25 Molesworth Street, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8NX

25 Molesworth Street is a quite large former terraced house, built in 1873, forming part of a uniform row of mixed three-storey buildings erected in stages between 1850 and 1880 along Molesworth Street in the north-east of Cookstown town centre. The terrace, which runs from nos. 19 to 53, was built over a thirty-year period and in many stages, yet has maintained a remarkable uniformity throughout. The building is an important element of the 19th-century built heritage of Cookstown, reflecting the town's urbanisation and increasing prosperity during the Victorian era, much of which was driven by the arrival of the railway. It is somewhat unusual in being constructed of clay facing brick, which was not a common building material in this location at that time. Its primary architectural interest lies in its exterior proportions, style, and group value with the adjoining terraced buildings.

The building is rectangular in plan and currently contains a café and shop at ground floor level (fitted out around 1990) together with an integral coach arch, and accommodation above. To the rear south elevation there is a stepped two-storey return, and a two-storey modern building abuts this return, creating a courtyard enclosure with the adjacent nos. 21–23.

The north elevation faces the street. At ground-floor level, a shopfront occupies the left-hand side, a doorway sits at the centre, and a square-headed coach arch sits to the right. The ground floor is clad in ceramic tiles, with brick to the upper levels. The shopfront is partially late Victorian and partially modern: it has three ceramic-tiled pilasters surmounted by original console brackets. The shopfront itself is formed in powder-coated aluminium and is set on a ceramic-tiled raised plinth, with an integral glazed door to the left. A modern signboard is placed above the shop window beneath a projecting cornice that matches the brackets, creating a clear visual separation between the ground-floor shopfront and the upper levels. The main panelled and glazed entrance door to the right is also formed in powder-coated aluminium and is surmounted by an overlight. The reveals of the coach arch are finished in painted cement render with a painted timber soffit. Within the coach arch there is evidence of an existing door that has been blocked up with painted brick.

The upper levels are built in Flemish bond brickwork. Windows are flat-headed, each with a central carved keystone lintel bearing decorative floral relief. The window reveals are splayed in brick, and the frames are 1-over-1 timber sliding sash windows with horns, set beneath cut stone lintels. The windows follow classical proportions, reducing in size at each successive upper floor. Rainwater goods are cast iron guttering. The roof is fibre cement slate, with a corbelled brick chimney to the right and a simpler brick chimney to the left.

The rendered rear south elevation has an irregular arrangement of square-headed door and window openings fitted with timber casement windows and doors, with painted concrete sills. A large painted metal fire escape stair and railings, added around 1990, run from ground floor to second floor between nos. 23 and 25.

To the rear there is a two-storey hipped and pitched roofed return, built around 1960, finished in cement render. This return contains an irregular array of square-headed uPVC replacement windows. A staircase with painted wrought-iron railings is located at the step of the return, leading to the former courthouse, now in use as a nightclub. Some windows of the return are covered by wrought-iron grilles, with further painted aluminium roller shutters and integral hood attachments to doors. The return roof is finished in artificial slate and has a single cement-rendered profiled chimney.

The present no. 25 was built in 1873 as an addition to the existing dwelling immediately to the west (present nos. 21 and 23), itself built in 1861 by a William S. Crawford. In 1889, the ground-floor level of this addition was leased as a separate property — a shop with a rateable value of £6-10-0 — firstly to a Joseph Burnett, who appears to have been a butcher, and then in 1893 to a Charles Rankin. In 1894, Joseph C. Crawford took over both the tenancy and the lease of the whole property (by then nos. 21–25), which by that stage also included a pub. In 1907 the lease of the pub was acquired by Edward Allen, and a James McGuckin became the tenant. Crawford retained the lease of the shop, however, which is recorded as occupied by James McCulla in 1905 and Joseph Donnelly in 1907. In 1909, James McGuckin acquired the lease and sublet the living quarters — which appear to have included the upper floors of no. 25 — and the rear garden to a George R. Bear.

Around 1924, a radical reorganisation of the property was carried out, with no. 21 emerging as a single entity and nos. 23–25 subdivided into multiple properties. The valuers recorded these as consisting of a shop and room, two rooms on the first-floor front left, two rooms on the first-floor front right, a room on the first floor to the rear, two rooms on the second-floor left, two rooms on the second-floor right, and a garage at the rear. By 1936, no. 25 was recorded as a separate property from no. 23, containing five properties in total: a shop occupied by a Eugene Pellegrine, and first- and second-floor office rooms rented by several tenants including the Pearl Assurance Company. By 1952, the lease of the whole of no. 25 was held by a Robert Quinn, with the first-floor rooms rented to a Margaret Cormac. This division into five properties remained in place as late as 1972, by which time a hairdresser occupied the first floor.