½ by 15 feet, a ballroom of 56 by 26 by 14 feet, and a series of outbuildings measuring 64 by 16½ by 13 feet, 13 by 19 by 9 feet, 40½ by 18½ by 9 feet, 26½ by 15½ by 12 feet, 15½ by 35 by 11 feet, and 18 by 5½ by 10 feet. The property was rated at £19 7s 4d. By 1838 it had passed to a Mrs Espey and was rated at £34. Sometime between 1838 and 1859 the old building was demolished and the present terrace erected. The Regency-style character of the building, with its large recessed arches, suggests a date closer to 1838, perhaps around 1840.

By the 1859 valuation, the property now known as No. 23 was occupied by a John Hunter, who is listed as a linen and woollen draper and haberdasher in Slater's Directory of 1856, with Thomas Black as the immediate lessor and the building rated at £32. In 1863, Hugh and James MacMillan took over the lease of this and the two similarly styled neighbouring properties to the south. The building was subsequently let to Bernard Mallon, another linen and woollen draper, followed by James Watson in 1873, Richard Charles in 1883, Joseph Early in 1889, and John Baxter in 1892. The following year the lease passed to Hetty H. Shaw and then to a Mrs Staunton two years after that. By 1897 John Newell, a butcher, had become tenant, followed by William Newell, who continued the butchery trade, in 1911, and John C. Shaw in 1938. Mr Shaw acquired the lease in 1951 and appears to have merged the property with the neighbouring No. 21. By the early 1960s No. 23 had a separate existence once again, operating as a post office, with some of its former outbuildings to the rear forming part of No. 21. This arrangement appears to have remained in place until at least 1972.